Character Guide: T - U 

General Tao - “Tao Pai Pai” Brother of Crane Elder, he is a world-renowned assassin who works for the Red Ribbon Army.  His main job is to locate Dragonballs and take out Goku.  Having never been defeated, he at first assumes that stopping the antics of a small child is a simple task, until he realizes that Goku is more than what he seems. At one point, he throws a grenade at Goku and leaps high into the air, thinking he’s won.  But Goku instead uses his Power Pole like a baseball bat and smacks it away.  Unfortunately for Tao Pai Pai, the grenade goes flying into the air right for him, and detonates in his face.  Tao manages to survive, but is forced to recreate some parts of his body as a cyborg.  The next time Tao Pai Pai appears is in the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai where he faces off with Tien.  As Tien was once Crane Elder’s student, Tao Pai Pai proclaims Tien to be a traitor to his brother and himself.  During the match, Tao pulls a dagger from his robotic arm and slashes Tien across the chest, leaving a permanent scar.  Tien still defeats him, knocking him out with a swift powerful punch.  Tao Pai Pai returns again much later in the anime midway through the Cell Saga and meets Goku’s son Gohan.  His pink shirt with the words “kill you” on the back is a nice touch to his wickedness.  He tries to trick Goku out of the Dragonballs he’s gathered, but fails despite Goku’s total naiveté concerning Tao’s intent.  Tao finally gives up and lets him walk away without a fight, which Tao knows would be suicide.  Tao Pai Pai stands 5’8” tall and weighs 155 ½ lbs, and he of course declines to disclose his home address at the Tenkaichi Budoukai, due to the fact that he is a world famous assassin.

Tien - “Tienshinhan” One of the few humans to ever master his ki and perhaps the strongest human ever to exist.  Tien is considered human despite the third eye in the middle of his forehead, which never blinks, but usually looks in the same direction that his two normal eyes are looking.  Tienshinhan trained under Crane Elder when he was young.  Dedicated and strong-willed, he was the perfect student, and thus he learned quickly from his master.  Tien trained hard until he became an incredibly powerful warrior not to be reckoned with by any on Earth.  His past is never fully revealed, but through the course of several adventures he becomes best friends with Chaozu the young emperor, and gives up his dedication to his master as an assassin when he discovers a plot against the emperor.  He faces off against Goku in the finals of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai, and it seems that he is about to win until Piccolo Daimaou’s spawn Tambourine enters the scene and disrupts the match.  The match is never finished, and so the winner of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai is never determined, except to a draw between Goku and Tien. Tien stays loyally by the side of Chaozu, his travel companion and sparring partner, and his closest friend.  He has many moves that the others picked up from him and used in battle.  Some examples of these are Taiyoken (Solar Flare) and the Tri-Form technique.  However, unlike the others, Tien masters the Tri-Form technique and expands on it until he creates multiple forms of himself, sometimes 4 or more.   He also masters a move called the Kikoho, or the Triangle beam, the same used to stall Imperfect Cell, an act that nearly kills Tien.  He weighs 166 lbs. and is 6’1” tall, making him the second tallest member of the Z crew.

“Toma”* A tall, muscular member of Bardock’s crew in the Bardock Special, he is second in command of the team and Bardock’s best friend.  He is the last of Bardock’s team to die, except for Bardock himself.  When Bardock travels to planet Meet, he finds his entire crew slaughtered.  The only one left alive is Toma, who is fatally wounded.  Toma tells Bardock how Frieza’s Elite Forces and Dodoria killed them because Frieza feared the Saiyajin were becoming too strong, especially Bardock’s team.  The red band that Bardock wears is actually the same white band that Toma has wrapped about his arm, soaked with Toma’s own blood that Bardock wipes from his friend’s face as Toma makes his last request – to stop Frieza.

Torah -   see Toma

Totepo* The big, burly member of Bardock’s team in the Bardock Special.  He is another one of the strong, silent type.  In fact, he never speaks a word in the entire movie!  However, in the dubbed version, FUNi gives him one or two phrases for some odd reason.

Chibi Trunks - “Chibi Torankusu”  (Young Trunks) Son of Vegeta and Bulma, Trunks is only an infant when he first appears in DBZ during the Android Saga.  He has purple hair like his grandfather Dr. Briefs, but his facial features, stance and strong Saiyajin pride clearly show that he is a descendant of the Saiyajin royal line.  He has a sister named Bra who is about 12 years younger than he.  His role becomes much larger by the Buu Saga, at which point Trunks is 8 years old and fantastically strong for his age.  He goes Super Saiyajin while training with Vegeta in the gravity room, an event that comes as a shock to all considering his young age.  Filled with pride, Chibi Trunks is adventurous and constantly looks for stronger opponents to challenge, much like his father.  During the final episodes of DBZ, Trunks, who is now 18, appears to be developing the same personality as Future Trunks.  This can be seen in adult Trunks throughout GT as well.  Trunks is born in the year 766 AD, and is 29 years old by the end of GT.

Future Trunks - “Torankusu no Mirai”  (Mirai Trunks) Son of Vegeta and Bulma, he is a purple-haired, blue-eyed teenage sex symbol, and probably the biggest heartthrob for the lady fans of DBZ, which is what his character was meant for (especially considering he’s the most powerful, and considered by many the sexiest unmarried male character in DBZ).  He also carries a sword, which seems unnecessary considering the circumstances of ki in DBZ.  It is popularly believed that Trunks was drawn with the sword mostly for the looks, because of a possible assumption of Toriyama that guys are into weapons and girls would think it sexy.  Trunks is about 18 years old when he first appears in DBZ.  He arrives just in time to kill Frieza and King Cold, and to warn the Z fighters of the android attack that will occur 3 years in their future.  He is from an alternate future in which Goku dies of a viral heart disease not long after defeating Frieza and King Cold.  With Goku gone, there is no Super Saiyajin to stop the evil androids of Dr. Gero from wreaking havoc across the Earth.  The two androids defeat and destroy every last Z fighter but Gohan, who loses an arm in the onslaught.  Born in the year 766 AD, Trunks was only an infant when the androids attacked and killed the crew, leaving him fatherless.  Gohan trains Trunks in martial arts as he grows older, while in the meantime the androids continue to destroy cities without mercy and kill crowds of people for fun.  When Trunks is about 10 or 11, Gohan is killed in a battle with the androids.  In the anime (and the movie), it is this event that triggers the great emotion within Trunks to be released, causing him to turn into a Super Saiyajin.  In the manga, he already has the ability to turn Super Saiyajin by the time Gohan dies.  With a few years of work, his mother Bulma invents a time machine that allows Trunks to travel back through time to the year 764 AD, two years before he is born, and give Goku the heart medicine to cure his disease. Because the cure was not discovered until several years after Goku’s death, this step is imperative to Goku’s survival.  With this accomplished, Trunks returns to his own time.  Normally this would create a paradox, with the argument that because of his actions, his present time no longer exists.  This is not true in this case, however, because by traveling back in time, Trunks creates two separate dimensions altogether, so that no matter how many changes he makes in the previous dimension, his will remain the same.  Trunks returns to his own time and waits 6 months for the time machine to recharge.  It is assumed that he trains during this period, although it is never directly stated.  Trunks returns to the past in 767 AD, only to find that the new dimension is already much changed from his own.  He stays to fight and help the crew to overcome the androids.  He also stays in order to learn more about the father he never knew.  He trains with Vegeta in the Room of Spirit and Time for the equivalent of a year, where both reach Ultimate Super Saiyajin.  He is killed by Cell near the end of the Saga, but brought back with a wish using the Dragonballs.  After Cell is defeated, he waits a few days to give his final goodbyes to his young mother Bulma and his father Vegeta, who finally admits his acceptance of him as a worthy son.  Trunks returns to his dimension once more, this time much stronger than before, and with his great new power destroys the androids and Cell from his own time period easily.  He wields a powerful sword of unknown origin (although the writers of Movie 13 attempt to explain it using Tapion’s sword as a gift, which makes little sense considering there were no Z fighters left in Future Trunk’s dimension to defeat Hildegarn except Gohan).  He uses his sword to slice Frieza to pieces in the Trunks Saga, but upon his arrival 3 years later, he hardly ever draws it.  Upon chipping it in a battle with Android 18, Trunks learns that the sword will no longer do him any good in battle.  After this incident, Trunks does not try to fight with his sword again until he returns home, when he battles the Cell of his dimension.

Turles - “Taresu”* The main villain of DBZ Movie 3, “The Ultimate Decisive Battle for Earth” (“The Tree of Might” in dub).  He is a pure-blooded Saiyajin, a survivor of the destruction of planet Vegeta.  He looks very similar to Goku, but despite the popular belief that they are brothers, distant cousins or even clones, the two are in no way related whatsoever.  The similarities in their features are most likely due to lack of creativity by the anime artists during the making of the movie.  Turles has darker skin tones than most Saiyajin, and wears dark purple armor.  With a small group of followers, he travels the universe searching for a planet with enough resources to plant a legendary magic seed of the Shinseju Tree.  According to legend, the tree absorbs all the planet’s resources to grow, and once the tree grows to its fullest, it bears fruit of the Gods, which contain all the energy retrieved from the planet’s resources.  If the fruit is eaten, that person will gain all the energy stored in the fruit.  With a great lust for power, Turles lands on Earth and plants his seed.  In a matter of hours the tree grows for several miles around until it reaches hundreds of miles across the Earth, destroying all cities and signs of life in its path.  Goku and his friends fly to the scene and battle his crew, only to find that they are overpowered except for Goku.  Turles does not participate in battle but instead kidnaps Gohan and takes off for the trunk of the massive tree.  Once he realizes that Gohan is part Saiyajin, he gleefully turns the boy’s eyes up to the full moon (while he takes care to look away), at which point Gohan transforms into Oozaru and wreaks havoc.  Piccolo challenges Turles, but the Saiyajin is far stronger, and simply knocks him away.  Although he has to work a little harder, Turles defeats even Goku with ease.  Once the tree grows to it’s fullest, and bears fruit, Turles snatches up the fruit and consumes not one, but several pieces.  Turles returns to finish Goku, and they face off within the trunk of the colossal tree.  Goku fires a Genki Dama, or Spirit Bomb (which was created from the energy stored in the fruit), at Turles and the tree, destroying both with the enormous ball of Earth’s energy.

Upa The son of Bora, the Indian chief, he helps his father guard the base of Kami’s Tower.  When his father is tragically killed, Upa accompanies Goku for a while and helps him recover all of the dragonballs so that they can wish his father back to life.