Imagine that Yamcha wasn’t one of the lamest ducks in the Dragon Ball canon. That’s the driving concept behind the new manga Dragon Ball Side Story: The Case of Being Reincarnated as Yamcha.
And my guess is that it’s mostly happened because Yamcha’s become a meme. Also a verb. And probably an adjective too. All on the heels of probably the best filler episode Dragon Ball’s had, period.
The story centers on a Japanese high-schooler who totally Yamchas himself down a flight of stairs trying to perv on one of his classmates. Because a little upskirt peep is worth winding up in a Yamcha heap at the bottom of a flight os stairs.
He wakes to find he’s living in the world of his favorite manga frachise circa Dragon Ball. Thanks to the mirror, he realizes he’s been dropped into the body of Yamcha.
After lamenting the fact that he’s not Goku or Vegeta, he comes to the realization that he’s totally going to wind up Yamcha’d again in a tiny crater.
The one thing he has working in his favor is that he knows how this story is supposed to go. So instead of spending the next several years being awkward with Bulma Enchanto like the perv he is, he goes with Goku to train with Master Roshi.
Since the manga moves at a quick pace, we’re able to see the results of his training. In other words, he doesn’t get Yamcha’d by a saibaman. And he finally makes Yamcha worthy of the in universe praise he gets.
Impressive, considering the last time in the series a human character manages to really do anything against a villain is when Tien Kikōhō‘d Semi-Perfect Cell. And that only pissed him off.
Dragon Ball Side Story does exactly the sort of thing I enjoy with series like it; taking an idea and running with it. So many shonen series drop the hook that made them interesting to, well, become Dragon Ball.
Dragon Ball Side Story: The Case of Being Reincarnated as Yamcha is currently running in Japan on Shonen Jump Plus, their digital platform. But don’t fret, it currently has a fan translation being run by SaiyamanMS over on Reddit.
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