This isn't going to be a very long review but I feel I can express my thoughts well enough as it is. Anyone who's known me long enough knows I have a tad bit of a love hate relationship with Dragon Ball and that one of my biggest complaints is how my favorite character Yamcha is constantly the butt of every joke and has become a near complete laughing stock. In fact I had originally never planned on reading this because I had expected it to be the same constant humiliation and abuse Yamcha has been given for decades now. Yamcha for over a decade now has been the ultimate butt monkey for Dragon Ball fans and even the creators have continued to dump oh him for years. It's a great irony considering how Akira Toriyama had once said Yamcha was his favorite character. Thankfully this short story is different! To my pleasant surprise this ended up being a truly tasteful look at what Yamcha could be if given the chance. Basically the premise is a highschool student is Isekai'd into the Dragon Ball world and ends up in the body of literally the most unlikely hero ... Yamcha.

He is sent to very early in the Dragon Ball series , during the Pilaf saga and this is where things begin. Since the boy knows the future of the Dragon Ball series and Yamcha's humiliating fate he in turn decides to seriously focus on training and building his power level. After all in the world of Dragon Ball things always come down to what is tantamount to a pissing contest ranked solely on who has the bigger power level. In short it's " Oh you have this extremely unique ability .... that's cool kid but mah power level is higher so I win hur dur. " One thing that's actually interesting about this short story though is as Yamcha he doesn't just train but he uses his wits and strategy to outsmart and outfight some of the tougher enemies. For instance he stocks up on senzu beans and trains on planet Namek before the Vegeta and Nappa come to Earth.

What I loved the most is this isn't just another piece of material that simply focuses on how " pathetic , weak and useless " Yamcha is or mocks him for the fact he lost his girlfriend to a psychopathic egotistical man child who blew up planets and laughed maniacally while slaughtering children and who irl no one would ever root for or support. Instead this manga actually allows Yamcha ... Yamcha of all people to save the day. He doesn't just survive he thrives and this manga shows that the lonely wolf can actually hold his own if he trains extra hard and uses his noggin. But this isn't all because it also pays a genuinely heartwarming homage to this underdog. It doesn't showcase his relationship with Bulma as negative like so many fans consider it. In fact at one point he has a chance to kill Vegeta but spares him because he knows future Trunks is going to help save Goku and he knows Vegeta even if only a little bit eventually becomes a better man. The scene of the realization that he may well have to sacrifice his relationship with Bulma in order to save the future is especially poignant.

Despite being one of Goku's very first friends and one of the very first main characters in the original story of Dragon Ball Yamcha is a character who most fans see as simply a joke. The irony is that some of his greatest character development is taking place in the background of the story. Yamcha starts off as a lonely desert bandit with only his cat paur for companionship. He is deathly afraid of women and all he wants is to someday start a family .... or at least have a few dates. If you know the story you know that Yamcha and Bulma fall in love and they date for at least a decade or two before the eventual parting and her and Vegeta getting together. I recall Toriyama saying at one point that Yamcha did not actually cheat on Bulma and that in her classic fashion she twisted things to make him look bad while explaining things to Trunks. I can't remember where I heard this and maybe I am totally wrong but I at least do remember it and it fits imo for Yamcha as a character.

In the original story Yamcha eventually loses Bulma and she has Vegeta's child. In spite of his pain he helps take care of baby Trunks when Vegeta is off getting beaten up by androids and laughing at the prospect of letting his infant son and the child's mother die. Yamcha even forms a severely unsung and " cool stepdad " like relationship with Future Trunks. It is Yamcha who tells Trunks the truth after the Cell games. Yamcha is the one who tells Trunks " your dad really does love you Trunks , when he saw Cell kill you he went insane " It may be in the background but Yamcha time and time again in the original story showed that while he was never going to the the strongest he so often is indeed the bigger and better man. There's plenty of other examples , such as his battle with Tenshinhan in original Dragon Ball. After the Cell games Yamcha's ideal family is gone but in this moment with future Trunks he shows a level of maturity and genuine kindness that imo isn't often showcased in the heavy battle centric story.

I was happy to see that same sort of spirit in this Gaiden. At the end of the short story the boy reincarnated as Yamcha decides that since Majin Buu and the other enemies are just going to be too much he'll just focus on baseball and having a good time like Yamcha does in the original work at this point. However it is time for the boy to return to his own world and just for a little bit he retains a tiny bit of the power he had as Yamcha. The manga ends with a loving nod to the potential Yamcha indeed does have not only as a powerful warrior but as shown in the Cell Saga a man who in spite of everything will always be there for his friends and even when the odds are impossible and he is outmatched will try his damndest to help ... not because he thinks he can win but because he loves his friends and no matter what he wants to help the people he cares about even if it ends up hurting him more than anyone in the end. .