Summary
TheDragon Ballfranchise is incredibly iconic for many reasons. These reasons include its awesome action, legendary characters, themes, and overall impact on the anime industry. However, one aspect of this franchise that has stood the test of time and has even helped the longevity of the series is the incredible memes that have arisen from it.
From ‘It’s Over 9000’ to the recently popular, and hilarious, ‘Piccolo the Babysitter’, the humor born from this beloved property is one of the most important factors in the overall reach of the story. However, perhaps the greatest meme inDragon Ballisthe constant belittling of Yamcha, whose entire existence only seems to provide laughs over anything else. Despite this, many fans believe that the character finally deserves some justice, so let’s see why this is.
Story Arc
Emperor Pilaf Saga
Yamcha’s origins in theDragon Ballstory go back much farther than most characters who are mainstays of the franchise today. Introduced as a desert bandit,Yamcha was actually a formidable fighterinitially and even managed to match Goku for some parts of their early years. However, he was pushed off to the wayside toward the end of the originalDragon Ballseries in terms of importance.
Though he was part of the main cast inDragon BallZand had a prominent role to play in the story, he was never one of the top fighters in the Z-Fighters, since his strength wasn’t really increased substantially past the Saiyan Saga. It was in this saga that fans got to see the greatest meme in the history of anime, which is a still frame of Yamcha’s body after he suffered a defeat at the hands of one of the Saibamen. This frame is so iconic that it has made its way into pop culture and has been reworked multiple times in other anime and manga as well.
However, for all the fun that is made at this character’s expense, some fans believe that it’s about time that he gets a proper power-up that will make himmore important for the Z-Fighters. Despite being laughably weak compared to his allies and just about any villain worth their salt in the series, Yamcha is still one of the strongest humans on the planet, so by having him keep up with his training and power level, he could at least be brought to the level of Krillin or Tien, though even this is likely pushing it.
At the current moment, Yamcha is one of the world’s greatest baseball players, which was hilariously highlighted in the short arc where the Z-Fighters all played a friendly game. Here, Yamcha proved to be in his element and was far better than everyone else, until, of course, he got hurt and sunk back into the iconic Yamcha pose. Despite this, he is still a talented Martial Artist who has proven to be a vital ally often in the past.
I’m not gonna let pride or anything else get in my way this time!
Yamcha’s overall importance to the story isn’t even close to what it used to be inDragon Ball, but that is mostly because the writers have kept him like this. Not only him, but the human characters in the franchise all desperately need a power-up, since the story has largely shifted away from the concept of the Z-Fighters at all so that it could focus primarily onthe Saiyans and Piccolo. Of course, this isn’t at all a bad thing and makes sense too, but the franchise is rich with characters whom fans have come to love, so to see them relevant again would be amazing.
Although Yamcha is the punching bag of the franchise and fans love him precisely for this fact, many still believe that he deserves somewhat of a comeback and a boost in his overall strength. Although he was hilariously exempt from the Tournament of Power in favor of the genocidal Frieza, he is an old and beloved character whom fans have wanted to see gain relevance again for quite some time now.
How This Power-Up Could Happen For Yamcha
How Could He Gain More Strength?
The way that Yamcha can get stronger is by going down the route of just about every other character, which is just training hard. No one is under any delusion that he will ever reach the levels that the Saiyans are at now, but, at the very least, Yamcha can be made strong enough to deal with the minions or fodder enemies of the big bads of the series,such as the Frieza Force.
It’s unlikely that this will even happen, but fans are excited to see where the character’s journey goes next. The likelihood is that most fans don’t even really care much about Yamcha enough to see him made more important, but a potential power-up for him isn’t something people are opposed to by any means. At this point, each of the human Z-Fighters deserves to be made much stronger.
