Hellz Yeah: Toriyama!

ウミガメ / Turtle

From: DragonBall

Goku and Bulma met Turtle when they were on their first hunt for the DragonBalls.  Becoming lost while searching for mushrooms to pick, Turtle had gotten disorientated and thought he’d never see the ocean again.  Goku offered to take him there, much to Bulma’s disdain but through this act, Goku got his Nimbus Cloud and Bulma got a DragonBall so it was actually a profitable excercise!

Turtle is Master Roshi’s constant companion.  Somewhat old fashioned, he acts as a voice of reason to Roshi, warning him against his trademark perversions and serves as a sort of “straight man” figure in Kame House.  He is too honourable to even receive a kiss on the cheek from Krillin’s then-girlfriend after saving her from two assailants.

He transports Roshi to and from the Mainland on his back on many occasions, even going to the World Martial Arts Tournament to see Goku fight.  Sometimes he is left to look after the island on his own, due to his own martial arts skills.  In an episode of DragonBall Z, Turtle fights and knocks out two males who try to invade his home so his strength can be believed to be higher than a normal human’s.  In DragonBall Z, Bulma uses a recreated Scouter to measure Turtle’s “power level”, which reads .001.  An average human has a level of 5, implying that Turtle can mask his power to avoid detection.

Turtle is one of very few “realistic” animals that appears in the DragonBall franchise that can speak English.  Other notable exceptions are Oolong and Pu’ar.  In only one episode, one of his children appears while Goku is fishing but no other family members of his make an appearance anywhere else in the series.

In a 1990 Korean adaption of the DragonBall story, he is portrayed by a puppet.

His Japanese voice actor was Daisuke Gori, who later went on to play the role of Mr Satan and several other roles within the franchise.  Gori passed away in January 2010 in an apparent suicide.

Goku occasionally calls him “Umigome” (ウミゴメ) instead of “Umigame”.  In Japanese, Umigome translates to “blockhead”.