Yamcha (PL 5, 76 PP)
Abilities (32 PP)
STR 4 STA 3 AGL 3 DEX 2 FGT 2
INT 0 AWA -1 PRE 3
Skills (14 PP)
Athletics 2 (+6)
Close Combat [Unarmed] 4 (+6)
Deception 4 (+7)
Intimidation 4 (+7)
Persuasion 4 (+7)
Sleight of Hand 6 (+8)
Stealth 4 (+7)
Advantages (19 PP)
Benefit (Cipher)
Cool (Deception)
Defensive Roll 2
Equipment 1 [Sword, +3 Strength damage and
Evasion
Great Endurance
Sidekick 10 (Puar)
Tracking
Well-Informed
Powers (3 PP)
Wolf Fang Fist (Multiattack on Strength, Unarmed Only, cannot trade-off damage upward) [3]
Offense
Unarmed +6 (DC 19 Damage)
Throw +2 (DC 19 Damage)
Sword +2 (DC 22 Damage, Crit 19)
Wolf Fang Fist +6 (DC 19 Multiattack Damage)
Defense (8 PP)
Dodge 5, Parry 4, Fortitude 3, Toughness 5/3, Will 3
Complications
Desert Bandit: Yamcha steals everything he needs. He may have problems with the law, and bad habits are hard to break.
Fear of Women: Yamcha is terrified of any woman even moderately attractive.
Oh god, I wasted like three hours on this. (Also how is Multiattack only 1 PP/rank)
"Look at you. You were once so great. I can't believe Goku's former rival has become nothing more than a simp." -Admiral Zhao (paraphrased)
Yamcha's great in this arc. The Diablo Desert Bandit looks cool, he talks tough, he gives Goku his first real fight, and when things get rough he has a freaking rocket launcher! But he's also hilarious, because he can't even look at a girl without running away. Like, that actually stops him finishing Goku off. I know the original four are parodies of Journey to the West characters, but I've never read it. From where I'm sitting, he's a great riff on all those old bad boy action heroes (though I guess they were just action heroes back then). Even his Japanese voice actor, Toru Furuya mostly did serious heroes for twenty years before, including Ray from Gundam, Saint Seiya, and, slightly later, Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon.
Puar's his sidekick, and a girl (not sure how that works but okay). He can shapeshift like Oolong, but here's the kicker. I assumed they were born shapeshifters or something and didn't think about it, but apparently they learned together at Shapeshifting Kindergarten. SHAPESHIFTING. KINDERGARTEN. Best gag of the entire arc, fight me, and the cherry on top is Oolong's a KINDERGARTEN DROPOUT. Puar can transform as long as she wants, because she did the whole class. Sadly, she's a background character after this, though she sticks around a little longer than Oolong. She just doesn't have much of a personality besides being Yamcha's cheering squad, though can you really blame her? Dude needs more love.
Yamcha agrees. He just wanted to rob Goku and co at first, but when he learns about the Dragon Balls he wants to steal them to be confident with women. The big Yamcha scene I didn't mention is how he comes back for a car chase the day after he tries to steal the Dragon Balls, with a machine gun and a ROCKET LAUNCHER. I know I'm using all caps a lot, but this stuff is nuts. When he realizes he can't beat Goku (he doesn't even try to shoot him though), he instantly changes plans and gives them his car so they can collect the balls faster. He also meets Chi-Chi when he follows them to Fire Mountain and has to knock her out.
And now, we get to the sad part. You're about to see the raw, extended cut of the worst fictional character assassination I've ever seen, and all by his own creators.
It started with him becoming a joke. I mean, he was already a joke, no one was as cool as they thought they were in the first arc, but after reading what he did back then, doesn't it sound like he'd do cool stuff sometimes? Well, instead he started jobbing an 80-hour work week, culminating in his infamous loss to a Saibaman in his first fight of Z. It wasn't his usual curbstomp either, he actually had it beat for the first time in years. Then he took his eyes off it, it grabbed him and self-destructed, and we got the Yamcha Dies meme, which ironically will probably never die. I wouldn't be surprised if that picture's the only thing some of you know about him. It's just over for the poor guy after that, and he may as well never throw another punch in the series, including GT and Super, because when he does the enemies don't even feel it. I'm not exaggerating.
That would be bad enough, but no, we have the cheating thing. See, at the start of Z, Bulma's mad about something unknown Yamcha did. They change topics the panel after she says it, and the only response is Roshi's "you two sure do fight a lot". Sure, they're a little old for high school drama, but that's all this is and the other characters know it. Roshi and Krillin know they'll make up in a couple weeks. I mean, they've been together eleven years by then. How many relationships last eleven years?
But something strange happened. Toriyama decided he wanted Bulma with Vegeta of all people for the Cell Arc (about two years later IRL) so Vegeta had a reason to stay on Earth and Trunks could exist. But Bulma's with Yamcha, so how can this happen? Why, by making it so that random fight from ages ago was him cheating, of course!
Suddenly, all Dragon Ball media says Yamcha's a womanizer and always has been. Yamcha, the guy who couldn't look at a girl before he met Bulma. And I mean all media. Dragon Ball Z Kakarot, a video game from 2019, has a sidequest where you have to save him from his two girlfriends who found out about each other. Even Funimation gets in on it, pointing out a filler dartboard with his face on it and asking if each number is one of his affairs! So we've gone from "Bulma's a drama queen" to "Yamcha cheated" to "Yamcha cheated twenty times"! Dragon Ball Abridged actually calls this out in episode 1: they still have Yamcha cheat on her, but Krillin says "Wow, that is so out-of-charact-so you're single then?". Of course, this is the ONE Abridged line people don't spam everywhere.
Meanwhile, Bulma doesn't stop her fanservicey ways for a couple arcs after she starts dating Yamcha, and there are a couple times in her twenties where she wishes she'd gone for Goku. Goku! The guy she met when he was twelve! But Yamcha's the unfaithful one.
If you think I'm crazy, I'm not the only one. Here's part of an official interview with the cast (Goku, Piccolo, Krillin and Tenshinhan's actors were there too).
Tsuru (Bulma) : One day, all of a sudden, she married Vegeta and gave birth to Trunks… “Huh? What just happened here?” is how it felt. (laughs)
Horikawa (Vegeta) : There wasn’t even any sort of foreshadowing.
Furuya (Yamcha) : At that time, I just wanted to leave the studio and go home. (laughs)
Tsuru (Bulma) : However, after that, I tried to bring myself to love Vegeta, but… it was a struggle. (laughs)
In case you didn't catch that, that is all three characters' voice actors, who'd been playing their roles for years by then, agreeing it was BS in an interview for an official product.
Furuya flat-out said in interviews he was disappointed with how he developed, and when one asked "was it said when Yamcha lost Bulma to Vegeta?" he said "of course, I HATE Vegeta". Yes, the interviewer put it in all caps. Sure, he was playing it up for laughs, but as you saw before, he makes that joke every time someone brings it up. Might be some truth to it.
Look, I agree Vegeta and Bulma are the only decent couple in Dragon Ball, and they have great chemistry (Gohan and Videl can be written that way, but canon kinda dropped them), but Toriyama had to retcon a six-year (in real life) relationship and take the best part of Yamcha's life away from him after he'd already lost so much of his role in the series. I mean, Bulma chose her boyfriend's killer over him! Sure, it's just sex until the Buu Arc, but she's still clearly not with Yamcha anymore. And even if you think it's a necessary sacrifice for Vegebul (yes, that's the ship name), they didn't need to make him cheat more than once, let alone constantly.
The Tournament of Power, the final arc of Super, couldn't sum this up better. When Goku wants a third human for Universe 7's ten-person team, he picks... Roshi. Roshi, who hasn't fought anyone but random Freeza soldiers since before Z, and even fighting them was a big twist, like "hey, he's training again". It's not over for him, though, because Majin Buu falls asleep for the second tournament in a row, so Yamcha fills his slot, but still. Roshi.
Except I lied. Freeza filled that slot. Goku could've picked anyone and he personally chose Freeza. There's no audience outside the fighters and the gods, IIRC, so I'm not even sure he gets to watch.
#YamchaDidNothingWrong, now go listen to Wolf Hurricane.