Yamcha is far stronger than you think

[TyphosTheD]

I am going through and rewatching DBZ and DBS, and reviewing the scaling for a few of the weaker characters, notably Roshi and Yamcha, and noticed some pieces of their scaling seem to be missing.

For example, with Yamcha, in the Otherworld Tournament in DBZ, he beat Olibo, who stalemated weighted Pikkon, who slapped Cell in two hits. In DBS, he struck out Botamo in the Baseball game, who could have potentially beaten Goku (as stated by Goku) and could possibly scale to SSB Goku for catching the ball that Goku hit during the game. Yamcha also took a direct hit from Vegeta's Baseball pitch without dying, which is an interesting feat on its own.

I am curious for the lack of reference to these feats, and what the rationale is behind ignoring them.

 

[Genericstickman]

Isn't the Olibo feat from the anime + an outlier? Also using the baseball episode for feats doesn't seem right

 

[TyphosTheD]

How would it be an outlier? Yamcha went from Saibaman level to beyond Recoome in a few days of training with King Kai. What's ten more years of training going to do? And again, he struck out Botamo, who should at least be around Base Goku level considering Goku thought he would have lost against Botamo outside of a tournament setting, and who caught a ball from SSB Goku hit with sizeable power considering he was initially competing with SSB Vegeta.

 

[Ionliosite]

Olibo and Recoome feats were on filler, and not even Kai keeps it.

 

[TyphosTheD]

What's the problem with filler?

What does Kai have to do with this?

 

[ItsOnlyDanny3]

What's the problem with filler?
What does Kai have to do with this?

Filler doesn't take place in the original canon. Fillers are usually made when the original source needs time to catch up. As the Otherworld events didn't happen in the original manga, this example of scaling simply isn't viable.

 

[TyphosTheD]

Fillers are sometimes used for the manga to catch up. However, not only is this not the case with Dragonball Z, Toriyama oversaw, signed off, and furthermore accepts the additional content that Z included. He considers them something like the untold stories from the manga.

There's no reason to exclude Z as canon, considering the author accepts them as genuine Dragonball stories extending the manga. Again, even Kai, which many consider canon, includes scenes from Z, which unfortunately actually cause some continuity errors.

 

[DbzDB2]

yamcha is the best

 

[TyphosTheD]

He certainly is. I'm not sure where the downplay comes from. It's like people can't accept that Yamcha isn't actually a meme.

 

[Genericstickman]

I mean he's planetary already

 

[TyphosTheD]

Right, as a super lowball. But he should scale above Cell if people would get the picture that Z is canon to Dragonball.

 

[Genericstickman]

if we lowballed him we wouldn't be tier 5

 

[TyphosTheD]

That's fair, though even the high ball Tier 5 is a lowball if you accepted Z as canon.

 

[TyphosTheD]

So, I guess to bump this, why aren't feats from Z included? It seems odd to exclude content clearly intended by Toriyama to be part of the DB story.

 

[Ionliosite]

The only Z fillers that are accepted by Toriyama (and read that literally, accepted by him, we aren't sure if that translates to canonicity) are those that were left by Kai, which is basically a "Director's Cut" version of DBZ.

 

[TyphosTheD]

Toriyama said that Z and the Manga are canon, breaking out further that he likes what Z added to the story, considering them untold stories from the manga.

 

[Ionliosite]

Source on Toriyama saying Z is canon. The part about him liking the filler stories is true, so I just want the source for the other half.

 

[TyphosTheD]

It was an insert of a French Magazone, "Dragonball Z Anime Special," 1989.

Toriyama explained in his mini manga, "Anime and Me", his impressions of the Z anime, what they added, his thoughts on them, and the key piece at the end.

"Dragonball, it's the anime and the manga." It's clear that Toriyama considers the Dragonball manga and Dragonball Z the same "Dragonball" story, so what happened in Z is just a further expounded upon version of what happened in the manga.

 

[TyphosTheD]

 

[Ionliosite]

That's just Toriyama saying he likes the filler, I don't see what part of that implies the filler being canon. The "it's the anime and the manga" line is too vague to take it as evidence of anything.

 

[TyphosTheD]

It's actually not too vauge. If you asked Toriyama if, for example, Yamcha got strong enough to fight the Ginyu Force, by this example, he'd say yes.

Dragonball Z is canon to the story by virtue of including all of the Manga content, and adding on the additional stories that Toriyama apprecitates considering the anime creation conditions simply means, if anything, it's more canon, as Toriyama considers those extra stories as genuine Dragonball stories.

 

[GojiBoyForever]

This is a huge outlier and filler.

 

[TyphosTheD]

Considering that Krillin in the Namek Saga upwards of 75,000, more than enough for most fo the Ginyu force, that the other Z fighters could get that strong is strange to you?

Also, as I asked above, under what pretense does "filler" disqualify Dragonball Z as a valid source for information on the story of Dragonball?

In addition, if it is an outlier, then could you explain how Yamcha seemingly didn't get stronger at all between the Saiyan Saga and Dragonball Super RoF Arc, when Tien indicated that the Frieza soldiers would be too much for him? That should only have been the case if they were actually stronger, not the paltry ~1,500 that they were at during the Namek Saga.

 

[GojiBoyForever]

Idk, maybe the fact it's non canon?

 

[TyphosTheD]

What dictates that it is non canon? Is it Toriyama defining Dragonball as "the anime and the manga"? Is it Toriyama's contributions to DBZ in the way of mini story arcs, characters, corrections, and oversight?

Or is it non canon because you think only if Toriyama explicitly wrote "And then Yamcha kicked Olibo" that it could possibly be canon to the story of Dragonball?

 

[ItsOnlyDanny3]

The scan made this actually kinda interesting, it might even be up for debate. In the end I would probably classify this as an outlier, as by that point in the story of Z, Yamcha said he had given up fighting after Cell was defeated. Him suddenly being twice as powerful as Cell goes directly against what was stated earlier in the story. It simply doesn't make sense, especially when you consider he was already falling behind the rest of the human Z-fighters before Cell appeared

 

[TyphosTheD]

The scan made this actually kinda interesting, it might even be up for debate. In the end I would probably classify this as an outlier, as by that point in the story of Z, Yamcha said he had given up fighting after Cell was defeated. Him suddenly being twice as powerful as Cell goes directly against what was stated earlier in the story. It simply doesn't make sense, especially when you consider he was already falling behind the rest of the human Z-fighters before Cell appeared

Sorry for getting back to you so late.

In the end, I think people who discount filler take a strange stance that is explicitly counter to author intention. Further, there is more than sufficient means of connecting the canon of the manga and anime using the interpretations of canon. Using three interpretations of "canon", we can easily tie the manga to the anime. "Biblical canon" - the original source material, taken as gospel, "Author canon" - things the author directly contributed to or created (Gregory, Launch, etc.), and "Owner canon" - things that the owner of the property has created or contributed the story (Shuesha owns DB, and was responsible for the creation of the Dragon Ball Z anime, which included Toriyama's contributions, which they highly respect).

So above is a robust interpretation of canon that can sufficietly tie the anime and the manga together, further supported by the author's own statement. Now regarding contradictions, if there is an in universe explanation for "seeming" contradiction, we should use those.

For example, Yamcha did say he'd given up fighting after Cell was defeated, yet here we see him competing in a Martial Arts Tournament in Otherworld. The simple, in universe, answer is simply that he took up fighting again, or that he continued to train. Yamcha saying he gave up fighting again doesn't entail that he would stop training all together (recall that he employs his Ki training in Baseball), or that he would refuse to ever train or fight again in the future. We have examples of people who have given up training, namely Gohan, in how their power drops substatntially, yet that doesn't present with Yamca. Yamcha has consistently floated around the top Three human fighters, which was also reiterated in the DBS manga expicitly recently.

Therefore, because the anime and manga is explicitly stated as comprising the story of "Dragonball", we have a robust interpretation of canon that can support their connectivity, and an in universe explanation for a seeming contradiction, we should all accept the power of Yamcha.

 

[Genericstickman]

Make a thread about the filler then because currently it's unusable

 

[TyphosTheD]

Make a thread about the filler then because currently it's unusable

Fair enough. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[ElixirBlue]

Kaido vs Luffy (anime) is the new canon for scaling One Piece

 

[TyphosTheD]

Make a thread about the filler then because currently it's unusable

Are there any existing threads explaining the current rhetoric behind Dragonball canon being exclusive to the manga and Kai? I did a cursory search, but didn't managed to find any.

 

[ElixirBlue]

Ok, take Harry Potter for example. In a vs wiki, which canon do we follow for making Harry Potter's profile? The Novels, that the author/creator of the verse made, or the movies, in which their propose was translating the books into movies?

 

[AwkguyDB]

So if Yamcha had a Toei profile, this would all be considered....

 

[TyphosTheD]

Ok, take Harry Potter for example. In a vs wiki, which canon do we follow for making Harry Potter's profile? The Novels, that the author/creator of the verse made, or the movies, in which their propose was translating the books into movies?

I would consider those different, because of the various interpretations of canon. The creator of the HP movies didn't own the HP franchise at the time the movies were made, and I don't believe JK directly contributed to adding things into the movies. So if anything, they were fan made stories translated from JK's books, occasionally taking some insight from JK. Now that Universal owns the HP franchise, however, I would consider their movies to be canon, since they own HP (similar to the "new" Star War canon).

However, this is different from DBZ. Toriyama is the creator of the manga, but he was also on the staff of Shuesha when they took ownership of the property, and employed him in writing, artistry, and story boarding. Toriyama made many contributions to the DBZ anime, and again, is quoted saying that they are both part of the story of Dragonball.

 

[TyphosTheD]

So if Yamcha had a Toei profile, this would all be considered....

I'm not sure what you mean. Toei profile? Like this: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:AidenBrooks999/Toei_Profiles

 

[ElixirBlue]

> However, this is different from DBZ. Toriyama is the creator of the manga, but he was also on the staff of Shuesha when they took ownership of the property, and employed him in writing, artistry, and story boarding.

https://www.quora.com/What-was-J-K-Rowlings-involvement-in-the-Harry-Potter-movies

 

[AwkguyDB]

So if Yamcha had a Toei profile, this would all be considered....

I'm not sure what you mean. Toei profile? Like this: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:AidenBrooks999/Toei_Profiles

Yes in these profiles both Filler and Movie feats are taken into account over the main canon feats.

 

[TyphosTheD]

> However, this is different from DBZ. Toriyama is the creator of the manga, but he was also on the staff of Shuesha when they took ownership of the property, and employed him in writing, artistry, and story boarding.
https://www.quora.com/What-was-J-K-Rowlings-involvement-in-the-Harry-Potter-movies

Yeah I made sure to do some cursory googling before my repsponse. I am aware that she was consulted, however, I haven't seen anywhere indicating that she was directly responsible for certain things added to the movies, nor that she explicitly signed off on certain content.

Side point: I'm not sure how reputable those folks would be, considering it's Quora, and I don't see any supporting evidence for these folks' claims.

 

[TyphosTheD]

So if Yamcha had a Toei profile, this would all be considered....

I'm not sure what you mean. Toei profile? Like this: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:AidenBrooks999/Toei_Profiles

Yes in these profiles both Filler and Movie feats are taken into account over the main canon feats.

These are great, and I'm glad that they exist, but it still stands in the face of reason, if you ask me. Outside of the movies being explicitly referred to by Toriyama as occuring in a different dimension, that verbage is never applied to the anime, in fact it's quite the opposite.

It seems quite ironic to take Toriyama's writing as the sole source by way of Biblical Canon, then neglect to adhere to his direct statements, in addition to the other support I suggested exists (I'm not suggesting you are in that camp).

 

[ElixirBlue]

Yeah I made sure to do some cursory googling before my repsponse. I am aware that she was consulted, however, I haven't seen anywhere indicating that she was directly responsible for certain things added to the movies, nor that she explicitly signed off on certain content.

If that's the case, do you have anything explicit saying Toriyama signed off with Yamcha in said filler?