Yamcha's characterization

[ahill1]

Do you also feel Yamcha was mischaracterizated post part 1 considering to what had been shown to us in the part 1 of DB? If so, why do you think AT chose to do so? Just inconsistency when writing or a way to take him out of Bulma's life?

 

[Papasmurf]

I don't think it was too out of character. He had the kanji for pleasure (raku) emblazoned on his shirt during his first appearance, which to an extent explains why he was never as devoted to his training as Tenshithands or Kuririn. I doubt he actually cheated on Bulma though since he apparently didn't even have the balls to kiss her by the RRA arc 2

 

[Captain Cadaver]

I'm with Kenshi on this. The only thing that could be said to be mishandling of his character completely would be him apparently cheating on Bulma, and the truth of that is dubious at best when it's Bulma's word to her son against zero counter-point. Even though he was pretty dedicated to becoming as strong as he could in Part 1, his realisation of his limits compared to his peers was there pretty early on with how he immediately conceded he wouldn't even get second place when seeing Goku and Kuririn's abilitites.

 

[ahill1]

What about him insisting to Piccolo that they shouldn't advance and face mecha Freeza and his father, that their chi are too powerful, whereas before he was brave enough to choose saving Goku both from the RRA brigade and in his fight against Piccolo Daimao, knowing both times how massively outclassed he was?

Besides, it seems that in the RRA arc, when Goku wanted to get his radar fixed at Bulma's house, Bulma was too jealous just at the fact of Yamcha being attractive to the girls, with 0 information of Yamcha reciprocating such feelings he awakened in those girls and that being enough for Bulma to want to pick another boyfriend... it doesn't seem too likely that Yamcha's infidelity would be the cause of their break up.

Yamcha had also a more fine tune of seriousness to his character too, I feel, in DB's first arcs, while later on he basically jobbed at every enemy and isn't given a proper respect moment no longer, even suggesting silly things such as using the DBs to get a necklace for his girlfriend and openly admitting he was the most useless one... I don't know, I feel he wasn't kind of so in-tune with his early characterization.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

What about him insisting to Piccolo that they shouldn't advance and face mecha Freeza and his father, that their chi are too powerful, whereas before he was brave enough to choose saving Goku both from the RRA brigade and in his fight against Piccolo Daimao, knowing both times how massively outclassed he was?

In those cases, they were ones in which he was left with no choice when believing himself to be the last line of defence, unlike against any of the threats he faced in Z. He also wasn't able to sense Ki back then, something that would add an extra sense to quantifying how outclassed he truly was.

Yamcha had also a more fine tune of seriousness to his character too, I feel, in DB's first arcs, while later on he basically jobbed at every enemy and isn't given a proper respect moment no longer, even suggesting silly things such as using the DBs to get a necklace for his girlfriend and openly admitting he was the most useless one... I don't know, I feel he wasn't kind of so in-tune with his early characterization.

This is more the result of power creep forcing him into irrelevancy and him coming to accept this rather than an out of character change, same as how Tenshinhan conceded he was pretty much useless by the time of the Cell Games wait. With the DBs, it wasn't as though anyone else was coming up with a better wish until Kuririn spoke out and, assuming it was just a joke, that would be in line with his Part 1 characterisation when he'd occasionally add some levity to a situation such as commenting that they'd wait for the assumed creature that they believed swallowed the DB prior to the Uranai Baba events to just shit it out.

 

[ahill1]

That's well remembered about him being fun with the animal and the dragon ball. Iirc he also made a pun-joke while they were imprisoned by Pilaf's set up trap.