So, a while back, I wrote about the Sokidan, one of the trio of techniques that Yamucha has perfected on his path to greatness (ahem). However, I could only remember the move being used twice, once in the manga, and once in some filler.
But, BUT, someone named Rocky posted a comment on the article pointing this little tidbit out.
He tries it again in the Tree of Might, probably one of the only 2 DBZ movies where Yamcha & Tien get some screen time. I think he uses it on the cyborg guy and scores a direct hit but it doesn’t do anything. But to be fair to Yamcha, none of the Z-fighters could hurt Turles’ gang. Even Tien was beaten by its weakest members.
Aside from the fact that being fair to Yamucha is boring and doing so would leave this blog very short of material indeed, Rocky is right. I did miss one instance of the Sokidan, so why not eat up a day by honouring the glory of the Tree of Might Sokidan? (Because it’s boring?) Quiet, you.
You can just tell he really means for this one to work. The poor git. It breaks my heart.
Continue reading →
Posted in: Yamucha's Techniques.
Last time we visited the world of Dragon Ball outside of the Japanese and English speaking worlds, we found our main man to be quite the eccentric character indeed in Denmark. Yelling “I am a wolf!”, and firing off his Kuglelyntorpedo (Thunderball Torpedo), Yamchu, the Danish Yamucha, is quite a crazy guy.
Today, we’ll be moving away from Scandinavia, and Europe for that matter, as we take a trip to the Land to the West of the Land of the Rising Sun and It’s Not Korea. That’s right, I’m obviously (what?) talking about China.
So, enough stalling, let’s see how the people in the People’s Republic discuss our king hyena.
Continue reading →
Posted in: Yamucha International.
So we’re here. It’s Volume 2 of 42 in the Dragon Ball saga and chapter 12 of… FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN!? Well, I guess I’ll be skipping most of them… Especially when we get to the ‘Z’ side of the series. This is a Yamucha site (er, blog), so you can imagine the giant leaps we’ll be making in chapters after a while.
To kick things off on a boring note, both VIZ and the original Japanese manga have much the same chapter titles this time around. Japan tell me we are Searching for Kame Sennin, while VIZ insists that we are In Search of Kame Sennin. So far, so pedantic.
Yamucha and Pu’reh listen to Gyumao as he banters with Goku about his old master, Son Gohan and all that cr– Uh, wait a moment. Yamucha and Pu’reh are listening behind a ruined wall not ten feet away from the group? Whereas in the last chapter, they were just driving to them when the conversation started? Whatever. Also, our King Hyena has picked the one wall not tall enough to hide his head. Luckily this is a manga, so no-one EVER turns their head unless its necessitated by the story.
Tactical Espionage Action! Way to keep out of sight, champ.
Continue reading →
Posted in: Manga Review.
Why haikus? Why not? This is my blog, dammit and if I want to post haikus I’m very well going to post them!
To use a form of Japanese poetry, a famed and respected one at that, to chronicle a life, seems a good match with someone as famed respected with Yamucha. Five haikus are here, one of every chapter I’ve covered on this blog to date. That’s chapters 007 through 011.
Some disclaimers: I’ve probably broken every haiku rule, even the obvious ‘dur-dur’ ones regarding syllables in every one of these. Feel free to correct me, but I won’t cry a river over it.
Read my damn web site
Leave me positive comments
Click below to read
I will surely win
With my special Wolf Fang Fist
…Boy, am I sure dumb
Continue reading →
Posted in: Misc Nonsense.
So, Yamucha is going to be played by Joon Park in the Dragon Ball live action movie (hold on, I promise I’m going somewhere with this).
I hear Akira Toriyama has been given a big bag of money for his trouble and will likely receive even more. I say good. The guy deserves it for working on the blasted thing for so many years. While Mr. Toriyama is supposedly delighted that someone is taking ‘another view’ of the Dragon Ball saga as a whole, I would comment that between live action movies, Toei mucking around with the animé, cry baby Japanese fanboys and editors nosing around in his work, other Japanese manga folk making tributes and parodies, not to mention the reams of fan fiction and fan manga, I’d wager the only person’s perspective of Dragon Ball we have never seen in it’s entirety is Akira Toriyama’s at this stage.
As for Joon Park as… well, I don’t care. Don’t care about Park, don’t care about the live action movie. Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care. But I do like movies, I do like Dragon Ball and I do like Yamucha. So let’s look at our main man’s big screen début, eh? This article is longer than the norm, partly to make up for a lack of updates and partly because movies are longer than manga chapters.
I know it doesn’t match with the part of the article I put it in, but it’s always nice to see, isn’t it?
Continue reading →
Posted in: Movie Magic.
So it’s the last chapter of the first volume of the Dragon Ball manga, chapter 11. …And Into the Fire! is the name used by VIZ, purely to follow on from the previous chapter’s Onward to Fry Pan. It’s not the same level of genius that was shown when they came up with chapter 8’s One, Two, Yamcha-cha! but I guess it’s okay. The original title is The Gyumao of Mount Frypan and this chapter sees Yamucha (and Pu’reh, if you care. This is a rhetorical question, I know no-one does.) stay well enough away from Son Goku and company. Smart move considering the series of indignities inflicted upon our King Hyena to date.
A recap, for those of you who doubt my power to flip through old chapters.
- Encounters Goku and co., fights a little then runs away like a wuss when Bulma appears.
- Fails to steal Dragon Balls at night and dorks out over the sight of a naked woman.
- Fights Goku again, loses a tooth.
And he had a rocket launcher and a machine gun at the time, you know. With Yamucha’s plan now to wait for the others to gather the balls and then steal them (because stealing them worked so well in the past), let’s see how the plan begins to pan out this chapter.
VIZ’s censorship is so lame. Why can’t they just say “Ox from THE HOME FOR INFINITE LOSERS” and be done with it?
Continue reading →
Posted in: Manga Review.
A big shout out goes to Adamant on the Daizenshuu EX forums for all of this information which I liberally stole.
Yamucha is an internationally known name. Maybe internationally known for being a rarely-used background character, but that’s still more internationally known that about 99% of everyone, alive or dead, real or fictional, have ever been, which is kind of sad really. Anyway, I’ve decided, every once in a while and with a crap load of help, to take a look at how our main man is portrayed across the globe, beginning with Denmark.
Continue reading →
Posted in: Yamucha International.
Our journey through Yamucha’s individual special techniques comes to an end after only three editions. Yamucha, being the expert warrior that he no doubt is (shut up), only needs three actual techniques to be awesomely outrageous (shut up!). Sure, everyone else needs to work hard, train for years and develop new techniques to keep up but by the 23rd Tenkaichi Tournament, our man had all the tools he needs to keep his prime spot (that is: Behind Tenshinhan and Kuririn and barely ahead of Chaozu).
What a guy.
Well, let’s take a look at the final weapon in the desert bandit’s arsenal. The one which completes his triumvirate of special techniques, rendering him nigh invincible (ahem). The Kamehame Ha!
I just thought you’d appreciate a shot that isn’t Yamucha being defeated for once.
Continue reading →
Posted in: Yamucha's Techniques.
The fourth part of our manga review, and the 10th chapter in the manga overall starts in an interesting way as regards its title.
In the VIZ localisation, the title is Onward to Fry-Pan…, obviously a reference to the travels of Son Goku, Bulma and Oolong rather than our own hero. However the original title, The Great Robbery Plan, is a reference to the change in Yamucha’s tactics as regards the Dragon Balls. Is it not enough to kick him out of focus in the manga itself? Do we have to start robbing him of his few moments of glory in the localisation too?
Anyway, the start of the chapter has no Yamucha at all so let us speed through it. Bulma wakes up, Oolong stayed up all night after the events of the previous chapter. Bulma needs a change of clothes, ends up in a bunny suit, and the trio get a-rolling once again.
Meanwhile, Yamucha and Pu’reh spy from the Kung Pao house and hastily organise another assault as this chapter begins to get into gear.
I like that even in Bulma’s fantasy Yamucha is rolling his eyes at all this.
Continue reading →
Posted in: Manga Review.
Thousands of Dragon Ball fan fiction stories have been written over the years. Some good, some not so good. A small percentage of them even focus on our own hero, Yamucha. Today, I’ll be taking some quotes from a selection of fan fiction out of context, simply for the humour it provides me (it also means I have to type less).
Some of these are from just plain bad fan fiction, some of them are just truly taken out of context and some are even parodies, designed to be utterly ridiculous. I’m not going to endorse or damn any of the stories linked here, that’s for you to decide.
However, I will be rating these stories based on their adherence to standard Yamucha fan fiction conventions.
According Yamucha any respect whatsoever in a work of fan fiction is an automatic fail. But don’t worry if you do. Even Akira Toriyama made this mistake around once every 8 years.
Continue reading →
Posted in: Yamucha Fandom.
Hey, kids! The Yamucha Densetsu has a new layout. Now lots of stuff says other stuff when you hover over it. Think of it as an Easter egg with no chocolate or any other positive attributes. Check it out! 
Hey, peeps! I'm back from my unscheduled hiatus. Exciting times.
