The Gospel According to Yamcha
- Otaku Pastor
- Nov 14, 2019
- 4 min read
Yamcha has a long history of defeats and losses in the Dragon Ball franchise throughout the decades. So many are his fails that he has practically become a meme within the show's fandom bent on ridiculing his bad luck and lack of catching a break. Yamcha was first introduced to us as a desert bandit in Dragon Ball who antagonized a young Goku and tried his chances at scoring with a young lady named Bulma. I like to believe that it all began to go downhill for our guy when he lost a fight to a kid Goku, who was still relatively inexperienced. Soon after that, Yamcha was thrown into an endless chain of ‘L's’ by losing in all tournaments early on by weaker foes, not measuring up to the skill and strength of the other Z fighters, dying by the hands of a former villain named Vegeta, losing his girlfriend, Bulma, to the alien pirate who killed him (Vegeta), being brought back to life only to die a few more times and these are only the start of the list. Yamcha is one of the most joked about characters in all of Anime and Manga history.
This got me thinking as to the reason why the writers and creators of the manga and animation were so bent on ending Yamcha's whole career (insert meme here) and making him into a recurring joke throughout the franchise. The truth is that the creators never really provide an answer as to this big question and some fans have gone as far as to say that the only possibility that Yamcha could ever catch a break and become a different character with a different outcome is if a completely different writer would rescue him from the DB universe and create a completely new storyline for our scarred playboy/baseball star.
I had to sit back and reflect on myself for a bit upon realizing that my life as a sinner is also the life of a loser, the life of a Yamcha. It doesn't matter how hard I try to be great, practice and train, I will never be as good as I desire to be on my own in the eyes of God. Upon realizing his mistake in losing Bulma to the prince of Saiyans (Vegeta), Yamcha tried and tried to train at the level of his rival at Capsule Corp. day and night and failed miserably in trying to be who he was not able to be by his own merits. His mistake was trying. We can try to be great and worthy of God's affection and love, we can try to be 'right' with God all we want but we will always play Yamcha every time. Ephesians 2:8 is straight to the point as the apostle Paul makes the claim that, and I quote, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God." I'll let you in on a little secret, I, sometimes, compare myself to others, even in spiritual things. I have personally tried my best to make God pleased and proud of me time and time again, to the length of believing that I could earn God’s favor towards me. In my own Christian walk I was repeatedly reminded that God has always been proud and pleased simply by me being open to His Holy Spirit and asking for Him to guide my steps on a daily basis. I don’t need to try in any other way to be accepted by God! Yes, I will always be approached by Christians who are more talented, skilled, and simply look like they have it better figured out than me but I can't let my critical perceptions guide into the pit of comparison.
Death by comparison was Yamcha’s greatest sin throughout the run of the series, he was always trying to compare himself to the better fighters that surrounded him; which was a roster mostly made up of extraterrestrials with exceeding power levels. Yamcha would often struggle to battle some of the regular fighters at the annual Tenkaichi tournaments (for the most part), what was he thinking in joining a team of ‘superheroes’ whose purpose was to defend earth from alien threats that could wipe out the entire planet? He was a human, a regular guy who just happened to be a decent fighter in the eyes of other men. Did he think that he could be of help against enemies that sometimes troubled even the great Kakarot himself in the heat of battle? Sometimes I wish that the writers of the show showed a little mercy towards Yamcha and would have written him out of many of those situations that would devalue him and sometimes even cost his life. In my opinion, the greatest villains that have ever crossed Yamcha in the entire franchise were not Frieza, Nappa, Cell, and others, but the writers of the series themselves. It is as if Yamcha was doomed to be the laughing stock of the entire series, created for failure. Sin has, by its nature, doomed all of us to failure. It is as if sin has become the ‘writer’ of this story we call life and there is no hope for any of us unless we get a change in the writer’s room. Unless a new and more gracious ‘Writer’ were to enter into the writer’s room of our lives and sketches out a brand-new story, we, like Yamcha, would remain doomed.
This is what the gospel is all about, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the ‘good news’ that the old ‘writer’ of our lives, sin, is no longer responsible for writing our story but that Jesus has entered the room with an amazing new story written for all of us. A winner’s story. Greater than the sacrifices of Goku against Raditz or Cell was the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross of Calvary to be our story writer, the One responsible for giving us the happy ending that we all desire, the One that doesn’t leave us as the laughing stock of life’s narrative. You and I will never summon the energy to pull off a Kamehameha against the forces of evil in this world, but even if we could it would never be a match for the power that Jesus has given us in rewriting our story in His blood. Believe in Him and He will save you from your sin. You don’t have to be a Yamcha, the choice is yours!
John 3:16
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