Master Roshi

Master Roshi is a character in the Dragon Ball metaseries. He is a human. His name in the English anime adaptation is a phonetic adaptation of that title: Master Roshi. Some fans find it humorous that this adaptation translates to "Master Old Teacher", or simply "Master Master".

The "Turtle Hermit" is an ancient and wise martial arts master and the first character to wield the

trademark Kamehameha. Though he seems frail, he is a mighty warrior. Master Roshi trained Grandpa Gohan, Ox-King, Goku, Krillin, and Yamcha. His home, Kame House, a shack on a small isolated island, serves as a gathering place for the Z Fighters and friends. He is a stock character, as he is both the archetypal wise old man and dirty old man, the latter being typical of shōnen manga. Sometimes he gets cranky, which further provides comic relief. He is bald, with a thick fu man chu and a thick mustache. Master Roshi wears beach clothes or a martial arts suit and a turtle shell on his back. He usually wields a walking stick. His companions are usually Oolong, Turtle and Launch.

Master Roshi was voiced by the late Kouhei Miyauchi. Miyauchi's final acting session before he died was for episode 260 of Dragon Ball Z, which he recorded only 3 months before his death. The episode aired on March 15, 1995. In his final line, he yells out "Krillin!", and is turned into a bar of chocolate by Super Buu shortly afterwards. Since episode 288 of Dragon Ball Z, Master Roshi is voiced by Hiroshi Masuoka, who voices him throughout Dragon Ball GT, and in the recent video games, such as Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi. In the 10th Anniversary Special he is voiced by Kinya Aikawa, and Masaharu Satou voiced him in Movie 13 and Dragon Ball Kai.

Name and origin

The character is commonly referred to as "Master Roshi". The Japanese word roshi (老師) translates to the Chinese word for "teacher" (lǎoshī), so his real name may simply be "Master" and the "Roshi" may

be just a suffix. Master Roshi also goes by other titles. Most frequently, he is also known as Turtle Hermit. When wishing to act anonymously, Master Roshi has adopted the name Jackie Chun (a parody of martial arts humor master Jackie Chan). Master Roshi's first appearance is in chapter/issue #3 of the Dragon Ball manga.

Master Roshi lives on a small island with a house built on it, known as Kame House; here, he trains his students. Master Roshi is known as the "Turtle Hermit" due to the heavy turtle shell that he and his students wear on their backs for weight training. At the beginning of Dragon Ball, he is the strongest fighter on Earth, however his power level pales in comparison to any of the Z Fighters later in the series.

Graduates of Master Roshi's training often include the kanji for "Turtle" ("Kame") 亀 on their dogi.

Master Roshi isFortuneteller Baba's younger brother. He is portrayed as a perverted old man, and goes a long way back in his history of being perverted, as shown when Goku traveled back in time and saw

him watching a girl he had a crush on bathing, but is still able to separate a non serious situation from a serious one, such as when he had to spend several years alone preparing for the rematch against King Piccolo.He was trained by the great masterMutaitoa few hundred years prior to the beginning of Dragon Ball, and he was the first of theZ Fightersto climb the massiveKorin Towerand be trained by the legendaryKorin.

It took him 3 years to catch Korin, in order to get the Sacred Water that was rumored to tremendously increase one's strength and speed. Prior toKing Piccolo's rampage onEarth, he andMaster Shenwere rivals when Goku visited him in the past, but sometime later when Shen turned over a new leaf for a time they became friends, and fought side by side against The King's demons, as shown in the anime. When both students and Mutaito lost the battle, the master said to both of them that he would return someday with a way to defeat King Piccolo.

Master Shen lost his faith to his master and reverted back to his evil way of thinking, using the logic that

good wasn't enough to defeat The King. He left while Master Roshi fled to the mountains while many more innocent people were killed. Several years later, Mutaito returned to Master Roshi, which by then most of Earth's population was gone. In the second battle, Master Roshi painfully witnessed his mentor die when Mutaito used the Evil Containment Wave technique on King Piccolo to seal him in a denshi jar (Rice cooker). Master Roshi sometime later dropped the denshi jar into the deepest depths of the ocean and would go on to establish the Turtle School based on Mutaito's teaching.

After fifty years, Master Roshi mastered a unique attack of his own invention, called the Kamehameha. He was also Grandpa Gohan's and Ox-King's original martial arts instructor. He put Goku and Krillin through tough physical training, until they were able to participate in their first World Martial Arts Tournament during the original Dragon Ball series. In the tournament, Master Roshi entered it himself under the guise of "Jackie Chun" (an obvious parody of Jackie Chan), in order to make sure that his students did not win it, so that they would still have a challenge and would not become overconfident. He barely won against Goku in the final match. Soon after the World Martial Arts Tournament, he accepts Yamcha as another one of his students.

Master Roshi is over 300 years old at the start of the series, and provides various stories to explain his longevity. He is a very lecherous pervert and is constantly watching young women on television in his spare time or looking at dirty magazines. He even accepts a bribe from the young teen Bulma, to show him her panties in exchange for a Dragon Ball earlier in the series (and got a very big surprise, as Bulma unknowingly was not wearing panties when she exposed herself). Master Roshi constantly tries to molest any remotely sexy woman he can get close enough to; usually Bulma or Launch in Dragon Ball.

Despite his skirt-chasing antics, Master Roshi is still a very wise and kind-hearted person who loves those around him like his own grandchildren. He openly enjoys life and its simple pleasures, but is

willing to die for an honorable cause if necessary. Despite being noted by Turtle in the chapter "Kame-sennin's Basho-sen" that Master Roshi has consumed the "immortality elixir", Roshi dies when attempting to utilize the Evil Containment Wave against King Piccolo, which shows that the elixir grants immortality, but not invulnerability. He appears in most of the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z movies, usually as comic relief in the films. After the fight against Majin Buu, Master Roshi left his old sunglasses, and went to more futuristic ones.

Before Dragon Ball Z, Roshi was a celebrity on Earth for his martial arts skill, literally to the point where he was able to get Tien off the hook for a murder accusation in Tien's Atonement just by his personal endorsement. In Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT, however, his fame seems to be long forgotten, probably due to his replacement in Hercule, who is now the biggest celebrity in the world.

Master Roshi is one of the few characters to survive in the "Trunks Timeline", as seen in the The History of Trunks special. He is hidden in a submarine with Turtle, Oolong and Puar, although was ready and willing to go out and challenge Android 17 and Android 18.

In his normal state, he seems old and fragile usually walking with a cane, not doing much battle, but able to perform incredible acts that most ordinary people cannot accomplish, such as his ability to move

at incredible speeds; in fact, compared to the average human, he could be seen as a superhuman. In the Vegeta Saga, he is seen having a power level of 139, compared to the average human's power level of 5, in the episode after the defeat of Raditz.

When he was a teenager and a student under Mutaito he wore clothes similar to what he wore in the present, as he was shown to have worn a light-purple, monk-like outfit and black sunglasses and had a full head of hair, as shown in "The Last Dragon Ball", when he was shown climbing Korin Tower, and later in "The Time Room", when Goku went back in time and met him around this time. (Whether this was before or after he climbed the tower was never stated.)

As revealed in "Enter King Piccolo", sometime later in life he started wearing the standard garb of Mutaito's students, a purple gi and a bald head. In this appearance, he was taller, buffer, more youthful, and physically resembled Tien without his third eye.

Roshi fought Tien in this form at the 22nd World tournament. It is more muscular than his base form but the muscles aren't as large as that of his max power. The form may have been used since he at his max

power is very slow. The use of the transformation is similar to that of a Full-Power Super Saiyan since it brings his power up from that of his normal form and doesn't make him lose energy as fast like that of Ascended and Ultra Super Saiyan.

Master Roshi can also increase his energy and achieve his final and only stage. In this form his appearance changes dramatically, with an enormous increase in muscle mass and strength. In this state he can perform many ki attacks, most noticeably being the enhanced Kamehameha, at their maximum potential. Full power of this stage is unknown, but he was able to destroy the moon with a "Maximum Power" Kamehameha causing Goku to revert back to his normal form after having transformed into his Great Ape form during the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament. This form is seen when he puts out the fires on Fire Mountain, as Jackie Chun when he destroys the

Moon, and transforms into this form to fight Broly but backed down at the last minute (mostly because he was too drunk to even focus). He rarely uses this form because of the decrease in speed and stamina.

Special Abilities

• Ki Blast - The most basic form of energy wave.
• Kamehameha - is an energy blast of which Master Roshi created. He presumably taught it to Grandpa Gohan and then several of the Z Fighters of Earth, including Krillin and Yamcha. Goku figured out how to perform the technique after witnessing Master Roshi use it. Tien gained the ability to perform the Kamehameha, and double its power (something that was apparently retconned as the series continued), when he observed it from Yamcha. Majin Buu also learns the attack after seeing Goku use it. This is Goku's signature attack. The attack is performed by cupping the hands at the side of the body, usually the right, drawing them back and saying "KA-ME-HA-ME-HA" in five stages, before thrusting the hands forward and shooting a powerful blue energy beam towards the target.
• Original Kamehameha - The original version of the Kamehameha, it involves many arm sweeping movements before cupping the hands together.
• "Maximum Power Kamehameha" - This is simply a Kamehameha performed after ki is gathered into all parts of the body, causing a far more muscular build than normal. This causes a much more powerful blast than normally possible.
• After Image Technique - (Shadow Fist) With this ability, Master Roshi can move in an explosive burst so quickly that he leaves an image of himself behind. Most often it is used to dodge an incoming attack and get behind the opponent to perform a counter-attack.
• Bankoku Bikkuri Shō - ("Thunder Shock Surprise" in the English anime Bankoku Surpise Prize in the English Manga): The most potent and powerful attack used by Master Roshi (disguised as Jackie Chun) in which he shoots a lightning blast towards the target using both hands, and traps the opponent within an electric field. Normally, the opponent cannot escape. Goku, however, was able to escape by transforming into a Great Ape at the sight of a full moon. Before Goku, Master Roshi had only needed to use the attack once before while sparring with Grandpa Gohan. The attack is extremely lethal and dangerous, and as such, Roshi prefers not to use it. This attack is named after a 1967 Japanese variety show, Bankoku Bikkuri Show. In the Budokai Tenkaichi series, the attack is named, Mankoku Kyoutenshou and screamed out by Roshi as "Lightning Surprise".
• Evil Containment Wave - (Demon Seal) was invented by Mutaito as a way to capture King Piccolo. The problem with this technique is that it sacrifices the user's life. First, you hold one hand in the air, palm up, and stick two fingers out. Basically, you concentrate on the user and pick them up, forcing their spirit to a destination. In all the cases, the user was forced into a container with a holy talisman charm reading "demon seal" or "magic seal". The aim has to be perfect in order to get the user inside the jar, and it takes a great deal of discipline.
• Hypnosis Technique - (Saimin no Jutsu in Japanese) is a technique that was used by Master

*Roshi at the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament. It can be used to hypnotize and control the mind of the opponent.

• Sleepy Boy Technique - was used by Master Roshi at the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament (as Jackie Chun). Basically this is a hypnosis move used to put the opponent to sleep, by using hand motions and weird voice sounds.
• Super agility and stamina (In normal form)
• Super strength (In max power form)
• Telepathy - (Terepashi in Japanese) is the ability to channel one's thoughts to another being. Master Roshi uses this at the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament to read the mind of Nam who was in desperate need of water for his drought-ridden village. He later uses this to converse between himself and the Master Shen during the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament, even if the conversation was merely exchanging insults.
  

• Jan Ken - This is Goku's signature attack in early Dragon Ball, but is soon replaced by the Kamehameha. The user shouts Jan-ken, then a name corresponding to the attack. Jan-ken-gu, equals rock and will be a strong punch. Jan-ken-choki, equals scissors and will be a poke in the eyes. Jan-ken-pa, equals paper and will be an open palm strike. The same technique was taught to Goku's grandfather by Master Roshi. It is unknown whether he is the inventor of the technique although it is assumed so.
• Bound Technique - (Hands and Feet Paralysis) This move was used by Master Roshi when he pitted against Man-Wolf during the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament. Despite its usage in the manga, it was only named in the anime.
• Mad Cow Attack - (Drunken Fist) Master Roshi used this technique as Jackie Chun in the World Martial Arts Tournament. He acts drunk wobbling around, and while the opponent is confused, he hits him catching him off guard. Quite possibly a reference to the Jackie Chan movie, Drunken Master.
• Pressure Point Attack - A technique which, by touching certain pressure points on an opponent's body, can incite effects such as paralysis.
  

Live-action movies

Master Roshi appeared in the unofficial Chinese film, Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins (portrayed by Eddie Chan), and appeared in the movie, Dragonball: Evolution (portrayed by Chow Yun-Fat).

Master Roshi is a playable character in the games:

• Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22
• Dragon Ball Z: Shin Butōden‎
• Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi
• Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 (Playable w/Jackie Chun as an alternate outfit, has MAX Power Mode as transformation)
• Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (Playable w/Jackie Chun as an alternate outfit, has MAX Power Mode as Transformation)
• Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure (Playable as Jackie Chun)
  

• Japanese: Kouhei Miyauchi (Dragon Ball to Dragon Ball Z Episode 260), Hiroshi Masuoka (Dragon Ball Z Episode 288 to 291, Dragon Ball GT and Video Games), Kinya Aikawa (The Path to Power) and Masaharu Satou (Wrath of the Dragon and Dragon Ball Kai).
• Ocean Dub: Ian James Corlett (TV Series) and Dave Ward (Movies).
• Funimation Dub: Mike McFarland.
  

• Aside from Krillin, Roshi is the only male main character who's birth is unaccounted for to have never been evil (at least in the manga, though the Anime did have him briefly becoming evil due to the Black Water Mist and Baby's control). Even Goku, aka Kakarot, was initially evil, and Gohan, Goten, and Trunks' births are accounted for.
• Roshi is the only main character to never make any significant changes to his appearance, other than powering up.
• Master Roshi has a driver's license, which he uses to prove his identity to a doubtful Chi-Chi in the chapter "In Search of Kame-Sen'nin" (it was likely a pilot's liscense, since he is shown to own a private jet).
• Roshi enjoys eating home delivered pizza.
• During the Garlic Jr. Saga, when all the Z-fighters were under the Black Water Mist's control, Roshi was the only person who retained the ability to clearly speak english.
• His outer appearance and personality is similiar to Jiraiya from NARUTO series. As he is both a wise and perverted old 'Hermit' and becomes one of the Main Series' mentor. Although he's more carefree and much older. This can be a coincedence or a possibility that Jiraiya's character making is based on Master Roshi.
• Though Roshi usually appears wearing a signature turtle shell on his back, he actually has an entire closet full of different colored varieties to choose from, as seen in Dragon Ball episode 55.