Should TFS be blamed for the treatment of Yamcha?

[dario03]

Its like we're the only people that have seen Spaceballs. Or at least know that it came out years later and had nothing to do with Ewoks. Need some more Scifi Anime crossover or something

Spaceballs was a parody of Star Wars. The lead character took the role of both Luke and Han and rolled them into one character that acted like neither of them. Chewbacca was replaced by a humanoid talking dog, C3PO is now Rule 63 and is the guardian of Leia's replacement.

Lightsabers are now formed from rings.

Darth Vader's replacement has a hella huge helmet and has a thing for coffee.

The Death Star's replacement has two way communication screens in the toilet stalls.

Upon being told to comb the desert, the troopers use a giant comb to literally comb the desert.

I've seen spaceballs. I mostly used your comment as a catalyst for my argument against this topic's main point.

Yeah that's why I didn't quote you in the earlier one, should of removed it in the quote of a quote.

[precita]

The ironic thing is Toei always made Yamcha look good in DBZ through filler. They showed him training on Kami's lookout and in the episode they go back in the past to fight evil Saiyans, Krillin is the first to "die" and Yamcha and Tien make it towards the end. Yamcha also got tons of training montages where he always looked more competent than Krillin half the time.

Then there's of course Yamcha beating Recoome and Olibu in Otherworld, Yamcha helping to defeat Cell, and a few other various training scenes in episodes where he sparred with Krillin...like that scene he uses his feet to kick Krillin in the face and leaves those imprints on him. You could even say Yamcha trying to train in Vegeta's spaceship under 300 times Earth's gravity and surviving long enough to turn it off accounts to that too. It also helped in Dragonball we saw Yamcha win a few prelim matches on-screen too before the tournaments started.

Also look at how Yamcha was the "designated leader" of the group on King Kai's planet during the Freeza saga. He was always the one in front while Tenshihnan/Chaiotzu stood in the back, Yamcha was the one who contacted Bulma about the wishes at the end, etc.

[VegettoEX]

< snip >

All great points. Thanks for posting.

I guess I'd take issue with "never like this", even from a Toriyama perspective. In some ways, I see Yamcha's role in the Cell arc as the dark, gritty, Dark Knight version of the "haha that's our Yamcha!" from earlier in the series: he's the one to get impaled, and he's the one stuck as medicine and flight-back babysitter. It's all very grounded and all very sincere, just as you accurately describe... but I do feel like it's an extension of "the Yamcha dismissal".

His role around the 25th Budokai feels similar to me, as well. I don't remember any dialog off the top of my head, and I've certainly never watched that part dubbed (so it's not like that's influencing me), but his role there always felt very admittedly-lower-tier. Relegated to "part of the side group". Again, it's that extension of the dismissal.

And it's THOSE moments that contributed to the zeitgeist of Yamcha's character, all pre-TFS.

(Love the point about Toei insincerity. Yamcha got one of his own, albeit just a tiny one, when he gets knocked off the pole in DBZ Movie 9.)

[Cipher]

I guess I'd take issue with "never like this", even from a Toriyama perspective. In some ways, I see Yamcha's role in the Cell arc as the dark, gritty, Dark Knight version of the "haha that's our Yamcha!" from earlier in the series: he's the one to get impaled, and he's the one stuck as medicine and flight-back babysitter. It's all very grounded and all very sincere, just as you accurately describe... but I do feel like it's an extension of "the Yamcha dismissal".

His role around the 25th Budokai feels similar to me, as well. I don't remember any dialog off the top of my head, and I've certainly never watched that part dubbed (so it's not like that's influencing me), but his role there always felt very admittedly-lower-tier. Relegated to "part of the side group". Again, it's that extension of the dismissal.

While I can almost get on board with the potential dark humor of his role in the Cell arc, his place in the Boo arc feels quite removed from any humor at his expense. It does exactly what you said, which is to relegate him to merely being "part of the group." Within that group, he's treated with as much sincerity and respect as any other character. He isn't much of a hero, and isn't much spotlighted, but there's a big difference between moving into the background and presenting him as a joke even among his friends.

That extends into his sole major cameo in GT, showing up in the final episode to be treated with a certain sense of melancholy.

Yamcha has a light-hearted personality compared to most of the serious fighters in the series, and, like many Toriyama characters, he's saddled with some memorable quirks early on. I don't think it's off-base to read him as having less gravity than a lot of the cast, but I do think it's a little revisionist to pretend he was ever less than one of the crew.

There is certainly a zeitgeist of viewing Yamcha as a comedy-only, jokes-at-his-expense character, but I think it comes -- while definitely not entirely, or even substantially, from TFS -- from a place mostly outside the series itself, which is why I bristle at it so much. (I have no strong love for Yamcha in particular.) Toriyama doesn't really do humor at characters' expenses unless they've brought it upon themselves, and even then, most of the characters who fall into that role receive completely sincere moments at other points.

So when I say "never like this," I'm talking about things like Bulma questioning whether he can ever be useful during the baseball episode, #18 going out of her way to say that he's truly no longer a martial artist, and his string of failures and faux-pas which makes him a near-cosmic joke (ex. being unable to hold Bra without making her cry). His friends, and hell, the series itself, suddenly view him completely differently than they did before, and none of that jives with the original approach or Toriyama's modus operandi. Toriyama's humor stems from the fact that, on the whole, all these weirdos are treated sincerely and consistently.

(I might point out that any one of the Yamcha jokes, baseball-episode-dialogue aside, might play fine in isolation, but they become a little suspect as a trend. So it goes for a lot of Super's character writing, on that note.)

I guess I might also point out that I don't think "active character" and "complete joke even in-universe" is a reasonable binary. "Dismissal" is fine and can still feel sincere in a way that relegating a character to joke status does not.

[Gaffer Tape]

I wasn't even going to check out this thread when I saw the title because I thought I'd seen it all before, and I knew exactly what everyone was going to say. But then I saw that Cipher had posted something, and I had to check it out. I had a feeling it would be along the lines of what he said about Super's baseball episode, and I wasn't disappointed. I think he hit the nail on the head. Super is portraying the characters with a much greater self-awareness of memes than has ever been done before, and it's certainly jarring to those of us who have kept the memes and the text separate.

For example, it really bugs me when people say, "But Yamucha's ALWAYS been a joke. That's what his character was from day one. Look at the first arc. He's terrified of women, loses a tooth in a comedic fashion, etc." And while those examples aren't untrue, they're being taken out of context in order to support a conclusion that has already been made, rather than using facts to reach a conclusion. Because, yes, Yamucha is a joke in the first arc... exactly the same as every other character. Goku is such a bumpkin he pats people's crotches to find out their sex. Blooma's vanity and egotism get her in oodles of trouble. Oolong and Kame'sennin's perversions yield them comeuppances. When Kuririn is introduced, he's a buffoon who talks a good game but frequently ends up the butt of embarrassing mishaps, like performing an impressive flip only to land on his head or bragging about his intense martial arts training only to misjudge a jump and set off a pirate trap. So using Yamucha as an example there is very disingenuous.

And as Cipher said, in the other examples people bring up, they're treated with complete sincerity by the other characters. When Yamucha loses, it's treated as a shock, and all the characters talk about how awesome he is. I will say Toriyama did show signs of becoming aware of how he was treating Yamucha during the original run, though. At the end of the Cell Arc, he has Yamucha act cocky towards #18 only for Tenshinhan to comment in the background that he's not the one who should be doing that.

On one hand, part of me somewhat enjoys Super's take because at least it ensures they're doing something with him. I'd almost rather him be comic relief than do nothing. His character's roots were in comedy, after all, he has great comedic potential, and Furuya can definitely deliver the goods. But it does feel rather disingenuous the way they're doing it. First off, it doesn't feel organic for the characters to (outside of that one completely isolated incident I mention above) suddenly believe Yamucha is useless. It just feels like the memes were downloaded into their brains one day. Second, putting in stuff like Bra not liking him... well, it has nothing to do with whether or not Yamucha is the best fighter. The whole thing just starts to come off as rather mean-spirited. And, honestly, despite it not actually featuring the real Yamucha, the new Yamucha manga feels much more in tune with the spirit of the character than anything in Super does.

I suppose the real test for me will be to see how his subplot in this arc plays out. If all of this wondering and waiting he's doing leads to a payoff, then it might all be worth it. However, if it is nothing more than it appears on the surface, just an opportunity to point and laugh at the loser, I just don't find that funny. It's rather depressing and not at all what the character deserves.

[ABED]

Super is portraying the characters with a much greater self-awareness of memes than has ever been done before, and it's certainly jarring to those of us who have kept the memes and the text separate.

It doesn't neccessarily have to be because of memes. The writers seem to be fans who grew up with DB, so they are aware of certain things such as Yamcha getting the short end. It comes off as very self aware

[VegettoEX]

Removing a bit of slightly-irrelevant hearsay witch-hunting from the thread. Please try to stay on-topic.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Ok more productive and awesome posts. I think we might be in for a treat when it comes to Yamcha, yeah they might be more selfaware about his "Lameness" but they also must know how fans are itching to see him back in action.

[PelicanDynasty]

For example, it really bugs me when people say, "But Yamucha's ALWAYS been a joke. That's what his character was from day one. Look at the first arc. He's terrified of women, loses a tooth in a comedic fashion, etc." And while those examples aren't untrue, they're being taken out of context in order to support a conclusion that has already been made, rather than using facts to reach a conclusion. Because, yes, Yamucha is a joke in the first arc... exactly the same as every other character. Goku is such a bumpkin he pats people's crotches to find out their sex. Blooma's vanity and egotism get her in oodles of trouble. Oolong and Kame'sennin's perversions yield them comeuppances. When Kuririn is introduced, he's a buffoon who talks a good game but frequently ends up the butt of embarrassing mishaps, like performing an impressive flip only to land on his head or bragging about his intense martial arts training only to misjudge a jump and set off a pirate trap. So using Yamucha as an example there is very disingenuous.

I sort of agree with your point but Yamcha was clowned on for more or less all of Dragon Ball, long after the most of the other characters got serious, and of course even in his serious moments (vs the Mummy and Tien) he ends up getting destroyed.

Like you say, Krillin got clowned a lot too, like in the Pirate cave and against Fangs, but Yamcha gets the same treatment in the 23rd Tournament when he gets laughed off the stage. And of course, those are the two characters that have become memes for their "ineptitude."

[blackbewhite2k7]

Absolutely not. The franchise has been self-aware of Yamcha's lowly status in the story and has had fun with it many years before TFS existed.

Even in his prime the series mainly used him as a prop to elevate the next big bad every other arc, all the way back to "Jacky Chun." He was more formidable in the earliest parts of Dragonball, but he didn't last very long as an antagonist and as an ally was always one (or sometimes even several) steps behind Goku (and later Krillin and Tien) and suffered for it more often then not. This only got worse in DBZ, and in Super his net positive moments are mainly at his comedic expense.

[TheZFighter]

The ironic thing is Toei always made Yamcha look good in DBZ through filler. They showed him training on Kami's lookout and in the episode they go back in the past to fight evil Saiyans, Krillin is the first to "die" and Yamcha and Tien make it towards the end. Yamcha also got tons of training montages where he always looked more competent than Krillin half the time.

Then there's of course Yamcha beating Recoome and Olibu in Otherworld, Yamcha helping to defeat Cell, and a few other various training scenes in episodes where he sparred with Krillin...like that scene he uses his feet to kick Krillin in the face and leaves those imprints on him. You could even say Yamcha trying to train in Vegeta's spaceship under 300 times Earth's gravity and surviving long enough to turn it off accounts to that too. It also helped in Dragonball we saw Yamcha win a few prelim matches on-screen too before the tournaments started.

Also look at how Yamcha was the "designated leader" of the group on King Kai's planet during the Freeza saga. He was always the one in front while Tenshihnan/Chaiotzu stood in the back, Yamcha was the one who contacted Bulma about the wishes at the end, etc.

This is another good point. He always came off looking much more competent in the filler material.

[precita]

It's also funny because look at how Yamcha is always portrayed in the title opening shots:



They always gave Yamcha a cool and confident shot whenever he was pictured with all the main characters at the time, and this holds true throughout pretty much the entire run. Even many of Super's endings/openings pictured Yamcha with the main fighters, at least prior to the current one for the Universal survival arc.

[Gaffer Tape]

Like you say, Krillin got clowned a lot too, like in the Pirate cave and against Fangs, but Yamcha gets the same treatment in the 23rd Tournament when he gets laughed off the stage. And of course, those are the two characters that have become memes for their "ineptitude."

This is the last response I'll give to this particular point, not because you're doing anything wrong, but I'm just afraid that going in-depth into specific examples of whether or not Yamucha sucks at a particular moment is starting to get off-topic. But I do feel that this ties in to my point of cherry-picking elements to support a hypothesis. Because I could just as easily turn that example around and refer to it as a fight where Yamucha forces God of all people to rush the end-game and take it seriously. Where God of all people, the guy who just trained Goku, commends Yamucha's potential. Because what I'm saying is true, and what you're saying is true, but neither is entirely true. They're both ignoring important elements that don't support their points of view. Was Yamucha humiliated in that fight? Yes. He was. Granted, that was the whole point of the fight and Shen's character (which is a stock "unassuming wise old master" trope). And this is also in a tournament where Tenshinhan gets pantsed by Goku, pulls out an impressive trump card, but is knocked out of bounds while using it. So while it does add to the overall poor record of Yamucha, the series doesn't treat it as any more humiliating than any other character gets.

[ABED]

(which is a stock "unassuming wise old master" trope).

It's a twist on the trope. ANd I think being pantsed is less humiliating than landing on one's nards.

As much as Yamcha gets the short end of the stick, a good writer can still use him in a clever way, like how Jimmy Olsen occassionally helps Superman save the day.

[coola]

That's not even to mention that the Abridged cast had a cameo that was cut from their Buu Kai dub, which probably fanned that flame of "validation".

That actually ties in with another sect of fandom that gives me a brain aneurysm: people who directly equate production of the Japanese series in importance with production of the FUNimation dub as directly comparable. Despite the fact that only ONE of those two things is the thing that's actually MAKING the show and creating the story and characters from wholecloth (be it on Toriyama's or Toei's end) and the other one is pretty much doing fuck-all besides getting some VAs to play Whose Line is it Anyway? with the already long-since previously finished result.

If you asked this last year, I'd say "no way they know or care enough about some random shit pertaining to online western fandom".

But now we live in a world where things like Gohan and Broly's popularity in the West is officially acknowledged, and obviously being pandered to. So now I do slightly have to wonder.

I'm not sure which point specifically about Gohan you're referring to, but with regards to Brolli: he's ALWAYS been popular in Japan. He's the only movie villain to get multiple sequels. He gets used for video games fairly regularly. He was a staple of fandom overall from the moment movie 8 had first come out well LONG before anything to do with the FUNimation dub had ever existed.

Brolli's popularity ain't solely a Western thing. Sorry to break it to all of you, I know there are vitriolic haters of the character who desperately want it to be just the U.S. who like him this much. But he's been an ever-present ubiquitous entity in DB fandom since 1993. So it ain't just Americans, and it sure as hell didn't somehow START with U.S. dub fans.

I think Funimation made nods to TFS since very beginning, lines like "Shut up Bubbles" from King Kai, or "I hate media" from Nappa (VegettoEX talked about "I hate media" in one of podcasts too) Sabat said few times he is fan of DBZ Abridged, and even cast KaiserNeko as one of Freeza minions in F movie, so he could do it with good intention, but it gave fuel to some group of fans, who now say, that TFS is best English version of DBZ

[Kunzait_83]

I think Funimation made nods to TFS since very beginning, lines like "Shut up Bubbles" from King Kai, or "I hate media" from Nappa (VegettoEX talked about "I hate media" in one of podcasts too) Sabat said few times he is fan of DBZ Abridged, and even cast KaiserNeko as one of Freeza minions in F movie, so he could do it with good intention, but it gave fuel to some group of fans, who now say, that TFS is best English version of DBZ

Seeing as how I was quoted here, what you just said has literally nothing whatsoever to do with my point: which was that TFS damn sure haven't had much of a demonstrable impact on the Japanese production, that the Japanese production is basically the only production that counts for anything or means a damn, and that any effect TFS had on FUNi means less than nothing because most of FUNi's work on DB is barely a step or two above that of a fan work in and of itself anyway.

All of this, from TFS to FUNi to even Kai (which is the only Japanese production I'd put on this low level of utter meaninglessness) all of this stuff is just long-after-the-fact apocrypha to a series that had already long ended back in the mid 90s. All of them are basically the creative equivalent to necrophilia.

The only DB material of real note that has come out since 1997 is BoG, RoF, and Super, as those are actually NEW things (remember when "new content" was a concept that actually meant something? like you had to actually make something brand new from wholecloth as opposed to just tweak around something that was already made ages ago?). Everything else, and I mean EVERYTHING else in between has all been awkward and uncomfortable fondling with late 1980s and early 1990s footage for a show that had already long since came and went.

FUNimation's dub is in no way "new content". DB Kai is in no way "new content". TFS is DAMN sure in no way "new content". All of them are just messing around with the soundtrack to old footage for a long-since dead series (to uncomfortable and cringe-inducing effect across all three) that's only VERY recently been revived.

When TFS shows an actual demonstrable effect on the Japanese production of DB Super, THEN we'll talk. Their very existence is too little and far too late to have had any meaningful impact on something that had stopped being made long before almost any of TFS' members had even HEARD OF Dragon Ball themselves.

[Super_Divine_Genki]

When TFS shows an actual demonstrable effect on the Japanese production of DB Super

Just saying, a couple of episodes before the most recent one, there was a short scene with Mr. Popo that was done in a way that seemed to be giving a nod/acknowledging the existence of that parody series version of Popo to a degree. I don't follow it, but even I'm aware of some of the "TFS Popo" jokes. Yeah, it's sad that this is what a "reboot" of DB has amounted to, but by now I think that it's safe to say that the Japanese production/committee is very aware of the "trendy" things that are out there and pulling influences from much of online culture and sprinkling it into modern DB...

...

[coola]

I think Funimation made nods to TFS since very beginning, lines like "Shut up Bubbles" from King Kai, or "I hate media" from Nappa (VegettoEX talked about "I hate media" in one of podcasts too) Sabat said few times he is fan of DBZ Abridged, and even cast KaiserNeko as one of Freeza minions in F movie, so he could do it with good intention, but it gave fuel to some group of fans, who now say, that TFS is best English version of DBZ

Seeing as how I was quoted here, what you just said has literally nothing whatsoever to do with my point: which was that TFS damn sure haven't had much of a demonstrable impact on the Japanese production, that the Japanese production is basically the only production that counts for anything or means a damn, and that any effect TFS had on FUNi means less than nothing because most of FUNi's work on DB is barely a step or two above that of a fan work in and of itself anyway.

All of this, from TFS to FUNi to even Kai (which is the only Japanese production I'd put on this low level of utter meaninglessness) all of this stuff is just long-after-the-fact apocrypha to a series that had already long ended back in the mid 90s. All of them are basically the creative equivalent to necrophilia.

The only DB material of real note that has come out since 1997 is BoG, RoF, and Super, as those are actually NEW things (remember when "new content" was a concept that actually meant something? like you had to actually make something brand new from wholecloth as opposed to just tweak around something that was already made ages ago?). Everything else, and I mean EVERYTHING else in between has all been awkward and uncomfortable fondling with late 1980s and early 1990s footage for a show that had already long since came and went.

FUNimation's dub is in no way "new content". DB Kai is in no way "new content". TFS is DAMN sure in no way "new content". All of them are just messing around with the soundtrack to old footage for a long-since dead series (to uncomfortable and cringe-inducing effect across all three) that's only VERY recently been revived.

When TFS shows an actual demonstrable effect on the Japanese production of DB Super, THEN we'll talk. Their very existence is too little and far too late to have had any meaningful impact on something that had stopped being made long before almost any of TFS' members had even HEARD OF Dragon Ball themselves.

I know that very well, TFS themselves keep nothing at start of every episode that it is "Fan-based parody" not a new content, but fact that some members of Funimation are fans of TFS and made some nods towards tchem and cast KaiserNeko and Takahata101 in Xenoverse made some fans believe, that TFS is part of English dub, and i know very well it is not true at all. But there are also some fans, who dont care for Japanese original version at all, and watch only dub, and for tchem, dub or TFS version is how they watch show. You can not like it, but thats how it is

[ABED]

But TFS is NOT the show. It's not a dub of DB. It's basically "Bad Lip Reading". If anyone watches TFS thinking they've watched DBZ, then they are completely in the wrong.

[Boo Machine]

Just saying, a couple of episodes before the most recent one, there was a short scene with Mr. Popo that was done in a way that seemed to be giving a nod/acknowledging the existence of that parody series version of Popo to a degree. I don't follow it, but even I'm aware of some of the "TFS Popo" jokes. Yeah, it's sad that this is what a "reboot" of DB has amounted to, but by now I think that it's safe to say that the Japanese production/committee is very aware of the "trendy" things that are out there and pulling influences from much of online culture and sprinkling it in to modern DB...

...

I don't feel like a close up shot of Popo's face is a nod to TFS. It's just a close up shot of the dudes face. There is a reason why TFS goes the route of "Popo is scary". Because people already thought he was creepy looking to begin with. The english dub MIGHT give a nod to them from time to time, but TFS in no way affects the decisions made by anyone at the japanese production of the show.

Are TFS even that big outside the US? Genuine question, I actually don't know.