Now, that is a very inaccurate description of how Toriyama used Yamcha unless you are completely disregarding the pre-Z portion of the story. As other mentioned, his defeats were always played for drama, not comedy. More importantly, though, they were often sued as a The Worf Effect. The narrative and the characters respected Yamcha fighting prowess enough so that his defeats meant something. Furthermore, even when not fighting, Yamcha had a clear role in most arcs he was in. Either as exposition delivery for different martial artists or as the one making decisions, as a de facto leader of the team.
I am not going to say the fans alone were the reason he is treated as as a joke. Toriyama did catch on on Yamcha lack of performance and stopped pretending his defeat actually meant anything regarding the enemies' power level. And the clear lack of interest for human characters certainly effected Yamcha. But the point is that the lack of relevance was a more gradual thing, not something present since the start.
Edited by Heatth on Jan 22nd 2020 at 8:19:33 AM
The Worf Effect is the definition of cannon fodder. He may not have always been a Joke Character from the start, but he's been The Worf Effect for as long as humanly possible.
Edited by Larkmarn on Jan 22nd 2020 at 9:57:59 AM
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No it is not. What? The Worf is an already established badass whose defeat proves the opponent is strong. Canon fodder are people who are never meant to be of any use other than to absorb canon fire.
Like, Yamcha is a canon fodder from the Sayan arc onwards, at the very least. Really, as early as his defeat against Tenshinhan I have my doubts if Toriyama was taking him serious as a fighter. But to claim his role to provide The Worf Effect is the same as being canon fodder is just pure nonsense, that is just not how the trope works. If someone is a canon fodder, then by definition they can't provide The Worf Effect.
Also, nice to see you agree he wasn't a joke from the start. That is exactly the claim I was countering.
I mean, one could be a subtrope of the other. But they aren't.
Edited by Heatth on Jan 22nd 2020 at 1:48:23 PM
Yeah, that is pretty much his role ever since he started teaming up with the heroes. Though he also get to look cool while doing it, so he is not as mocked.
Really, though, pretty much all non-Gokus are worfed repeatedly over the course of the story. Yamcha has the distinction of being the first and Vegeta of the most frequent, but that is it.
Vegeta is probably the best Worf, because he gets some victories before hand which make his defeats more notable.
Yamcha's issue is that he rarely ever won. Toriyama kept using him as the guy who loses, but since he never won, people stopped respecting him.
Kakarot playing into his loser status (and now promoting the Yamcha is a cheater thing that Toriyama pulled out of his ass to justify pairing Bulma and Vegeta)...well, maybe under the right circumstances it could be funny, but at this point it's just the same old same old.
Fighter Z making him a Memetic Bad Ass (though still making fun of him too) was something new at least.
One Strip! One Strip!He's apparently super fun to play and high tier. There's the aforementioned Cinematic finish where he inflicts his own Memetic Loser pose on Nappa as well.
But he does get mocked by the villains because the waves weakening everyone barely affect him (that's because he's already much weaker than everyone else, so there wasn't much lower for him to go), and still takes a lot of (mostly good humoured) flack in cutscenes with other characters.
One Strip! One Strip!It's the standard Power Creep, Power Seep every DB Game has only here it was turn into a meme because Yamcha has an special Dramatic Finish against Nappa.
Also in Kakarot Yamcha is the hardest opponent in Baseball so that's something at least.
Edited by Fedetropes on Jan 22nd 2020 at 3:58:55 PM
¡PONLE QUE DIGA!:"¡HUMONGOSAURIO HASTA LA MUERTE!"So I was watching all the Dramatic Finishes on You Tube to see if there were any more surprises like that in them, and I thought of something.
I really like the tacit implication in Super: Broly that Gogeta beat the angry out of Broly. Gogeta beat him so hard his blind, frothing rage broke.
That implication is in the metaphysics. During Gogeta's portion of the fight, the tension abruptly switches from "Can Goku and Vegeta defeat Broly?" to "Will Broly survive the unholy one-sided beatdown that Gogeta is administering?" Which is a clever switch-up in terms of audience investment.
The release of tension comes when Cheelai wishes on Shenron to send Broly home, saving his life in the process. It's a really great conclusion for what really is Broly's story, not Goku's or Vegeta's.
But I had a thought. Shenron can only grant a wish targeting another person with that person's consent. If they want to refuse, they can. Goku demonstrated this when he rejected a Shenron wish to bring him home from Planet Yardrat. If Broly wanted to stay here and keep slugging it out with Gogeta, there would be nothing Shenron or Cheelai could do about it.
Somewhere in the back of Broly's mind, this exchange happened.
- Shenron: Hey. Bro. Want me to get you out of this?
- Broly: Yes, please. Now, if possible.
Gogeta didn't just beat Broly. He beat Broly so hard that Broly's frothing bersererk rage shattered and Broly was capable of making sound decisions regarding his immediate future again. He beat the fight out of Broly.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 22nd 2020 at 6:54:18 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Broli was about to die...he was entirely still in rage-fit until Gogeta's last attack was coming right for him.
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That feels really finicky and inconclusive to say. Like, have we seen any other instances of the dragon requiring consent in Dragon Ball: Super?
Something to prove the plot point was dropped?
Edited by fredhot16 on Jan 22nd 2020 at 6:19:08 AM
Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.I kinda agree. It's possible that in that exact moment, Broly was scared enough to want to run, which coincided with the dragon granting the wish to send him away.
So it's like this
Broly: Holy crap! Somebody get me the hell out of here!
Shenron: That sounds like permission to me! You got excellent timing son!
So in the end, Gogeta scaring him so much he was actually afraid instead of berserking saved his life, because if he'd still been going nuts, Shenron would have been unable to send him away.
Plus, we know the Dragon can be quite the Benevolent Genie when the plot calls for it (wishing up a cooler for Shuu when he asked for Ice cream even though Shuu didn't ask for it). With the lone exception of turning the Pilaf gang into children, he tends to grant the spirit of the wish as much as the letter.
One Strip! One Strip!Not just children. Babies. They had to have made their wish before the androids attacked and killed everyone, including Piccolo, because Mai obviously got younger in the future timeline too. Both Mais are about the same age as their respective Trunkses, which means their wish would have turned them into outright babies prior to Android 19 and 20 attacking that city. It think there's even a panel in the manga that shows them getting turned into babies. Which makes me wonder what Pilaf and co. wished for, because Shenron has never at any other point screwed someone over when making a wish. I can see them asking to be made younger, but making them that young seems like a dick move on Shenron's part.
Edited by WillKeaton on Jan 22nd 2020 at 8:19:08 AM
Yeah, it's a mystery.
If Shenron could do something like that, he'd have turned King Piccolo back into an egg.
I think we're just gonna have to write it off as joke logic. They were turned into kids because it was supposed to be funny. Nothing more than that.
One Strip! One Strip!![]()
Jokes like that don't exactly need thought-provoking setups...

Sounds very unfunny.