The spin-off reimagines what it would be like if Yamcha was one of the most powerful Z Fighters.
2016 has been a BIG year for Dragon Ball fans. To the popular XenoVerse 2 video game title, to the overwhelmingly succesful Dragon Ball Super series, which is getting an English dub in January 2017, to brand new manga chapters, and the conclusion of DBZ Kai with the Buu saga (finally). However, even now that it is December, we still get more… Yamcha.
The title of this new spinoff (which should be considered an alternate universe) series is Dragon Ball Gaiden: Tensei-shitara Yamcha Datta Ken (“Dragon Ball Side Story: The Case of Being Reincarnated as Yamcha”), and is both illustrated and written by Dragon Garow Lee. As if the title did not give enough away, you might be guessing on just who would want to be reincarnated as Yamcha.
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Seriously, the guy sucks.
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Okay, but before we get to that, hear us out on this. Yamcha is easily the most love-to-hate character in all of Dragon Ball, despite him being one of the most powerful beings on earth. Truth be told, Yamcha gets a hard time because he is simply the weakest of the strongest. In any case, Yamcha is about to be redeemed in a new manga spin-off that is currently running through its publication in Shueisha’s Shōnen Jump Plus digital manga magazine.
The story reimagines Yamcha as one of the most powerful characters within Dragon Ball (as opposed to what we have now, where Yamcha dies or is severely injured in every major saga to date). However, the way in which Yamcha gets this way might surprise you.
So how did Yamcha get to be so powerful? Well, the story actually involves a young boy in the real world (our world) who dies and is reincarnated as Yamcha within the Dragon Ball universe. The boy, using his knowledge of Dragon Ball, decides to alter his destiny and locate Goku right away so that he can train with him to keep up, and presumably not get beaten to a pulp or killed all the time. This sees Yamcha’s survival in the Saiyan saga, whereas Yamcha himself defeats all of the Saibamen.
This is truly a major deviation away from the roots of Dragon Ball and makes for one heck of interesting take on the story (which we love). That being said, we can not wait to see what comes next in the series; hopefully it’s in English.
The first chapter in the manga series can be read in Japanese here. For an English version, we may be waiting a while.
