Yamcha is perhaps the most disappointing character in the entire Dragon Ball universe due mostly to his undeniably pathetic death which came after he was set up to be a fighter as badass as Goku himself–though Yamcha’s humiliation doesn’t end there as his final words make his shameful demise even more hilarious.
Yamcha made his first appearance in Dragon Ball chapter 7 by Akira Toriyama, and right from the start, Yamcha gave off the impression that he was someone who was not to be messed with. Yamcha was a desert bandit who robbed passers-by with nothing but a massive sword and his superior fighting ability. While initially a villain, Yamcha eventually became a trusted member of the earliest incarnation of the Z Fighters who fought valiantly in a number of World Martial Arts Tournaments and even defeated Goku when the Saiyan was in his Great Ape form. Everything about Yamcha in his early Dragon Ball history made it seem like he’d be a real contender as one of the world’s strongest, but he completely fails to live up to his own hype in the most pathetic way possible.
In Dragon Ball chapter 215 by Akira Toriyama, the Z Fighters are facing off against Nappa and Vegeta, though it was no secret that they were no match for the Saiyans. So, the villains decided to let their goblin-like minions known as Saibamen do the initial fighting for them. While the Saibamen were strong, Tien defeated the first of them with fairly little effort, and so Yamcha decided to jump into the ring next. At first, Yamcha does a pretty good job in combating the Saiyan-controlled monster, though at the critical moment of the fight, he lets his guard down just to say, “These monsters aren’t as fearsome as they look. I’ll clean up the other four by myself” and then, right after he said that, he decidedly doesn’t. Yamcha allows the Saibaman to latch itself to him–at which point the Saibaman detonates, killing Yamcha in an instant.
Yamcha was so overconfident that he could defeat all the Saibamen at once despite the fact that the one he was fighting wasn’t down and out that the fact he was killed by one is almost karmic. Not only was the irony in Yamcha’s death painfully apparent, but the situation is made even more pathetic given what happens immediately after. Krillin steps up and does what Yamcha said he was going to do by killing the rest of the Saibamen in a single blast. If the likes of Tien and Krillin can make quick work of these creatures, that makes Yamcha’s loss totally inexcusable. In the early days of Dragon Ball, Yamcha was essentially fighting at the same level as the other Earthling Z Fighters, and leading up to the Saiyan’s invasion, he was trained by Kami himself who is literally Earth’s God. So, by all counts, Yamcha should have survived much longer than he did which makes the fact that he was killed this way so infuriating.
Yamcha’s death led to the infamous image of the Z Fighter crumpled up lifeless in a crater, sparking decades worth of ridicule aimed at the character. Just when Dragon Ball fans thought Yamcha couldn’t get worse, it comes to light that the last thing he ever said were empty words of overconfidence that he couldn’t back up in the slightest–meaning that Yamcha’s final Dragon Ball words just reinforced his pathetic end.
