Dragon Ball is a series that is never lacking enemies. Even though Goku and the rest of the good guys topple these villains time and time again, there’s always another bad guy that’s just around the corner.
Due to the prevalence of antagonists, the series needs to push a little harder to make these bad guys interesting. Strength is one thing, but even that becomes boring when everyone grows progressively stronger at the same rate.
The Dragon Ball movies face an even harder battle to make their villains stand out, so the idea of some evil Goku lookalike is the perfect way to get fans’ attention.
The third Dragon Ball Z film, The Tree of Might, introduces Turles into the fray. Turles is an evil Saiyan, but he also inexplicably looks nearly identical to Goku, which makes the battle even more exciting.
It’s a novelty that works so well that Dragon Ball Super turns to it again with the whole Goku Black arc. Turles doesn’t show up in Dragon Ball Super, but that doesn’t mean that he still doesn’t leave his mark on the show.
Love him or hate him, here are the 18 Things You Didn’t Know About Dragon Ball’s Turles.
He’s Able To Wield And Possess Others With Dark Magic
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is a huge love letter to all of the Turles fans out there. The game does a ton of exciting things with the character when it just as easily could have completely ignored him like so many other titles.
What’s interesting about Xenoverse 2 is that it turns the Tree of Might into a major plot point. Towa taints the Tree of Might’s fruit and uses Turles and Lord Slug as guinea pigs to see how they react to this dark energy from the Demon Realm.
Turles becomes overwhelmed with power. He uses this demonic boost to his advantage, but he also attempts to spread its poison. Turles shares this Demon Realm fruit with the Ginyu Force and turns them into even more powerful versions of themselves.
Turles is eventually consumed and killed by his new powers, but he makes them count while they last.
He’s The Only Character Who Has Destroyed A Spirit Bomb
There are plenty of villains who are stronger than Turles and have caused more damage, but the Saiyan can always take refuge in the fact that he’s the only one that’s succeeded in destroying a spirit bomb. Frieza and Kid Buu have been able to slow down or repel Goku’s super-powered attack, but no one has ever straight up destroyed it.
Granted, Turles’ achievement holds a pretty large asterisk next to it. The spirit bomb in this case is drastically smaller than usual due to how much of the Earth’s energy has been sapped from the Tree of Might.
That makes this spirit bomb hardly on the same level as Goku’s other efforts, but hey, a win’s a win. Turles should be proud and never take Goku up on the opportunity for a rematch.
He Merges With The Dark Dragon Balls
Anyone that’s ever written some crossover fan-fiction between Spider-Man’s Venom and Dragon Ball is going to love this take on Turles. Picture some gnarly alien symbiote crawling out of the Dragon Balls and taking over Turles and that’s essentially what happens when he merges with the Dark Four-Star Dragon Ball in Xenoverse 2.
The Dark Dragon Balls get scattered throughout all of time and space and Turles eventually tracks down and fuses with one to gain its power. Turles takes on a much more evil appearance and starts to call himself Xeno Turles.
Xeno Turles plans to take on the Dark Demon Gods with this new power and after eating from the Tree of Might, he turns into Out of Control Turles. This stronger, more evil version of the character is supposed to have the strength of a Demon God, so it’s fortunate that he doesn’t stick around for longer.
15. He Runs His Own Faction Of Warriors
The Turles Crusher Corps are a formidable little troupe that Turles puts together for his energy-sapping Tree of Might plan. Turles assembles his own de facto Ginyu Force and pulls each member from a different planet in order to assemble the strongest team.
The team are quite strong in their own right, but their ultimate goal is to bear the fruit of the Tree of Might and then overtake Frieza.
Turles’ group of outlaws is comprised of Amond, Daiz, Cacao, Rasin, and Lakasei. The gang even makes a brief reappearance in the 12th film, Fusion Reborn, as they attempt to break out of the afterlife until Gohan stops them.
The crew also have a surprisingly large presence in Xenoverse 2 where the Crusher Corps really get to do some carnage as they put the Future Warrior to the test.
He Can Control His Great Ape Form
A huge detail about Turles is that he’s a Saiyan that still has his tail. That might not seem like news, but this physiological trait of the Saiyans seems to be increasingly less prevalent as the series goes on.
Due to Turles’ tail, he’s able to utilize his Great Ape form under the right circumstances. Saiyan Elite are able to wield control of their Great Ape forms and even talk as these giant beasts and Turles qualifies for this honor.
In The Tree of Might, Turles is all too eager to generate an artificial moon in order to take advantage of this skill. It’s also ability that the character shows off in the Budokai Tenkaichi series of video games.
He’s one of the main users of this ostentatious form, but without other transformation skills at his disposal, it’s still a strong move.
He Seeks Immortality
Turles fits nicely into that classic villain staple who’s not afraid to think big and shoot for the moon. Everybody needs dreams, even the murderous bad guys.
Many villains throughout Dragon Ball are happy just destroying planets and taking down anyone that comes in their path. Turles however aims to acquire the Dragon Balls so he can wish for immortality and use that to aid him in his domination of the universe.
Turles’ obsession with power begins in The Tree of Might where he wants to eat the fruit to gain a severe power upgrade. After getting this taste of power, Turles pushes this further in Xenoverse 2.
Here Turles wants to use the Namekian Dragon Balls to get immortality in conjunction with the Tree of Might’s power. It’s this ambition that ultimately corrupts him, but the guy deserves points for effort.
He Was An Insubordinate Warrior In The Saiyan Army
Turles makes for a memorable villain, but as far as soldiers go, the guy is pretty much the worst. The story is that Turles was sent out on a mission by Frieza and just decided to defect and not return. It’s at this point that he scours the universe and builds his mercenary group, the Turles Crusher Corps.
It’s clear by Turles’ actions that he has issues with authority, but Vegeta and Nappa corroborate this by spilling some tea on him. They complain about he couldn’t follow orders and was never showing respect for the Saiyan army.
All of this is fitting with Turles’ explosive demeanor, which is surprisingly hateful. He has needless rage towards everything, Saiyans included, and this unhinged nature adds to this villain’s strength.
He’s Wanted By Jaco And His Galactic Patrol
If you’re not on Jaco’s hit list, then you’re not a big time villain as far as the universe is concerned! Jaco and his intrepid Galactic Patrol do their best to keep the universe safe and when they’re on point they really do incredible work. Jaco might not look like much, but he’s put some real big guys out of commission.
Turles and his Crusher Corps get on Jaco’s radar after they raid a prison on the planet Nutts in order to recruit their member, Amond.
The entire team of the Crusher Corps have questionable backgrounds that are all of interest to Jaco, so catching the lot would be a huge coup for him. In Xenoverse 2 Turles begins messing with the Time Breakers and altering existence and Jaco needs to turn his efforts into high gear.
He Knows How To Fuse
Turles seems like a bit of an outcast amongst the Saiyans. Even the more ancillary Saiyans like Nappa and Raditz feel like they’re included more than Turles.
He doesn’t even get to have his own face. He’s stuck as some wannabe Goku. While Turles might get left out from some of the cooler Saiyan tricks, one ability that he is able to pick up is that handy fusion maneuver.
Turles goes a little nuts with this new trick of his and in Dragon Ball Fusions he pulls off several different types of fusion, like the EX-Fusion courtesy of both the Metamo-Ring and the fusion dance.
He demonstrates these with Raditz to become Turtz, but he can also do a five-way Ultra Fusion when he’s on Tekka’s team. Frankly, it’d be a little more interesting to see him pairing up with Lord Slug or Cooler.
He Teams Up With Frieza, Lord Slug, and Cooler
There’s something admirable about when a bunch of weaker villains are able to pool their efforts together and assemble some sort of Sinister Six operation.
The Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans OVA isn’t one of the more popular specials from the series, but it does feature one of the cooler showdowns from the show’s run. An evil sentient gas known as Destron Gas basically turns into “Ghost” versions of Turles, Frieza, Lord Slug, and Cooler.
It might be a bit of a cop out that these aren’t the real versions of the characters, but it still makes for an awesome battle against a Super Saiyan Gohan. Besides, Turles and Frieza are never going to work together otherwise.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 pulls from Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans and again pairs Turles up with Lord Slug.
He DOES Appear in Dragon Ball Z’s Anime
Turles’ claim to fame is that he’s the main antagonist of the third Dragon Ball Z film, The Tree of Might. Most people consider the Dragon Ball films to exist in their own canon outside of the series, but there are of course exceptions to this, like how Garlic Jr. shows up in filler episodes of the anime.
Well Turles actually receives the same treatment here in a sense. There’s a three-part episode arc that’s a highly edited down version of the film that takes place between the 45th and 46th episodes of the series, during the Namek Saga.
This three-episode representation takes a lot of liberties and edits out much of the more mature content. It’s considered to be inferior to the feature length version of The Tree of Might, but strangely enough the script for this multi-episode version is used for the updated version of the dub.
He’s Offered A Position On The Ginyu Force
Before the end of Frieza, Dragon Ball Z seemed to exist in this nice little bubble. The whole scope of the universe seemed in sight and if anything there was just one Super Saiyan transformation to unlock.
During this time in the series, the Ginyu Force is seen as one of the strongest threats in the universe and it’d be an extreme luxury to be asked to join them.
Turles is entirely happy running his Crusher Corps, but in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 after he messes up the timeline to assist Ginyu in battle, the Captain offers Turles a position on the squad (Guldo would maybe leave as a result?).
Turles refuses in bad ass fashion, but he does still fight alongside Ginyu in battle against Goku until the timeline gets fixed.
The Tree Of Might’s Fruit Boosts His Strength Tenfold
Frankly, all the so-called “records” regarding Dragon Ball power levels and strength qualifiers are bogus at this point. The show has expanded and nerfed abilities and standards numerous times over and nothing is set in stone any more.
That being said, some of the earlier stats from Dragon Ball are more credible since the series wasn’t that insane at this point. The Tree of Might fits into this category and so there seems to be a somewhat reasonable take on its power threshold.
Takao Koyama states that Turles is stronger than Dr. Wheelo, but weaker than Lord Slug, which places his power level around 19,000 to 30,000 on his own.
After he eats the Tree of Might’s fruit his power level is placed around 300,000. So it seems like the Tree’s fruit is as strong of a boost as turning into a Great Ape or a Kaio-Ken X10. Multipliers, people.
His Signature Attack Is The Kill Driver
Kamehameha. Final Flash. Special Beam Cannon. A big part of being a strong fighter is having those awesome signature moves at your disposal.
Turles’ appearance in Dragon Ball is brief, but he’s still able to show off his special weapon. The Kill Driver is a fiery ring of key that Turles expands and then launches at his opponent. Is has the strength to kill a Great Ape, so it packs some serious power.
He carries this move with him throughout a number of the Dragon Ball video games, but Dragon Ball Fusions actually goes one step further and introduces a more advanced form of the technique.
Turles’ Hyper Kill Driver is an even more vicious version of the projectile that’s maybe capable of killing a Golden Great Ape in a single blow if it follows the same math.
He Works Alongside Goku Black
Turles and Goku Black is a villain team-up that is so simultaneously stupid and brilliant that of course it’s something that the video games would need to explore.
In the climax of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, Goku Black pulls a Hail Mary by summoning a massive time rift and trying to pull as many villains as possible forward in order to defeat Goku and Vegeta. Goku Black’s efforts ultimately aren’t strong enough, the rift dissipates, and his cabal of villains disappear along with it.
Before the door shuts on all of this, Turles makes an appearance and he even gets some dialogue with Goku Black. The two don’t respect each other very much and Black thinks Turles’ hatred for Goku is outright foolish. Nevertheless, it makes for one crazy battle and one of the more memorable moments from Xenoverse 2.
He Never Becomes A Super Saiyan
One of things that the Dragon Ball video games are best known for is playing fast and loose with the series’ established canon. Certain characters only make miniscule appearances in the anime, but these video games give them new life and can help shade in their past.
This deeper focus sometimes translates into a stronger history for characters, but it also leads to crazy “What If?” style transformations. Titles allow lower-tier Saiyans like Nappa, Raditz, and Bardock to all turn into Super Saiyans. In spite of Turles’ growing popularity, he never gets such an opportunity.
Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that he works the Great Ape transformation so well, but isn’t it time Turles is allowed to cross this gap? He certainly has enough rage for the average Super Saiyan.
He Can Resurrect Dead Warriors
Turles has a lot of drive and anger that pushes him forward, but people don’t realize that he’s also a rather smart battle strategist. For instance, the main use of the Tree of Might’s fruit is to boost your strength.
That doesn’t mean that it’s the only use of the Tree though and Turles manages to exploit the plant in some creative ways. In order to produce its powerful fruit, the Tree of Might needs to drain all of the energy from its host planet.
Turles uses this draining process to bring warriors who are long-dead back to life. Turles pulls this off with Rasin and Lakasei, who then join his Crusher Corps. The two of them aren’t just dead, they’re literally fossils, yet Turles works some magic to get them back in fighting shape. He could really put this skill to dangerous use if he was properly motivated.
He Turns Majin
It was a momentous event in Dragon Ball when Vegeta decides to succumb to Babidi’s dark magic and turn himself over to the Majin side. So obviously Turles going through the same process is going to connect just as hard, right?
Babidi’s recruitment of Turles in Dragon Ball Heroes is certainly unexpected, but it makes for another interesting piece of flair for this character. Something that’s consistent across mediums is how much rage Turles has, so it’s not that crazy to have him indulge in these feelings and feed his dark tendencies with Babidi’s help.
Majin Turles (or Destruction King Turles) is one of the cooler additions to Dragon Ball Heroes, but until he appears in more places he’s still just an oddball in the Dragon Ball universe. What’s next, Great Ape Pan?
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