Yamcha has become one of the biggest running jokes in the entire Dragon Ball franchise, but most fans miss that he is actually playing an incredibly important role in the series. While he started as a valiant warrior, Yamcha is generally regarded as having the biggest fall from grace of any Dragon Ball character: he was constantly overshadowed by Goku, unceremoniously blown up by a minor minion in Dragon Ball Z, and his girlfriend ended up marrying Vegeta. However, all this suffering and humiliation has been for a greater purpose.
While it’s true that Yamcha has a history of being overshadowed by other characters, the same can be said of almost the entire cast of the original Dragon Ball. Notably, Yamcha is not depicted without the occasional moment to shine. More importantly, from the beginning of the Dragon Ball franchise, Yamcha has always been written to serve a very specific, very important narrative role. Unfortunately, that role is very easy to misunderstand. Yamcha’s purpose in the story is to make the new villains look as threatening as possible, while at the same time making the true protagonists – Goku and the other Saiyans – appear even stronger than they already are.
Yamcha‘s Job In Dragon Ball Is To Make Other Characters Look Good
The key to understanding Yamcha’s important role in the narrative of the Dragon Ball franchise is the fact that he has historically been depicted as exactly as strong as he needs to be. Having a dangerous new villain handily defeat established characters is a well-documented trope. Vegeta and Nappa are, of course, one of the franchise’s best examples of this, running through not only Yamcha, but the entire group of fighters returning from the original Dragon Ball. Even at his most infamous low point, Yamcha is filling a crucial narrative role in exactly the way he needs to.
In creative writing, a character like this is called a foil. At the most basic, a foil is one character who makes another, usually the main character, look good by contrast, highlighting that character’s strengths and personality. Yamcha is one of manga’s and anime’s best examples of a foil and has been since his earliest appearances in the original Dragon Ball. While Yamcha was initially presented as a dangerous bandit skilled in martial arts, one of the premises driving the plot of the original series was Goku’s pursuit of new techniques and new training to become stronger and stronger. Although Yamcha was strong, the bad guys needed to be stronger, so Goku could defeat them to prove he was the strongest. This trend continued in Dragon Ball Z, where Yamcha was taken out early during the Saiyan invasion and also during the android crisis.
Yamcha losing so many fights isn’t bad writing, it’s his character archetype working exactly as intended. Yamcha’s narrative purpose was never to be the greatest fighter, it was to make the villains look like genuine threats to the heroes, while also highlighting the strengths of the other characters. Although he is (and not without reason) remembered as one of the weakest characters in Dragon Ball, reducing Yamcha to a loser who gets constantly defeated neglects his crucial narrative purposes. As a character intended primarily to highlight the strengths of the protagonists and make them look good by contrast, Yamcha plays one of the most important narrative roles in the entire Dragon Ball franchise, and fans should appreciate him more for that.
