Yamucha: Just for Men

So, hey, I’m sure all you visitors have magically seen the Jump special legally despite it being available on DVD only in Japan and probably haven’t torrented it or anything. Not even.

Anyway, even if you haven’t it doesn’t matter because I’m not going to spoil any of it. Suffice to say, Yamucha is in it so I’ll cover it sometime, but not today.

No, this is something much more sinister. A conspiracy that exposes the dark heart of Yamucha himself. This is very complicated sciencey type stuff so let me know if you can’t keep up, okay?

'Derp derp. I'm Goku. Derpa derpa DERP!

Above you see Yamucha, Kuririn and Goku having a jolly good time. Well, the first two are. Goku is as nonplussed as usual. One thing is plainly clear. Okay, two things.

The first, which has nothing to do with this article but bears mentioning is that Yamucha’s gi is just hanging off of him. Obviously he’s lost a lot of mass since he last put this on. The only explanation is that Yamucha, at this time, is a horrible alcoholic and has drank/drinked/drunked his body away until it is a jaundiced ridden mass of barely functioning sinew.

But while boo hoo, his liver doesn’t work and he’s dying slowly and painfully both emotionally and physically, is sad and everything it’s nothing compared to the next revelation.

Yamucha is going grey.

Take that! Decisive evidence, your honour.

Compare the hair! Kuririn and Goku’s measure in on the hex scale between “1C1C1C” and “1D1D1D.” A perfectly fine dark hair colour. Meanwhile, Yamucha clocks in at around “32383F” which is a woeful blue grey.

And it isn’t just that scene either. Again, and again, and again, Yamucha’s hair is shown to be several degrees of grey higher than his other dark haired contemporaries. Well, I’ve never seen Tenshinhan’s hair but I always assumed he’d have a ‘fro like Mr. Satan, hence the shaved head. Ooh, maybe he’s naturally bald, that would make Yamucha look a little better for losing the race against time.

You might be asking what’s the big deal. After all, a bit more realism with the aging process might be a nice touch in Dragon Ball. Well I say, bollocks to that. Why does Yamucha have to age anyway? When they wanted to age Chichi a couple of decades they just pinned her hair back and left it at that. Isn’t that good enough? The yellow suit already screams mid-life crisis.

However, before your heart is frozen at the prospect of our hero growing old and decrepit before eventually dying in some desert-based nursing home let’s step into the Grand Tour which is set some 18 years or so after the events of the special.

Yamucha plans to take those three plucky Englishmen behind him to the States, baby! They've already taken Amsterdam by storm. New York, look out!

As Star Wolf would say, what the heck!? Look at that glossy hair, slicked back and put into a ponytail. While looking like a European music agent that doesn’t change the fact that his hair is now black.

Now, I know some of you are thinking; well, GT isn’t canon. The special probably isn’t canon. It’s a inconsistency. GT came out over a decade before the special anyway, so how could they know Yamucha would go grey? The special probably didn’t intend to imply Yamucha was going grey anyway. Blah blah blah.

These are fine theories, but a theory here on Yamucha Densetsu is worthless if it’s fundamentally uninteresting as those above are. The logical conclusion is that, at over 60 years of age, Yamucha has decided to dye his hair.

And really, who knows how long he’s been doing it. Sure, this grey hair first appears two years after the defeat of Majin Boo but that could have been the one day he forgot to put the stuff in, due to his alcoholism referenced above. Is this why Bulma dumped him, because his curtains didn’t match his drapes? They release new guides over in Japan and they don’t cover this? What’s wrong with these people!?

Luckily, while Japan is wasting its time, the Yamucha Densetsu blows the lid off the things that really matter to the Dragon Ball community.

Dragon Ball “Jump Super Anime Tour” Special images kindly pilfered from Daizenshuu EX board member SatoSky. Thanks muchly!