Who Is Turles in Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might? (& Why Does He Look Like Goku?)

The protagonist of this article is going to be Turles, a character first introduced in the movie Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might. Now, while the Dragon Ball movies have been introducing original characters for years, not all of them are as interesting as Turles, who looks like an exact replica of Goku. Why? This question, and many more, we are going to answer in this article.

Turles is a Saiyan deserter from Frieza’s army who later became a space pirate. A sinister character with a great physical resemblance to Son Goku who, together with the help of a gang of henchmen, planted a diabolical seed on the planets that gave a fruit capable of giving tremendous power to whoever tasted it, this seed gave a tree that destroyed to the planet by spending some time absorbing all of its energy.

In the remainder of this article, we are going to tell you about Turles and his story from the movie. Some spoilers are going to be present, so if you’re not fully up-to-date with everything that has happened in Dragon Ball, be careful how you approach our text. For those that are, we are going to answer all the questions you might have about this topic.

Who is Turles?

Turles is a Saiyan warrior and former Frieza’s henchman. His age is unknown, but he abandoned Frieza long before Son Goku was born. He escaped Vegeta’s destruction by being on a secret mission. He was infamous for being a Noise Seeker and broke away from Frieza’s army to found his own military.

At some point and in an unknown way, Turles discovered the Tree of Might, and with it he managed to destroy several planets to become even more powerful. Twenty-five years after Vegeta’s destruction, Turles, along with his minions, made their way to Earth to verify the existence of the Saiyan Kakarot. The seed of the Tree of Might has come into the possession of Turles. When the tree is planted, the tree will absorb all the energy of a planet.

Therefore, he searches for a planet that would be able to plant the seed, so that it can eat the Fruit of the Tree of Might and transform him into a being stronger than before. With him, Turles has assembled a set of warriors, all of whom are quite strong (stronger than the average Z-Fighter). After his arrival on Earth, Turles mainly watches the battle between his men and the Z Fighters.

He does not appear until he sees Gohan defeating one of his men, single-handedly. He realizes that he is Goku’s son and is soon reunited with him. Gohan is surprised to find that he has an almost identical appearance to his father and is also in fact a Saiyan. Turles asks Gohan to join his team, however, he refuses. Piccolo soon comes to Gohan’s rescue, but is easily defeated by Turles.

Turles soon sees that Gohan has grown his tail back, and he quickly creates a ball of Blutz energy. Helpless, Gohan transforms into a Gigantic Ape. Gohan soon goes on a rampage and nearly kills Goku. He stops abruptly when he sees his friend the Great Dragon on the spot. Thanks to his childhood innocence, he plays with Turles, however, when he attacks the Great Dragon, Gohan becomes furious.

To Turles’ surprise, Gohan is able to control himself and specifically attacks Turles. However, Gohan in that state is no problem for Turles and he is nearly killed. But Goku cuts off his tail before succeeding in Turles’ attack to kill him. Goku swears revenge on Turles for harming his son. With the Z Fighters defeated very easily, the Saiyan pirate’s men attack Goku.

Watching on the sidelines, Turles is ambushed by Piccolo, but is able to survive the Makankosappo. After this, Turles easily defeats Piccolo. With a single Kaio-ken, Goku defeats all of Turles’s men with a single blow. To Turles’ anger, Goku’s power continues to increase. Soon Turles realizes that he had highly underestimated Goku’s power and resorts to eating the Fruit of the Tree of Might.

Finally, Turles successfully grabs and eats a fruit, which significantly increases his strength. Even with a Kaio-ken x10 his strength is normal and even with a Genki-dama created with the little energy of the planet, Goku is unable to defeat Turles. Finally, when everything seemed lost, Goku intelligently begins to absorb the energy of the Tree itself, thereby creating a powerful Genki-dama, which he throws at Turles.

Turles, at the same time launches an attack to counter it, but in the end, ends up being hit by Goku’s attack, which definitively kills him along with the Tree, thus ending the battle and saving the Earth.

Turles appears in the Dragon Ball: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans OVA as a Ghost Warrior, under the orders of Dr. Lychee, to defend the Destructor Gas machines. He would face Gohan, but Goku realizes that they are ghosts and defeats him easily, but when he dies he makes that accumulated hatred make Hatchi-Hyack reach his maximum power.

In the manga, Turles is one of the Ghost Warriors summoned by Hatchi-Hyack, starting a match against Trunks from the Alternate Future along with Little Boo and Slug. Turles is one of the villains recruited by Fu to help him with his plans, to which Turles agreed with the idea of ​​becoming the Saiyan king of the new universe.

After meeting at the base of the Tree with Metal Coora Xeno, Super Number 17, Dr. W and Boujack, the Saiyan starts a fight against the latter due to the discomfort of the Saiyan blood that runs through his veins. Fu stops the fight, explaining how he saved him from his past defeat against Son Goku, and that in return he needs his cooperation to achieve his goal of creating a new universe.

Turles declares that he does not intend to lose again, as he eats the Fruit of the Tree of Might. Elsewhere in the universe, Turles and Boujack show up to confront Goku, Vegeta, Xeno Trunks, and Xeno Pan. Turles mischievously greets Goku, managing to strangle him from behind after mistaking him for a ki wave dust cloud, leaving Boujack to attack him in revenge for his gruesome defeat at the hands of his son, but is ultimately prevented by Vegeta.

After Goku managed to escape thanks to the power of Super Saiyan Blue, Turles continues to eat the Fruit of the Tree of Might and increases his power until he adopts a new form with a red and black aura, identical to Cumber’s, after for Boujack to do the same. When the two Saiyans realize that Fu is there and go to attack him, Turles and Boujack stop them by hitting them from behind with a wave of ki, telling them that their battle is against them.

However, Fu quickly becomes bored and orders Dogi-Dogi to immobilize the Z Fighters to capture Toki-Toki, leaving the place in the process via a space-time gap. Turles and Boujack are bothered by the meddling in their rematch with their old enemies, leaving in the same manner as the eccentric scientist.

Later, Turles would end up being engulfed by the light emanating from the Tree together with Dr. W. After witnessing Vegeta’s defeat at the hands of Cumber in the Pseudo-Vegeta of the New Space-Time, Turles suddenly attacks the primitive Saiyan, demanding that he not forget his presence, since he was now the most powerful of the Saiyans thanks to the constant consumption of the fruits of the Tree of Might, which has caused his evil to increase and has accessed the legendary state of the Evil Saiyan.

Excited to fight his equal, Cumber demands to see Turles’ true power, starting a feud. When Vegeta regains consciousness, both Turles and Cumber again corner him and beat him up, with the new Evil Saiyan discrediting him after adding that if he is a true Saiyan he should remember his past evil deeds, so he tries to drive him crazy with his Evil Aura.

However, Vegeta manages to overcome the corruption thanks to his pride and manages to make the power of the Evil Aura his own, managing to defeat both Cumber and Turles with great speed and agility. Vegeta rekindles Turles’ wounded Saiyan pride by telling him to train and get stronger, as that is the true nature of Saiyans, to which Turles replies that it would mean going back to being a low-class warrior, though for the time being he is. agree with it.

Later, motivated by Vegeta’s words, Turles interrupts with a ki blast the Saiyan of the Crimson Mask’s attempt to kill Goku, Vegeta, Hearts, Cumber, and Cell while they tried to flee from the dying Pseudo-Vegeta, recriminating the masked man. for underestimating the power of the Saiyan race. Furious at the interruption, Crimson fires a deadly energy ball at him to erase him from existence, but Turles meets his impending doom with a smile of acceptance and pride as the explosive attack reaches him.

Are Turles and Goku related?

This is, actually, a question that has not been properly resolved. Initially, Turles was stated to be Goku’s older brother, while subsequent releases listed him as being completely unrelated to Goku. The two of them look quite alike, but it’s been more than 30 years since Turles’ debut and since the canon hasn’t established a relationship between them, we do not think that they are actually relatives.

Why does Turles look like Goku?

If they’re not related, why do they look so much alike? Well, the answer is simpler than you think. They are both Saiyans, which means that they belong to the same people. If you know that all Sayians look very much alike and that you can easily distinguish them from other characters, it makes sense that Goku and Turles look alike. It might be a bit more than they’re supposed to, but check the previous section for an elaboration as to why.

Is Turles canon?

It is known that most Dragon Ball movies aren’t really canon. They portray standalone episodes and characters, but are not related to the main plot and do not influence it. This means that Turles was, when Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might was released back in 1990, a non-canon character. But, things have changed in the meantime. Namely, since then, Turles has made his debut in the manga series (2018) and in the anime (2022), which means that since 2018, Turles is canon. His story changed, but the character is canon.