Am I the only one who thinks the Yamcha meme is in poor taste?

[IntangibleFancy]

I just don't see how and why people would find it funny. It was suppose to be a serious death and now the show is in on it too. It feels like Yamcha is Meg Griffin (however, the majority of the people who watch family guy agree Meg doesn't deserve this. Unlike here)

I also don't see how people fault him for his loss when it could of happened to Krillin and Tien.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Nobody thinks Yamcha deserves it either.

[Boo Machine]

I am curious as to whether it was always a joke or if it's something that people took seriously but found funny later for some reason.

I would think it was the latter, but I wouldn't know, I started with Z when it first aired in the west and I was too young to even remember what my own reaction to it was. I must not have cared all that much if I don't remember.

[IntangibleFancy]

Nobody thinks Yamcha deserves it either.

From what I've seen that only applies here.

[SaintEvolution]

I don't think anyone thinks that Yamcha actually deserves what happens with him.

[AnzuMazaki]

Personally the "Shiyagatte..." meme has to be the WORST thing to come out of Modern Dragon Ball for me.

What started as a serious death scene has become a flanderisation nightmare for Yamcha.
It is basically now the ONLY thing that defines his character and it is sickening.

It is why I like pre-2009 Dragon Ball better in terms of Yamcha's treatment in the official material and in the fandom (barring VegeBul badfics of course).

From 1985 up until 2008 in Japan, there was a decent amount of fanart and doujinshi of Yamcha in his glory (I happen to own some 25 year old fan doujinshi).
But 2009 onwards it will mostly be some fanart of some non-DB character in THAT pose.

So no, you're not the only one who thinks the meme is in poor taste.

[J.T. Drago]

I honestly never understood the whole death pose thing being all that funny. I always feel rather bad for Yamcha. It's fine he's a bit of a butt monkey, but it seems like Toriyama and Funimation really loves mentioning it time and time again. I remember reading up that Funimation alters Yamcha's lines more than any other character. I dunno how accurate it is, but from memory, that sounds about right.

It sometimes feel like people really think Yamcha is an incredibly weak character, which is far from true. Plus he has such awesome attacks like the Wolf Fang Fist and Spirit Ball (latter would've been a great to see him use in the Resurrection F arc/movie imo). Even now some shows reference the death pose.

I do remember that he isn't the only character that gets a similar treatment though. I haven't seen Madoka Magica in a while, but from what I read up and remember...
[spoiler]A character by the name of Mami Tomoe fights a monster named Charlotte. She thought she won (similar to Yamcha), but ends up getting her head bitten off and eaten (and I mean chewed to pieces. It's pretty graphic in the manga). Eventually, "Headless Mami" became an internet meme and people love making head puns about it.

Oh, and to make that death worse, when another character named Homura blows up Charlotte, we see some black goop land beside her. That's what is left of Mami after being eaten.[/spoiler]

[8000 Saiyan]

I never found it funny and never will. These memes can go a bit too far.

Plus he has such awesome attacks like the Wolf Fang Fist and Spirit Ball (latter would've been a great to see him use in the Resurrection F arc/movie imo). Even now some shows reference the death pose.

Given that Toriyama only sees Yamcha as a joke, I doubt he would have used him in the fight against Frieza's army.

[ABED]

You may not agree with it, but "poor taste" feels like a strong term for what is pretty innocuous.

[DragonBallFoodie]

It's okay, but I do feel it has gone a bit too far.

I'd really like to see Yamcha be worth something in the DB universe. (He had something in the Beerus Champa baseball game, and I'd like to see more of that.)

[DiegoBrando]

I kind of agree. I liked Yamcha in the original DB, and he was a nice character. The problem is that he stopped being relevant at the end of DB already. DB fights started to become increasingly all about power levels, not about strategy. Yamcha being the weakest, means he is used only to die. At the point where he immediately dies against Gero, you ask yourself what he is even doing there? There's no point. Toriyama just isn't that good of a writer, and he kept bringing all these characters back when they had no point to be there. And I see people hating on him all the time, simply because he is weak. And whenever anyone says how he is (was?) a good character, people say ''what has he acomplished? he only gets beaten every time'', as if that's the point. In my opinion the vast majority of the DB fanbase thinks like this: ''High power level = good character''. Thus someone like Yamcha can only be viewed as a joke.

[Xeogran]

I'd really like to see Yamcha be worth something in the DB universe. (He had something in the Beerus Champa baseball game, and I'd like to see more of that.)

And that, yet again, involve making fun of his death pose

[TheZFighter]

I am curious as to whether it was always a joke or if it's something that people took seriously but found funny later for some reason.

I would think it was the latter, but I wouldn't know, I started with Z when it first aired in the west and I was too young to even remember what my own reaction to it was. I must not have cared all that much if I don't remember.

Yamcha's death was definitely taken seriously originally, at least by myself and people I know. It is fairly recent that it has become something of a joke. I can actually remember the very first time I witnessed somebody laughing at Yamcha. I just put it down to the fact that we live in a very "meme-centric" world now.

Off topic, but personally I'm very unimpressed by memes in general. I find them to be unfunny, uninteresting and pretty simplistic, if I'm being honest. Low-hanging fruit, if you will. Unfortunately the internet is awash with them.

[ABED]

This isn't recent. Yamcha became a bit of a joke years ago. Yes, his death in the Saiyan arc was sad, but that was nearly 30 years ago. This is not due to a meme. Besides, the meme didn't come out of nowhere.

[sintzu]

That meme was due to him always failing from the time he was introduced till now. No one would even bring that up had he done some important things after and before.

[samuraix123]

You're not the only one. I personally don't understand why people think a characters death is funny. It's a cartoon so I don't get mad about people making jokes but I didn't like it at all when they all laughed at him in Super and had him in that pose.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[precita]

The weird thing is the only reason the Saibaman death keeps getting brought up....is its Yamcha's only on-screen death in the series.

Yamcha's second death was when Super Buu turned everyone into candy/chocolate, but it was entirely off-screen for Yamcha like the rest of the humans, even in the anime we only saw their shadows. So Yamcha has only 1 real on-screen death to talk about.

With characters like Krillin, Vegeta, Piccolo, Goku, etc....we have far more on-screen deaths to talk about.

[SpiritBombTriumphant]

What started as a serious death scene has become a flanderisation nightmare for Yamcha.
It is basically now the ONLY thing that defines his character and it is sickening.

So no, you're not the only one who thinks the meme is in poor taste.

I never found it funny and never will. These memes can go a bit too far.

You're not the only one. I personally don't understand why people think a characters death is funny. It's a cartoon so I don't get mad about people making jokes but I didn't like it at all when they all laughed at him in Super and had him in that pose.

You guys get offended way too easily. And by a cartoon where death in general is a joke because everyone gets wished back every time a conflict happens.

[VegettoEX]

Gotta be honest in that I don't find it "offensive" or extreme in the least. I get a little worried when fans / community members begin taking their love of a character to levels where they feel the need to "defend their honor" in a way like this. That's what I see as a little extreme.

Compared to some of the other deaths in the series, it's really the biggest (if not only) one that left a memorable... well, pose. Evidence of the crime. It's still there to see. Perhaps Kuririn comes closest, with his explosion on Namek (the bulging body, more so in the anime than manga), maybe even then followed by his previous death (crooked, broken neck on the ground). Everyone else's deaths are just kinda... there. They fall over or they disappear entirely, with no flair beyond that.



Yamcha's has a lot going for it in this regard. There's a pose, there's a crater, there are leftover Saibaiman body parts. There's residual sizzling. That's not just a death; that's an event and an expertly-conceived emotional showcase of that event.



And it's fun to have fun with things that you like and found emotional or important. It's infinitely repeatable and makes for obvious parodies and direct connections; there's no denying what it's in reference to when it is in fact referenced. It's a fun in-joke. It's unspoken cultural connection and currency.

That's not to say there aren't (perhaps irrational?) "Yamcha haters" looking to "spread their propaganda" (I guess?!). I mean, if someone's a total nutjob, they're a total nutjob and you need to just stop paying attention and responding to them. But if the rights-holders can also recognize the cultural currency they have, shame on them if they don't take advantage of that.

[ABED]

If the story is good and there are stakes, I'd rather not "have fun" with a legitimately great tragic moment. It only serves to undercut its meaning. However, DB doesn't do a great job with stakes and death becomes so disposable that it's hard for me to care whether Yamcha's death is poked fun at.