#dragon ball z tree of might

[ravoress]

[milian-aran]

Turles is what happens when a Saiyan is given melanin and realizes he can do whatever the fuck he wants

[dailycupofcreativitea]

UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

[w9kong]

Son Goku & Son Gohan in Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might (1990)

[tobiasdrake]

Fun Fact: There is actually a reason for why Turles looks like Goku. And it's hysterical. I talk shit about Toei a lot but they understood the assignment on this one.

Lord Slug is my #1 Z film but Tree of Might is also conceptually a lot of fun. Even if they did call him "Turles" for some reason, rather than going with "Tullece" which everyone agrees does a better job of conveying the veggie pun.

This is the film's explanation for why Turles looks like an evil Goku. Low-class Saiyans like Goku and Turles all have a mass-produced factory-line uniformity to them. Vegeta is a $10,000 custom-made designer doll with carefully handwoven stitching, and Goku and Turles are $5 Barbies sitting on a shelf in Walmart.

I love this. I love that as a thematic piece of worldbuilding for Saiyans. Tragically, due to the movies being non-canon and having little involvement from Toriyama, this is not an official piece of Saiyan lore.

But I wish it was. Because I love that idea.

What the dub calls the Tree of Might is Shinseiju, made up of the components Shin (Godly) Sei (Sacred or Spiritual) Ju (Tree). It's a sacred bit of fauna meant only for consumption by gods. It's never explained how exactly Turles stole into heaven and made off with this; It's probably a reference to the Peaches of Immortality that Sun Wukong stole in Journey to the West.

(Funnily, to avoid mentioning Kami's divinity, the dub claims the fruit is meant for Shenron.)

This is some Galactus shit. The tree's fruit sustains gods by feeding on worlds. Once planted, the tree begins to cultivate its fruit by absorbing nutrients and water, as well as the genki of the living things on the planet.

You might recognize that word as a component of "Genki-Dama" or the Spirit Bomb. Genki is one of several components of ki. It's basically a person's physical wellness. There are other components like yuuki (bravery) or shouki (being in the right mind) that influence your ki as well.

This is how the film sets up Turles as Goku's evil counterpart. Goku is a heavenly martial artist, who has studied under gods and learned heavenly arts legitimately. Turles is a thief who somehow stole into the heavens and made off with Shinseiju.

The Genki-Dama is a mass of accumulated genki collected from all across the world, which Goku then uses to attack. Shinseiju does something similar, draining genki from across the planet to create a its special fruit.

Goku was born a low-class nobody but has improved himself through personal development physically, mentally, and spiritually. Turles, too, was born a low-class nobody, but he improves himself by looting the heavens and sacrificing worlds on the altar of himself.

Kaio warns Goku early on that the Earth is doomed. There is nothing he can do. Shinseiju cannot be destroyed. The coming apocalypse cannot be thwarted. All things will die and nothing can be done. The end is inevitable.

The rest of the film is an act of seemingly pointless defiance from Goku, who refuses to accept "Your world is doomed, it can't be stopped, there are no options, there is no hope," as an answer. The problem here isn't really Turles. He's the villain, but even if Goku could beat him, Shinseiju would still destroy the Earth.

The problem here is the invulnerable God Tree from a realm far beyond mortal life, that has laid down roots across the entire planet and shrugs off any and all forms of damage.

The movie pits Goku's heavenly arts against Turles's heavenly stolen loot. And Goku comes up short. Turles has Shinseiju's fruit.

And Goku has Kaio's signature art.

And when the two come to blows....

Fruit wins. In a straight arm-wrestling match, Turles's stolen goods have made him too strong for Goku's practiced arts and disciplined study. Even the Genki-Dama fails, because there's so little genki left for Goku to borrow from the Earth.

Get the hell out of here with this amateur hour horseshit. Kaio's greatest arts simply can't win against Turles and Shinseiju. In the battle of heavenly warriors, it genuinely seems as if Turles is superior.

But then Counter-Fighter Goku has an epiphany. The Earth is dying because Shinseiju is draining it of all of its genki, right? And the Genki-Dama works by drawing genki out of things, right? So. Like. Hear me out. What if I....

I genuinely love this moment. The movies have a serious problem with overuse of the Genki-Dama for conflict resolution, and I'll admit that. But. Like.

It's just like how Lord Slug's Solar Genki-Dama made use of a super-obscure piece of Dragon Ball lore for great thematic effect. Goku unmaking Shinseiju by letting the Genki-Dama's genki-accumulation effect drink the whole goddamn tree is a brilliantly clever application of a component of the technique we don't really think much about.

Goku can't draw genki from the Earth because Shinseiju took it all. So Goku uses the Genki-Dama to take it back.

Like. It's far from perfect. None of these movies really rise to the level of "good". But there's a lot of interesting or fun ideas that they have. And I think, in the broad strokes, the ideas put forth by Turles and Shinseiju, as well as Goku's conflict with them, are really interesting.

They needed a lot more polish to really tell a good and compelling story. But there's some diamonds to be found in this rough.

[quantumleper]

Great Ape | Dragon Ball Franchise

[blackest-reborn]

"Did you really think you could defeat one who regularly dines on the Fruit of the Tree of Might?"

[fujifingerz]

Turnip~

[mooniemenace]

"I win."

Turles/Tullece - Tree of Might, 1990

y'all know i had to draw my mans hehe

(REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED!!)

[sketchp00ch]

(2/2)

IT’S MONKE TIME BABYYYY

I’ll finally get started on Godzilla vs. King Kong Pt. 2.5 Kaiju Smack Down Electric Boogaloo

Did I mention this was suppose to be a love story? No? Welp.

[ravoress]

Chichi and Goku

[st1kky]

TREE OF MIGHT!!

I'm in a Turles phase rn.

Also playing around with a different style.

[dailycupofcreativitea]

Every time I get into a new media I have to draw a shameless rip-off of it, thems the rules 😔🙏

References (this was taken straight from Vinland Saga):

[w9kong]

Turles & Son Goku in Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might (1990)

[tobiasdrake]

"The tree’s fruit sustains gods by feeding on worlds. " so does that mean that the various gods Goku meets would also use the tree on other worlds?

Yeah, like I said, this is some Galactus shit. What do you mean the God of a world is sustained by an Immortality Peach reference that eats planets!?

Like. Toei. I see what you're doing with the Journey to the West parallel but you might have wanted to spend a bit more time thinking about how it meshes with the sci-fi apocalypse scenario you wrote!

[bluehairlaunch]

7 Dragon Ball Villains that could've carried their own arc

Honorable mention, Sorbet. So I enjoy Frieza as much as the next guy, but his wacky and colorful Frieza Force is what firmly places the Namek Saga over the Cell Saga in my mind. Like they're all such memorable characters that I even like Cui ffs. However, let's be real, none of these guys could carry their own arc. At their heart, they're all followers (all except good ol' Geets). Maybe before their recruitment they had more ambition and determination, but when faced with Frieza's insurmountable power, they ultimately all bent over and bowed.

Sorbet is an odd example, because he is definitely a follower as well, although when the power vacuum that is Frieza and King Cold's death opened up, he didn't turn away. He instead took charge and kept the Planet Trade Organization afloat for DECADES, despite being a koala-man with a power level that I'm sure rivals Appule at best.

The only reason he's not on the list proper is because when we finally get to see Sorbet in action, he's trying to pass the torch back to Frieza. He still gets major points tho for leading as long as he did

Spoilers: no one else from Super is on this list, even though a filler character is

Monster Beast Giran

Look, I'm not saying Giran could've carried his own saga, but if Dragon Ball had been written by a more traditional shonen mangaka instead of a gag artist, he probably would've been the Big Bad of the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament. And yes, I'm using his added characterization from filler scenes in the anime to make my point.

A milk drinking brute with a voracious appetite and a deep-seated hatred of heroes, this absolute unit was unfortunately no match for Goku in canon, but his hulking appearance and quirky personality (at least in the anime) always stuck out to me. In my generic re-write of this arc, a majorly buffed Giran faces Jackie Chun instead, and defeats him. He then faces and almost defeats Goku in the final, but Goku transforms into a real monster beast for the win, and that's that

Yea I won't be trying to retell the story for the rest of these entries

Raditz

It says a lot about the quality of Toriyama's villains that Goku's evil brother from space is a mere speed bump on the road to the real top dog of the Saiyan Saga. This dude is so fucking sexy and such a piece of shit that I can't help but imagine what he could've gotten himself into if only he had more screentime

Staff Officer Black

I know Toriyama loves subverting expectations and that's one of the things I so greatly enjoy about Dragon Ball, but c'mon. Commander Black of the Black Ribbon Army would've been... so so sooo cool. The dude's a true believer, actually loyal to his men, and idk what Red did to become the leader over him, but he seems to have been the real brains behind the operation. Dragon Ball Online brought back Commander Red as a cyborg and all I'm asking is why not Staff Officer Black instead?

Turles

Aight so Tree of Might isn't the greatest movie, I'd even say it's mid at best, but it also has amazing ideas. The Tree of Might? Neat, inspired, scary, and also drawn from Journey to the West lore. Turles? Sexy tan Goku, what's not to like? His Crusher Corps? Don't get me started on his Crusher Corps, because they all have their own story, which was included in extraneous material, but not the movie itself.

Amond, the big guy? Yea he was an intergalactic criminal that was arrested by the Galactic Patrol until he was freed by Turles. Daiz was the Prince of the Pukimpa Dynasty that led his planet's army against Turles, but was defeated, then recruited for fighting so bravely. Cacao was a cyborg built to fight an interstellar war before he fucked off to become a bounty hunter and eventually join the Crusher Corps. Rasin and Lakasei were fossils resurrected by Turles using extract from the Tree of Might.

Fuck, Turles himself is a low-class Saiyan warrior that somehow found or stole the holy Seeds of Might, which were reserved for Kai. When I was a kid my older brother told me (read, lied to me lol) that Saiyans were all test tube babies grown from different strains and that's the difference between low medium and elite saiyans and why he and Goku are almost identical. Like, that's not true, but there's a lotta fleshing out you could do with Turles to make him and his potential saga more compelling

Demon King Dabura

Ruler of a shadowy demon realm for thousands of years with a power level that equals Perfect Cell, Demon King Dabura is also... the bitch of a tiny bitchy wizard? Yup, that's Toriyama all right.

So lemme start by saying that this guy gets so little credit he's not even in Fighterz, despite having a cool sword and a huge canon moveset. He also looks... well tbh, he doesn't look as awesome to adult me as he did to kid me, but he's still neat looking. I like his horns and his funky glamrock outfit. He also probably had his own Dabura Force filled with edgy evul henchmen (including Shula from that filler episode, who I'm pretty sure inspired Dabura's creation) that could've easily filled an entire saga.

It says a lot that Raditz isn't the lead of his saga, but imo it says way more that Toriyama created an entire evil universe opposite the regular universe ruled over by this baritone Satan and he's just a footnote. It also says a lot about Dragon Ball Heroes that instead of trying it's own thing, it digs up Toriyama's fossilized spittle and creates Mira, Towa, and Kabuto from Naruto.

Mercenary Tao Pai Pai

Ok so I'm biased, because this flamboyant bastard is easily one of my favorite villains, and that's including everything, not just Dragon Ball or comics. He oozes so much style that I'm not even sure how you could stretch him out into an entire arc, but it doesn't matter, because he could make it work. The dude can make watching someone else shop for clothes compelling ffs, so as far as I'm concerned, Tao could've been the villain for the whole of Dragon Ball and it'd be just or almost as good as what we actually got

His shirt says Kill You! he's seriously the best don't @ me

Dr. Gero

Mustache

Yes, I know he was supposed to be the Big Bad, but Toriyama's former editor didn't think an old man in baggy pants and a fat clown could carry their own arc, but they're wrong damn it! Just look at him