Among the variety of Dragon Ball characters, Yamcha is certainly one of the more intriguing ones. A former criminal who encounters Goku during his journeys, Yamcha is a skilled fighter who opted to join Goku and thus became a pupil of Master Roshi and his Turtle School. Over the years, Yamcha has shown numerous skills and feats, and he was even able to transform on several occasions. But is he a Saiyan, and can he go Super Saiyan? He certainly does look like Goku… be that as it may, in this article, we will answer this question for you.
No, Yamcha is not a Saiyan and can, therefore, not transform into a Super Saiyan. Yamcha looks like Goku a bit and has trained with Roshi like Goku, but he is simply a Human-type Earthling and is not related to Saiyans in any way. His Super Saiyan 3 form was only seen in Dragon Ball SD, which is a non-canon spin-off manga.
In the remainder of this article, we will discuss Yamcha and his powers in the Drago Ball manga and anime. You are going to find out whether he can turn Super Saiyan and, if he can, what conditions have to be met for that to happen. We will also speculate on some other questions related to this main issue.
Is Yamcha a Saiyan in Dragon Ball?
Yamcha is a young man, born on March 20, Age 733; he measures 183 cm for 68 kg as an adult. He is inseparable from his friend Puar, a small flying animal capable of using the “polyform” technique. Initially, a highway robber who ransoms travelers passing near his lair located in the depths of a desert. He encounters very serious opposition when he tries to attack Son Goku, a child he believed to be harmless. He later ends up joining Goku on his adventures along with Bulma, Krillin, and Oolong and also becomes a pupil of Master Roshi, who also taught Goku. Since then, he has become one of the more skilled martial artists in the series.
Yamcha’s design is based on Mister Ho, another character created by Toriyama who appeared in the manga of the same name. He is a tall, handsome, physically fit, and slender man, with, during his first appearance, long black hair left loose and a green and orange uniform engraved with the kanji 樂, pronounced “raku,” which literally means “easy.” During the series, he will change clothing many times, going from the uniform already described before to that of the turtle school with the kanji 亀, pronounced “kame,” which literally means “turtle.”
His hairstyles, which changed many times throughout the series, inspired those of Son Gohan, Goku’s eldest son. Another physical feature of Yamcha is the large number of scars that the character has on his face. These scars appear, for the first time, upon Yamcha’s return from the training he had undergone for the 23rd Tenkaichi tournament.
Due to his skills and his physical appearance, Yamcha has often been compared to Goku, and it cannot be denied that the two look alike. But Yamcha and Goku are not related, as some fans think. Goku is a Saiyan, and while Yamcha does look like him, he is actually a Human-type Earthling and is in no way related to the Saiyan race. This is why we can answer the first question clearly by stating that Yamcha is not a Saiyan. This was a prerequisite answer for our second section, where we are going to give you details on Yamcha’s powers and abilities while also answering if he can enter Super Saiyan mode or not.
Can Yamcha transform into a Super Saiyan?
Due to the fact that he is not a Saiyan, Yamcha cannot transform into a Super Saiyan, which makes absolute sense. Now, the non-canon spin-off manga, Dragon Ball SD, has shown a Super Saiyan 3 iteration of Yamcha. Still, that work is absolutely not canon, and this transformation was never even mentioned, let alone seen, in any other work in the franchise. But Yamcha does have a lot of other skills and powers, and we are going to name a few of them.
Yamcha is a great martial arts athlete, and before Uub’s appearance, he was one of the most powerful human warriors, along with Krillin, Tien Shinhan, and Chiaotzu. In addition to being a formidable fighter since his first appearance (he manages to throw Goku with such force that the latter knocks down numerous rock columns), Yamcha demonstrates an in-depth knowledge of many famous fighters and of the legends passed down in the world of Dragon Ball: in fact, he knows Master Roshi and the Kamehameha, Son Gohan, and the Nyoi-bo, the Ox-King, and King Chappa even though he has never met or seen them in person).
Of all the main characters in the series, his fighting style is the one that, more than any other approaches orthodox martial arts. His Wolf Fang Fist, in fact, consists of a series of strikes with both clenched fists and open hands mixed with roundhouse kicks and sweeps. Shin Rōgafūfūkenis the stronger and faster version of the normal Rōgafūfūken that Yamcha uses only once, during his match against Tien Shinhan at the 22nd Tenkaichi Tournament.
In addition to this technique, Yamcha is able to use the Kamehameha and a technique of his invention: the Spirit Ball. Although the Spirit Ball is Yamcha’s most characteristic and, in a certain sense, more powerful technique, in the manga, it is used only once, probably due to the increasingly marginal role of the character. In the anime, in many episodes and filler scenes, and in several Dragon Ball movies, it is used instead. In one episode of the anime, Yamcha creates a much larger Sokidan named Chou Soukidan.
In addition to this, Yamcha is able to sense ki and levitate with it, as well as increase and decrease his aura on command, like many other characters in the series, and also demonstrates that he possesses a prodigious healing factor; in fact, he manages to recover completely from a compound fracture of the tibia (inflicted on him by Tien Shinhan during the 22nd Tenkaichi Tournament) in less than two days. During the time he was a bandit, he also made use of bladed weapons such as swords and large caliber firearms such as missile launchers.
