Master Roshi

About Master Roshi

The Turtle Hermit, a martial-arts master over three hundred years old who trained Goku and Krillin and invented the Kamehameha. Roshi spends most of Dragon Ball Z on the sidelines, watching his students surpass him, but his wisdom still guides the younger fighters and he returns to the front line in Dragon Ball Super. Famous for his sunglasses, his island house and his hopeless weakness for pretty women.

Appearance

Roshi is a short, wiry old man with a bald head, a thick white moustache and beard, and permanent sunglasses. He wears beach shirts and shorts at his island home, Kame House, carries a walking staff, and sometimes wears a turtle shell on his back, the mark of his school. When he fights seriously, the scrawny hermit swells into a mountain of muscle, the Max Power form that first fired the Kamehameha.

Personality

Roshi is a legendary pervert and a genuine sage in the same breath, the comedy of Dragon Ball runs through him, and so does its philosophy. He taught the Turtle School's creed: train hard, study hard, play hard, rest well, martial arts not for victory but for living better. In Z he watches his students surpass him with pride rather than envy, offering the one thing power cannot give them: perspective. His weakness for pretty women is bottomless and played for laughs, but when the world ends, the old man still stands up, as Super proves when he returns to the front line.

Background & Story

Roshi trained under Master Mutaito over three hundred years ago, sealing away the Demon King Piccolo at the cost of his master's life, and drank from the Fountain of Youth, the long life that made him legend. He founded the Turtle School, took the sea turtle as his companion, and settled on a tiny island to watch the centuries. His students made his name immortal: Son Gohan, the Ox-King, and then two boys named Goku and Krillin, who arrived asking for training and left as the Earth's future. Roshi invented the Kamehameha and needed fifty years to do it; Goku copied it in minutes. The hermit's response, delight, is Roshi in one moment.

Powers & Abilities

• Kamehameha: Roshi is the technique's inventor, the original ki beam of Dragon Ball, which took him fifty years to develop and remains his school's signature.
• Max Power form: Roshi can swell his body into a hulking, muscle-bound state, concentrating his ki for techniques of enormous destructive force.
• Evil Containment Wave (Mafuba): The sealing technique of his master Mutaito, which Roshi attempted against both Demon King Piccolo and, in Super, new enemies, at mortal risk to the user.
• Three centuries of technique: Roshi's bag of tricks spans drunk fighting, hypnosis, pressure points and lightning palms, experience no younger fighter can match.

Key Relationships

• Son Goku: His greatest student, who surpassed him in childhood and never stopped honouring him as master.
• Krillin: His other great student, the boy Roshi raised into the bravest human alive.
• Son Gohan (elder): His earlier student and Goku's adoptive grandfather, the line through which Roshi's teaching reached Goku twice.
• Bulma: The teenager who dragged Goku into the world, Roshi's island is her first stop and his eternal temptation.
• Turtle: His ancient companion and housemate, the straight man to three centuries of hermit nonsense.

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