Yamcha Becomes Hero in DRAGON BALL Z Spin-Off Manga

Oh Yamcha. Probably the worst fighter out of all the Z-Fighters in Dragon Ball Z. So many jokes are made about him, and there’s not much defense. He gets taken out by a nameless generic grunt and throughout all of Dragon Ball Z never wins a fight (except apparently on King Kai’s planet, maybe?). Heck, in the Buu Saga, he has given up fighting entirely. He knows he’s not good. If you’ve watched Dragon Ball you know that he used to be a fearsome fighter, but something happened between the two series.

As much as Yamcha sucks, he now has his own spin-off series manga appearing in Shonen Jump Plus. Dragon Ball Side Story: The Case of Being Reincarnated as Yamcha (translated from Dragon Ball Gaiden: Tensei-shitara Yamcha Datta Ken) is about a Japanese high school student who mysteriously becomes reincarnated as Yamcha. The student is able to use his knowledge of the Dragon Ball manga to influence events to keep Yamcha from dying all the time and train to become the strongest fighter. I’m going to let that sink in for a moment. This boy plans to change the story of a manga he has already read so that he can turn the weakest character into potentially the strongest. Manga doesn’t get much better than that.

Looks like Yamcha survives the Saibamen this time.

The series is written and illustrated by Dragon Garow Lee and it is based on the original work by Akira Toriyama. Will the boy be able to help Yamcha rise to the top and become Earth’s mightiest hero? If you read Japanese, you can read the first chapter on Shonen Jump Plus, now.