Dragon Ball: Yamcha's Origins Prove He's More Than Just A Joke
Yamcha has long been seen as little more than the butt of a joke in the Dragon Ball franchise, but his origins are much darker than one might guess. Akira Toriyama originally based his manga, Dragon Ball, on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en. Several Dragon Ball characters bear strong similarities to characters from Journey to the West, and Yamcha most notably resembles the heavenly general Sha Wujing.
The character of Yamcha was first introduced in Dragon Ball chapter 7, titled “Yamcha and Pu’ar.” Yamcha is a minor villain in the next chapter, handily beating Goku and sending him flying through pillars of rock. His early appearance as a desert dwelling villain is tied directly to another one of Toriyama’s older characters. Before Dragon Ball was ever published, Akira Toriyama developed a prototype manga that followed roughly the same story beat — Dragon Boy. In this manga, Yamcha’s role as a desert villain is replaced by a river monster named Gojo. This all but confirms Yamcha’s ties to the heavenly general also known as Sha Wujing, an outcast who lived in a river of quicksand.
Related: Dragon Ball Z Hinted At Yamcha Being Stronger Than Cell
In the original Journey to the West novel, Sha Wujing is a heavenly general with awe-inspiring power and a fearsome appearance. Much like Dragon Ball, the version of the “Other World” in Journey to the West is populated by heavenly bureaucrats with the Jade Emperor at the top of this hierarchy. One day, Sha Wujing accidentally destroys a sacred vase and the Jade Emperor casts him out of heaven, forcing him to be reincarnated as a violent man-eating sand demon. Sha Wujing remains as this demon for some time, even killing a group of monks and sucking the
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