General Information

Movie Premiere & Promotion

The movie premiered as part of the Summer 1990 “Toei Anime Fair” (東映アニメフェア; Tōei Anime Fea) on 07 July 1990, which was additionally dubbed “Akira Toriyama: The World”, as the other two movies premiering at the fair were based on works by Akira Toriyama — Pink and Kennosuke-sama. The event’s name was once again changed for this season, this time from the “Toei Anime Festival” (東映アニメまつり; Tōei Anime Matsuri), which originates from the “Toei Manga Festival” that was established by Toei in 1969 as a way to showcase their popular children’s series as theatrical films during seasonal breaks in the school year. In Japan, almost all schools below the university level run a three-term school year (trimester system) with a vacation period of several weeks to a month at the end of each trimester: spring vacation, summer vacation, and winter vacation. The movies were screened together back-to-back in various cities across Japan, with a typical total running time of roughly three hours. Most festivals would last roughly one month, or as long as the seasonal vacation allowed. Tickets could be purchased at the theater, or discount tickets could be purchased in advance which covered the cost of admission, as well as a bonus item such as a promotional pamphlet describing the featured movies, and various other special presents, such as posters, paper hats, cards, and toys. Additional items, including the official theatrical pamphlet and a variety of other commemorative goods, were available for purchase at cinemas or by mail during this period.

Home Video Release

Up until the Dragon Box DVD sets began being released in the early 2000s, the only Dragon Ball properties released to home video in Japan were the original seventeen theatrical films, most of which were available on VHS, LaserDisc, and 8mm film reels. These home video releases were a luxury for most fans, as they came at a rather high price point for the time. They were later re-released in the late-1990s to replace the then out-of-print VHS tapes with a lower price point and slightly alternate covers.

After releasing the entirety of the three Dragon Ball TV series, Toei released their fifth and final “Dragon Box”, which was entitled “Dragon Box The Movies”. The Dragon Box contained all seventeen original Dragon Ball movies presented in their theatrical 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. As a special bonus for the movie’s first DVD release, Toei dug through their vaults and included some of the movie’s original promotional material.

Theatrical Preview (劇場予告) Running Time: 50 seconds

Following the “Dragon Box”, Toei began releasing each movie individually on DVD. To help promote the sale of movie individual discs, Shueisha handed out a free promotional DVD highlighting the releases at Jump Festa 2009. The DVD contained promotional trailers for each movie which were narrated by veteran Dragon Ball cast member Shigeru Chiba, the voice of such notable characters as Pilaf, Garlic Jr. (TV series), and Raditz. More information about the promotional DVD is available in our “Home Video Guide”.

In July 2018, the original seventeen theatrical films were released on Japanese Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming services. The addition of the movies themselves was heavily promoted throughout social media, however it was not announced or promoted at the time that they were actually new, high-definition remasters of the films scanned, and subsequently remastered, from the original film negatives. Shortly thereafter on 09 August 2018, Toei Animation formally announced the release of these newly-remastered versions of the movies across eight Blu-ray volumes. All non-credit versions of the opening and endings included with the release are up-converts of those originally included on the original LaserDisc releases and all bonus promotional materials (trailers, digests, etc.) are presented in their original standard definition format as included in the Dragon Box release.

Movie Synopsis

Gohan, Kuririn, Bulma, and Oolong are spending a peaceful day camping, but that night a huge fire breaks out in the nearby forest. Using their ki, Kuririn and Gohan put out the fire and use the Dragon Balls to restore the forest. Unbeknownst to our heroes, the fire was started as a result of a space pod landing. The next morning, the space pod begins scouting the area, and is revealed to have been sent by a Saiyan named Tullece who has chosen the Earth to plant the Shinseiju (lit. “Tree of Godly Might”). The Shinseiju absorbs the world’s energy, storing it in its fruit, and whoever eats it is granted great power.

Tullece’s minions land and create a fissure in the earth to plant the seed. Kaiō recognizes the Shinseiju and warns the Z Warriors of the Earth’s imminent devastation if they don’t destroy it immediately. The Z Warriors head out, but their attacks don’t even leave a scratch on the Shinseiju. Tullece’s minions soon appear, and a battle breaks out as Tullece watches from their space ship. The Z Warriors attack with all they have, but it soon become apparent they are no match.

Tullece soon notices the young Saiyan Gohan and appears before him, trying to convince him to join and help him conquer the universe. Gohan refuses, so Tullece decides to kill him, but Piccolo intervenes. Unfortunately he is no match for the Saiyan and is sent flying. Tullece decides to have a little fun and creates an artificial moon, forcing Gohan to look at it and transform. Goku notices this and comes to help, only to be attacked by Gohan in Ōzaru form. Hire Dragon appears and calms Gohan, but after seeing this, Tullece shoots Hire Dragon. Gohan goes into a frenzy and quickly turns on Tullece. Tullece decides he has had enough fun and fires a massive ki attack at Gohan, but Goku severs his tail return him to normal just in time so that the attack misses Gohan.

Enraged at Tullece for treating Gohan like this, Goku quickly defeats Tullece’s minions and heads off to take on Tullece. Goku and Tullece’s one-on-one showdown begins and Goku has Tullece on the ropes. However, the fruit of the Shinseiju has finally developed and Tullece grabs one, taking a bite. With the sudden surge of power, Tullece quickly turns the tables on Goku, but the Z Warriors come to his aid. As they take on Tullece, Goku begins to form a Genki-Dama, but the Earth barely has any energy left.

Energy from the Shinseiju suddenly flows into Goku and the Genki-Dama is complete. With the remaining Z Warriors defeated, Goku confronts Tullece and each unleash their respective final attack. Goku’s Genki-Dama overwhelms Tullece’s ki attack and hits him head on, sending him flying through the Shinseiju. The massive Genki-Dama also destroys the Shinseiju and its energy is returned back to Earth.

With peace returned, our heroes enjoy another camping trip.

Movie Characters & Items

The following original character profiles were translated from Akira Toriyama: The World Anime Special (released in September 1990), along with additional character design comments from the movie’s character designer, Minoru Maeda, as published in the “Design Lab” section of the “Dragon Box The Movies” Dragon Book. The character descriptions are essentially verbatim from the theatrical program released with the film earlier that year; perhaps because of the yearlong festivities, each character is given a fairly detailed backstory, although this information is never brought up in the movie proper and is not repeated in later guidebooks.

• Tullece (ターレス; tāresu)
  The leader and strongest fighter in the Tullece Space Crusher Corps. He is a low-class Saiyan warrior who survived Planet Vegeta’s destruction by luck. Learning of the power of the Shinseiju’s fruit by chance, Tullece embraced a scheme to rule the universe, travelling around destroying planets and gaining more and more allies. He and his men all got stronger by repeatedly planting the Shinseiju on planets and eating its fruit.

  Since Tullece was supposed to be Goku’s lookalike, it’s basically Goku drawn as-is. However, I gave him a cruel expression and a scouter, and his build has been made a little bit bulkier, as well. His skin color is different, and more than anything else, his costume is completely different, so there was no need to go and deliberately make him seem like an “impostor”.
   — Minoru Maeda

• Rezun (レズン; rezun) / Rakasei (ラカセイ; rakasei)
  The Tullece Corps’ twin warriors. Tullece used extract from the Shinseiju’s fruit to revive them from fossils of the Beanz People, discovered out on the frontiers of the universe. They possess super science and technology unknown to humanity, and even constructed the Corps’ spaceship. Their bodies are small and ugly in appearance, but they both have high battle powers. They excel at deception and staggered attacks, requiring the kind of mental link found only in twins.
• Daiz (ダイーズ; daīzu)
  Though currently a member of the Tullece Corps, he used to be prince of the Pukimpa Dynasty on the Planet Kaborcha. When Planet Kaborcha was in crisis under attack by Tullece, he personally led the defense forces and bravely fought against them. In recognition of his courage, the cool and nihilistic warrior was allowed into the Tullece Corps. He wears earrings and a necklace, and is the first to fight Goku.
• Kakao (カカオ; kakao)
  Formerly a lone-wolf space bounty hunter, he personally volunteered to join the Tullece Corps in order to further strengthen his cyborg body. His entire body is covered in a special metal, rendering him impervious to normal attacks. His chest, shoulders, and legs are equipped with high speed rocket thrusters, allowing him to outmaneuver his opponents and attack with super speed. Being a cyborg, his battle power is quite high.

  He was described as a robot in the scenario, so Kakao was designed as a mechanized fighter.
   — Minoru Maeda

• Amond (アモンド; amondo)
  Formerly a space criminal who rampaged throughout the entire galaxy, he was arrested by the space police and held in a prison on Planet Nutz. However, he broke out of prison when Tullece attacked Planet Nutz, and joined the Tullece Corps. He has a vicious personality and overwhelming power.
• Hire Dragon (ハイヤードラゴン; haiyā doragon)
  A dragon that lived in the forest visited by Gohan, Kuririn, Bulma and friends. A completely wild animal, it is ill at ease around humans, but opens its heart to Gohan, to whom it owes its life. Sensing via animal intuition the danger posed to Earth by the Shinseiju taking root, it tries to warn Gohan. At the lake where Goku and the Ōzaru Gohan had fallen, it takes Tullece’s energy blast head-on, and sustains major injuries.

  This is another character where I took a hint from color illustrations in Dr. Slump — Arale-chan. Perhaps because it was well received, it ended up appearing from time to time after that, as well.
   — Minoru Maeda

Items

• Tree of Godly Might (神精樹; shinseiju)
  The Shinseiju is a tree with fruit which only the gods are allowed to eat. Once it takes root, it grows fruit until it sucks out all of the land’s nourishment, and whoever eats these fruit is able to absorb the planet’s energy. But the dreadful result of this is that the planet that had its nourishment drained becomes a desert, and for hundreds of years afterwards not even a single blade of grass will be able to grow on it.

  The origin for the idea of the Shinseiju that appeared in “A Super Decisive Battle for Earth” was from an Asian ginseng that producer Kōzō Morishita received as a souvenir! Hearing that the Asian ginseng sucks up a field’s nourishment and grows big, he thought up the Shinseiju.
   — “Dragon Ball Daizenshuu 6: Movies & TV Specials” (p. 68)

Movie Notes

• Daizenshuu 6 classifies this movie as a “movie-only” event:
  

  From the “Go” mark on the breast and back of Goku’s dōgi, it seems that this is a story from after Goku arrived on Planet Namek. However, there are inconsistencies, like the stage being set on Earth, that make it fair to say that this is a movie-only story.
   — “Dragon Ball Daizenshuu 6: Movies & TV Specials” (p. 60)

• Although this movie was presented in a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio in theaters, it was actually animated in a 4:3 fullscreen format. In fact, when the movie was initially released in 1991 on VHS and LaserDisc, it was presented in this 4:3 fullscreen format. However, the “Dragon Box The Movies” release would later drop this format, instead presenting all of the movies in their original widescreen theatrical format. Overall, this movie has been released to the home market on VHS, LaserDisc, 8mm film reel, DVD, and Blu-ray.
• The movie was eventually adapted and released by Shueisha as a film animation comic in May 1994, and subsequently re-released under Shueisha’s “Jump Remix” line in April 2005.

Name Puns

• In keeping with the Saiyan vegetable theme, Tullece is named for lettuce.
  レタス (re·ta·su)  ›  ターレス (ta·a·re·su)
• Rezun’s name comes directly from raisin.
  レーズン (re·e·zu·n)  ›  レズン (re·zu·n)
• Rakasei comes from rakkasei, the Japanese word for peanut.
  落花生 (ra·k·ka·se·i)  ›  ラカセイ (ra·ka·se·i)
• Daiz comes from daizu, the Japanese word for soybean.
  大豆 (da·i·zu)  ›  ダイーズ (da·i·i·zu)
• Amond gets his name from the almond nut.
  アーモンド (a·a·mo·n·do)  ›  アモンド (a·mo·n·do)
• Kakao gets his name from the cacao bean (カカオ), which is used to produce chocolate, and is written exactly the same as his namesake.

Movie Credits

All credits listed below are as originally presented in the theatrical film. All original credit errors have been corrected to maintain accurate spellings throughout the site. For more information and a complete listing of the series staff, visit the Production Guide.

Cast Credits

The cast credits are listed in order of character importance within the series. For more detailed information about the series cast, visit the Cast Guide.

Opening Credits

Ending Credits

おわり

The End

© TOEI ANIMATION STUDIO 1990