S.H. Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Yamcha

Today’s action figure review comes courtesy of online retailer Big Bad Toy Store. No, I have not hit the “big time” where I’m getting freebies for review. Rather, BBTS had a Twitter give-away for an action figure and yours truly happened to be selected. Which is pretty cool, so thanks go out to Big Bad for the hook-up because otherwise I would likely have never had the chance to talk about this figure.

Yamcha comes straight from the anime Dragon Ball Z. I have reviewed a few of the figures from S.H. Figuarts in the Dragon Ball line, but I’ve largely avoided Dragon Ball Z. That’s because I only have room (and money) for one high-end anime property and if I had to choose I’m taking Dragon Ball over Dragon Ball Z. If I were to reverse course though, and maybe one day I will, I’d probably prioritize the earlier episodes of DBZ like the Saiyan Saga, which is where this figure comes from.

Yamcha is basically known to the fanbase as the punching bag of DBZ. He’s routinely one of the least powerful warriors and his most famous pose is lying dead in a crater. He makes himself an easy target because he’s often brash and quite arrogant, only to wind up getting his ass handed to him. He’s so bad that I even tried to make referring to someone as a “Yamcha” an insult amongst my friends back in my high school days, but I never really got the phrase over. Yamcha would change in later arcs and in Dragon Ball Super he became more self aware of his lot in life. This has made him actually endearing, to a degree, to the point where Yamcha may be able to refer to himself unironically as a fan favorite these days. After all, being outclassed by Goku is hardly meaningful anymore since virtually no one from those early episodes can hope to stand with him.

As mentioned earlier, this figure comes from the Saiyan Saga of DBZ so it depicts Yamcha in his orange Turtle School gi complete with big hair. He’s right at the six inch mark which I assume is pretty much average for the line and leaves him about 3/4 of an inch taller than the Vegeta from the same line (not factoring in Vegeta’s giant hair). It’s hard to say what Yamcha’s most popular look is since he’s one of the characters who seems to always change his look, but this one is certainly right up there. He maintained this look through the Frieza Saga before switching to an awful bowl cut that thankfully didn’t last long. It’s a simple look though and I suspect there’s a lot of parts reuse in this figure as he’s essentially Goku. I can’t confirm that though because I don’t have a Goku. The only real difference between he and Goku are the shoes and the lack of a blue undershirt, because Yamcha is first and foremost out to attract the ladies. The more skin showing the better.

The S.H. Figuarts line from Bandai is known for its high quality and abundance of articulation. Yamcha is no exception as there’s very little he can’t do as far as posing goes. His joints are all nice and tight with none being too tight so he has no trouble holding a pose. His head sits on a ball joint with surprising range of motion considering the giant hair behind him. The hair keeps him from looking up, but he can do pretty much anything else. There’s a hinge in the middle of his hair if you want to make his hair more billowy than usual, though it doesn’t do much to free up the head any further. He has a joint at the base of his neck that honestly isn’t really needed since he can look pretty far down without engaging it. The shoulders are ball-jointed with butterfly joints as well to allow him to reach across his chest and form a proper Kamehameha pose. The bicep swivels and the elbows are double-jointed. The hands are on ball-pegs with hinges in them so they can rotate and turn in and out. There’s an upper torso joint under the gi that provides for tilt and rotation there as well as another ball-joint at the waist. The legs can go out, forward, and back pretty much without restriction and swivel there as well. The knees are double-jointed and the feet are on ball pegs. There’s a toe hinge and articulation at the knot in his belt, for good measure.

Were Bandai leaves itself open for criticism with this line is in the amount of articulation taking away from the sculpt. With Yamcha, it’s not much of an issue because the gi lends itself well to hiding articulation. It’s a flowing, roomy, garment with lots of folds to stash stuff in. Contrast this with Vegeta who is often in skin-tight outfits where the various seems and breaks in the sculpt really stand out. There are still odd parts where things look messy, like the crotch and mid-torso. The sleeves of the gi are also pegged into his shoulders and not attached to the main part of the uniform which is rather odd looking. The other frequent complaint I see is the lack of paint, and there, Yamcha isn’t much of an exception. Bandai sticks with colored plastic for the most part and almost never applies a wash or anything to bring out some of the detail. This figure though does have a wash applied to the sides of the pants, chest, crotch, and sleeves. I’m torn on if I prefer this look to what I’ve seen more recently in the Dragon Ball figures. Kid Goku, Krillin, and even Tao have really no wash applied to them and look mostly fine to me. The effect here does work in certain lighting and poses, though in others it stands out more than I’d like.

Yamcha comes packed with an assortment of facial expression and hands to complete his look. He has four distinct expressions for you to choose from, and swapping is simple and effortless. The bangs of his hair pops off to gain access to the face plate and the seems left behind are minimal. For expressions, Yamcha has a cocky grin, an open mouthed yell, a teeth-gritting face, and a stern face. If this were a Dragon Ball version of the character I’d want a frightened/shocked look, or a love-struck one for when he encounters Bulma, but for a Saiyan Saga Yamcha this is a strong assortment. He also has four sets of hands: closed fists, wide open palms, Kamehameha open hands, and martial arts pose hands. There’s some room for criticism in this area as Yamcha really doesn’t need the wide open, Solar Flare, styled hands. What he could really use are pointing hands for his Spirit Ball technique. The Kamehameha hands and martial arts pose hands give him enough range for his other signature maneuvers though, the Kamehameha and Wolf Fang Fist.

Lastly, Yamcha comes with one other important accessory: the Saibaman. This little green guy is notoriously the one who killed Yamcha. Or rather, it was a Saibaman who felled him and left him dead in a crater and that creature was not distinct from any other Saibaman. This little guy stands a shade under 3″ and is positioned in a permanent crouch. He’s largely colored plastic with very little paint but has quite a bit of sculpting details all over. The eyes and claws on the hands and feet are basically the only parts painted. He’s at least cast in two shades of green so he more or less looks the part, but really could have used a paint wash to bring out the grooves in the skin and the veins in the head. He’s minimally articulated and it’s largely a what you see is what you get affair. His head can rotate side-to-side a bit and the arms rotate at the shoulders on simple pegs. Oddly, the right wrist is on a peg and can rotate, but the left does not. What he’s missing is articulation at the leg, because with a simple swivel there he’d be able to really grab onto Yamcha for his self-destruct attack. Instead, if you want to attempt that you basically need to make Yamcha hug the little alien, which looks a bit silly. This makes the accessory something to pose opposite Yamcha like the two are about to face-off. It’s not nothing, but it’s a shame Bandai didn’t sink a few extra pennies into the sculpt to make it really work. Though if we’re on the subject of small changes that could have made a big difference, I wish instead of the standard one-color backdrop in the box that Bandai had printed the infamous crater instead!

There’s room for nitpicks with this release, but at the end of the day this is easily the best Yamcha figure ever made and likely will ever be made, at least as far as the Saiyan Saga is concerned. It’s another high quality release from Bandai via the SH Figuarts brand. There are very few poses he can’t pull off and the screen accuracy aspect is fantastic. Sure, the Saibaman is essentially a foot note for the release, but it’s not as if Yamcha is missing anything. Sure, some might have preferred another energy wave accessory, but this is fine. Though I’m guessing there are some diehard collectors out there rooting for a proper stand-alone Saibaman figure. Until that happens, this will have to do. If you ever wanted to add Yamcha to your collection, it would be hard to pass on this one.