Lord Eeyore Haw-Haw wrote:I kinda wanted to stay out of the Yumcha-Kurilin debate here, but I just wanna add in on the point about Yumcha basically "giving up" after experience with Freeza and the Man-Made Beings (Jinzouningen). Couldn't you look at it as more a case of Yumcha just admitting that he really was just outclassed?
And I'm going straight into "reading way too much" territory, with Toriyama's style, but could we not argue that perhaps Yumcha's so-called fear and generally all his "I don't really wanna get involved with these fights any more" come more out of something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder, or just plain old shell shock? He has DIED after all. Yeah, guys like Gokuu and Vegeeta shrug it off, because for one thing, they have a general "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" thing in their favour, and when they do die, it's usually no skin off their nose, because they're born fighters who are damn near programmed to go into fights against people too great for them, for the thrill. They're essentially the sort who'd go sky-diving, to get off on the sheer adrenaline of it all.
Yumcha, I feel, really liked fighting for the fighting's sake, the martial arts aspect. He likes getting a challenge, fine enough, but he doesn't like the whole death-match aspects of it, and remember, he's only human. He doesn't have all the advantages the greater fighters have. When he loses an arm or something, he's not gonna regenerate it like Piccolo. When he's beaten to near death, he ain't gonna come back stronger than ever.
But back to where I was originally going with this. What if Yumcha got really traumatised by the whole death thing? It can't be a fun experience, to go from a guy who generally could fight okay, and was only really having to be concerned with "Am I gonna lose, in a tournament" as opposed to "Am I even gonna make it out alive this time?" Yes, he was more than ready to leap into the fray, with things like Great Demon King Piccolo and even the Saiyans, but he hadn't actually DIED yet. The most he'd had was a broken leg, and the mere THREAT of death. Going through it must have been a whole different thing. Knowing that he was way over his head and could be taken out just like that.
He was the most undignified death in the Saiyan arc, taken out because he was off-guard and not paying attention, and then blown up by a suicide attack. Tenshinhan and Jiaozi went out as a "I'm going out and taking you with me" thing, and Piccolo sacrificed himself by jumping in the way of an attack, fully knowing the consequences. Yumcha had no idea he was gonna suddenly get taken out. Having it shown to you, how insignificant you are, and how easily you can have it all taken away must be harrowing, despite how he acted. Hey, he got lucky and got his body, so that's a nice pay-off, and he could be wished back. But after that, they had no idea they would eventually all be able to brought back multiple times. All Yumcha knew when Freeza was coming was that someone who gave Son freaking Gokuu a rough time and nearly got HIM killed was coming to Earth, and it was just up to the guys who couldn't quite make it up to that level. Vegeeta and Piccolo were probably the only two who could last more than a few seconds against Freeza in serious fighting. That must have shaken him up a fair bit, to know that as soon as he got to be alive again, it was all gonna be taken away again, in a flash, and that this time, there was no foreseeable way of coming back.
This then gets compounded by the fact that the first thing that happens to him, when the Man-Made Beings show up, is that he gets taken out easily, is freaking impaled by a bare hand, and that for all he knew in those last seconds of consciousness, that it was all over for him, yet again, and that he was not gonna ever come back.
Not having experienced any near-death experiences, I wouldn't be able to vouch, but that's got to weigh heavily on someone, especially someone like Yumcha who must know without any shadow of a doubt that he's no longer in "fighting for fun and glory" territory, and is just way in over his head.
Phew, I didn't think I was gonna ramble that long in defence of Yumcha, but then again, I've always actually liked Yumcha.
Now in argument to my own point... And undercutting my own argument, in just one move...
Kurilin's pretty much in the same boat... And yet he hung about for a little more than Yumcha. That said, I recently looked over the Boo stuff, and Kurilin was all set to get out of there when Babiddy and Dabra killed off Spopovich and Yamu, hardly needing to be told twice by Gokuu. And the only thing that makes Kurilin truly that much braver than Yumcha is the fact that he leapt out to attack Boo before chocolate genocide happened at God's place, despite knowing how outclassed he was, to buy time for everyone else. And that was filler in the anime, since we don't actually see it happen in the manga.
In summary, I guess what I want to say is that you can argue that, yes, Kurilin is braver than Yumcha for doing what he must despite being afraid and knowing he was outclassed, but you can also argue that Yumcha is braver for being able to admit that he just can't cut it, and knows when he should give up.
(Plus, filler let him shine a little bit, with the classic "We're all gonna help Gohan against Cell". At least they threw him a bone there.)
Yeah, I agree. I never really thought Kuririn was any less or more braver than Yamcha, and if anything, he was more of a fearful and self-doubting martial artist than Yamcha. He undermines his own ability on more than one occasion, not to mention his infamous reluctance to fight against the Androids while his team-mates were getting slaughtered one-by-one.
Of course, that's understandable. Like Yamcha, he'd been killed, by Freeza no less, as he was flung up into the air and yelled out Gokuu's name before exploding into dust. And now, he'd been told that he, along with his friends, would be killed by these Androids, who were even stronger than they'd originally expected. I mean, to him, #19 and #20 were strong and scary, but now these two made them look like nothing. Trunks, a Super Saiyan who previously sliced and diced Freeza like butter, had been downed in one blow, after the even stronger Vegeta had had his arm broken, and it looked like the future was about to come true.
Kid Buu wrote:My Unpopular Opinion is that Krillin secretly had a crush on Bulma but got friend zone. This is why Toei gave him a girlfriend who looked exactly like Bulma during the Garlic Jr arc.
Except that "the friend zone" is a ridiculous concept that doesn't exist, and Marron didn't look exactly like Blooma. She was just another hot girl.
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