Episode 23 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on October 18, 1989 (Funimation dub: Saibamen Attack!), has a blunt title that gives the ending away. Reinforcements arrive, Vegeta turns the battle into a series of duels against the Saibamen, and Yamcha, confident after a year of training, walks into a trap there is no coming back from.
Summary
The six Saibamen attack at once. Krillin and Piccolo hold their ground while Gohan freezes in shock and gets hit; Piccolo steps in to protect him. During a lull, Tien and Chiaotzu arrive and meet Gohan for the first time, followed shortly by Yamcha, eager to show how much he has improved.
Now it is six against six. Vegeta proposes a little tournament: one fighter at a time against one Saibaman. The Earthlings agree, since every minute gained brings Goku closer. Meanwhile, on TV, Yajirobe gives interviews explaining that his team is already fighting and that he is staying back for strategic reasons.
Tien goes first and dominates his opponent, which sprays acid from its head but still ends up flat on the ground. When the Saibaman tries to get up, Vegeta destroys it from behind: anyone who does not give everything is useless to him. Krillin volunteers next, but Yamcha stops him. Krillin has already been revived once with the Dragon Balls, and if he died again he could not come back. Yamcha will go instead.
Yamcha knocks his Saibaman down and, pumped up, challenges the remaining four on his own. It is a fatal mistake: the creature he thought was beaten leaps onto him, grabs him and self-destructs. When the smoke clears, Yamcha is dead. At Kame House, watching on television, Puar screams his name and Bulma breaks down in tears. Krillin, devastated, vows to take on the surviving Saibamen by himself.
Our take
Yamcha's death is a deliberate shock, and it works precisely because it comes so early and so senselessly. Yamcha is a founding character, around since the first volume, and he falls to a lab-grown little monster a second after letting his guard down. Toriyama sets the rule of the saga: against the Saiyans nobody is safe, and experience from the old tournaments is not enough.
Yamcha's choice to fight in Krillin's place is the finest detail in the episode. It shows the characters know the rules of the Dragon Balls and use them to make moral decisions: the one who goes is the one who can still be brought back.
The anime expands the manga in several places. The opening skirmish with the Saibamen before Tien arrives, Yamcha's delayed entrance, the TV coverage with reactions at Kame House and Yajirobe's new TV cameo are all additions. In the manga, the Saibaman Tien elbows also has its head split open; in the anime it stays intact.
Trivia
- This is Yamcha's first death in the series. The pose he is left in after the explosion has become one of the most famous Dragon Ball memes.
- In the Japanese version, as he runs along Snake Way, Goku has a bad feeling about the battle; in both English dubs the scene has no dialogue.
- The episode adapts part of chapter 214 and chapter 215 and drew an 18.8% ratings share in Japan.
Did you know? In the Japanese version, standing over Yamcha's body, Krillin thinks about how he will break the news to Bulma and Puar. The English dub turns it into a more generic "It should have been me!"
Characters
- Gohan, Krillin and Piccolo
- Tien Shinhan, Chiaotzu and Yamcha
- Vegeta and Nappa
- Saibamen
- Yajirobe
- Goku, Bulma, Puar and Master Roshi