The arrival of Future Trunks in the Dragon Ball manga signified a huge shift for the series. The Super Saiyan form had now been outdone by a single scientist from Earth, who was seeking revenge against Goku for his actions during the Red Ribbon Army Saga. Future Trunks quickly became one of the most popular characters in the series, due to his intriguing backstory and flashy combat style.
Trunks would return to the story in the form of the present day version of the character, who grew up in the peaceful timeline that followed the destruction of Perfect Cell. This version of Trunks lacked the coolness factor of the previous incarnation of the character, but he became popular due to the fact that his friendship with Goten brought back some of the levity to Dragon Ball Z that had faded away over time.
The two versions of Trunks became some of the most popular characters in Dragon Ball Z and with this level of fame comes a certain degree of shadiness.
We are here today to look at the secrets behind the two Trunks of Dragon Ball Z. From the original Trunks that never appeared on-screen, to the censorship concerning his most iconic weapon.
20 Not The First Of His Name
Akira Toriyama loves to use naming themes among his characters. This is the reason why Trunks has such a silly name, as his mother’s side of the family has names that are themed around undergarments.
Bulma’s family aren’t the only ones with names based around underwear, as this was the also the case with Ranfan.
Ranfan’s name is an abbreviation of the Japenese words for underwear. While she never appears again after the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament, we do know that she went on to marry a man named Trunks. The information concerning Trunks was revealed in the Dragon Ball: Bouken Special. This means that there are several people in the world of Dragon Ball with the name Trunks.
19 Trunks The Pirate Prince
The best-selling anime & manga series in the world is One Piece. This is a series that was directly inspired by Dragon Ball, which has led to a friendship between the two authors of the series, as well as several crossovers.
There was once a Dragon Ball and One Piece crossover manga released, which only lasted for a single issue. Cross Epoch shows a world where Hercule and used the Dragon Balls to become a king and has invited everyone to his home for a party. This shows us how the various Dragon Ball/One Piece characters exist together in their shared world. Vegeta is the leader of his own crew of sky pirates in Cross Epoch, which his crew consisting of Nico Robin and Usopp from One Piece and Future Trunks. It’s odd that Future Trunks is the version of the character being represented, rather than the young version of the character.
18 The Cola Sponsorship Deal
The popularity of Dragon Ball Z has meant that the show has been involved in numerous sponsorship deals, with Goku shilling everything from eye drops to KFC. This is regardless of the fact of whether Dragon Ball characters are appropriate for the product or not, such as the case with commercials for desks.
The vast majority of the Dragon Ball Z cast has had their own merchandise based on them, but very few characters have appeared in commercials.
The young version of Trunks was so popular that he even appeared on a line of soft drinks, which was referred to as Trunks Cola. Trunks Cola was produced by a company called Golden Eagle, who produced several lines of soft drinks based on famous anime & manga characters.
17 The Yu-Gi-Oh! Trunks
The Make-a-Wish Foundation is often thought of as only granting the wishes for terminally ill children. This is not the case, as kids who survive terrible illnesses can also have their wish granted by the organization.
Tyler Gressle was given the chance to design his own Yu-Gi-Oh! card after a grueling battle with liver cancer, which he beat.
The card that Tyler Gressle created was known as “Tyler the Great Warrior.” It’s clear from the design of the card that Tyler was a huge fan of Dragon Ball Z, as the artwork was heavily inspired by Future Trunks. Luckily for Tyler; no one is likely to sue over a card made by the Make-a-Wish Foundation. He is also lucky that Dragon Ball and Yu-Gi-Oh! were printed in the same magazine in Japan.
16 The Trunks & Goten Sword School
Dragon Ball Online was an MMO that acted as the official continuation of the Dragon Ball manga until the new Dragon Ball movies and Dragon Ball Super removed it from continuity. In the world of Dragon Ball Online, Gohan published a book, called Groundbreaking Science, where he explained how to manipulate ki. This caused a surge of interest in martial arts, with Krillin and Tien creating their own schools based on the teachings of Master Roshi and Master Shen.
Goten & Trunks formed the Kikoukenjutsu Sword School together, which aimed to teach a new generation of warriors how to fight with weapons. It seems that the present day Trunks finally followed in the footsteps of Future Trunks and eventually decided to take up the sword, despite how useless they had been throughout most of the series. The Kikoukenjutsu Sword School still exists over a century after its founding.
15 Trunks Meets Indiana Jones
The Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku series on the Game Boy Advance was inconsistent with its quality. The first game was panned for being too difficult, while the third was criticised for being too easy.
The second game in the Legacy of Goku series was considered the best, due to how balanced the difficulty was.
Dragon Ball Z: Buu’s Fury was the third game in the Legacy of Goku series and it followed the Majin Buu arc. There was a chapter in the game where Trunks has to rescue a science team that has become trapped within the Kyodai Pyramid. Trunks has to save the scientist by battling against a mummy, named Pharaoh Totenhotep, who is somehow strong enough to be challenging to the young Super Saiyan.
14 The Super Saiyan Inconsistency
The Trunks from the present day timeline achieved the Super Saiyan transformation while still only an infant. This is a stark contrast to his future counterpart, who was unable to turn into a Super Saiyan until he was a teenager and after witnessing the demise of his beloved mentor at the hands of the Androids.
The Dragon Ball manga actually had a chapter dedicated to the Future Trunks timeline. It is here that the inconsistency is cleared up, as it is shown that Future Trunks had already transformed into a Super Saiyan while Gohan was still alive. This means that it is possible that Future Trunks transformed at the same age as his present-day counterpart, though it still wasn’t enough to help him defeat the Androids.
13 The Divine Trunks
The Dragon Ball Super anime recently concluded its three-year run, though there is a lot of evidence to suggest that another successor to Dragon Ball will be appearing in the future. There is a monthly Dragon Ball Super manga that is still running in V-Jump magazine, which is supervised by Akira Toriyama.
The story of the Super manga is actually quite different from the anime, which includes the fate of Future Trunks.
In the Dragon Ball Super manga, Future Trunks actually became the disciple of the Supreme Kai and was granted some divine power, which gave him a healing touch. The Supreme Kai offered to take Future Trunks on as his full-time apprentice, but Trunks refused. This makes Future Trunks one of the few mortals to ever be considered for a role among the Gods of the universe.
12 The Unique Super Saiyan Transformation
There have been numerous different Super Saiyan transformation that have appeared in the various forms of Dragon Ball media. What started out as a single transformation that was used to defeat Frieza has ballooned into numerous different forms, some of which are powered by the might of the Gods.
There are a few characters in Dragon Ball that possess unique Super Saiyan transformations. Future Trunks is one such character, as he has his own unique Super Saiyan form, known as Super Saiyan Anger. Super Saiyan Anger is essentially a more powerful version of Super Saiyan 2, which Future Trunks has called upon in several Dragon Ball video games. Super Saiyan Anger is the form that Future Trunks uses to defeat Zamasu in the Dragon Ball Super anime, though it doesn’t appear in the manga.
11 The Super Hair Retcon
The hair of a human/Saiyan hybrid can change & grow naturally, unlike that of the pure-blooded Saiyans. This is why Gohan and Future Trunks were shown with different hairstyles throughout the series, while Goku never bothered to visit the barbershop once.
In Dragon Ball Z, Future Trunks’ hair had several different shades, depending on the medium that he was appearing in.
Future Trunks’ hair was shown to be light blue, grey, lilac, or any mixture of the three throughout Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball Super retconned the color of Future Trunks’ hair, so that it was now blue. This extended to flashback scenes from the period before Super, where his hair had previously been shown to be a different color.
10 The Prison Break
One of the ways in which the Dragon Ball franchise has continued (outside of Super) is with the Heroes series of arcade games. Dragon Ball Heroes is a game that requires the use of physical cards which you scan into the machine in order to play it. Dragon Ball Heroes features its own stories that use characters from every point in the series. Super Dragon Ball Heroes is currently running a new saga that is based on the Future Trunks storyline from Dragon Ball Super.
The Prison Planet Saga has involved a demon named Fu, who is Dabura’s successor. Fu has kidnapped Future Trunks so that he can perform experiments on him. Future Trunks was only able to escape thanks to the assistance of Cooler, who set him free.
9 The Admirer
Dragon Ball Z ends with the 28th World Martial Arts Tournament. Goku convinces everyone to show up, as he believes that the reincarnation of Kid Buu will be competing.
One of the competitors at the 28th World Martial Arts Tournament was Otokosuki, which is Japanese for “man love.”
Otokosuki is shown to be romantically interested in Trunks, though his scenes are usually cut from the anime. He wasn’t some joke character inserted by the anime staff: Otokosuki was in the final chapter of the Dragon Ball manga, meaning that an offensive homosexual stereotype appears during the ending of one of the most important comic book series of all time, just so that Trunks can be visibly disgusted by his advances.
8 Trunks The Hiro
Heroes was a popular TV show about people randomly developing superpowers, The first season was both critically and commercially successful, though the later series saw a huge drop-off in quality, which resulted in the cancelation of Heroes.
One of the main characters in Heroes was Hiro Nakamura, who possessed the ability to affect the flow of time. Hiro also wielded a sword, which he believed would act as a focus for his powers. Hiro Nakamura was played by Masi Oka. According to Masi, he added elements of an anime hero into his portrayal of the older version of Hiro. The specific character that he based his performance on was Trunks from Dragon Ball Z. This makes sense, considering Hiro’s time-traveling and use of a sword.
7 The Online Survivor
Dragon Ball Online takes place in Age 1000, which is over two-hundred years after Goku took Uub under his wing. This means that most of the cast of Dragon Ball were deceased when the story of Online had begun, save for a few immortal beings, like Fortuneteller Baba.
Future Trunks is one of the few members of the Dragon Ball cast to survive into the present day of Online.
This is due to the fact that he became a servant of the Supreme Kai of Time, in order to make amends for his previous tampering with the timeline. Future Trunks would become the leader of the Time Patrol, which existed to prevent any further tampering of the timeline. He would later go on to fulfill a similar role in the Dragon Ball Xenoverse series.
6 The Angelo Copy
Akira Toriyama has created character and monster designs for numerous video games over the years, such as Blue Dragon and Chrono Trigger. He has worked on almost every game in the Dragon Quest series, which is massively popular in Japan.
One of the criticisms of Akira Toriyama’s video game design work is that he often reuses designs from Dragon Ball. The protagonist of Dragon Quest VIII looks just like Gohan, while the villain of Dragon Quest V is just Piccolo with a beard. One of the most obvious examples of Akira Toriyama reusing a character design happened in Dragon Quest VIII, as Angelo looks almost exactly like Future Trunks. The personalities of the two characters couldn’t be more different, with Angelo being a charming womanizer, but they look almost identical.
5 The Sword Contradiction
The blade used by Future Trunks is known as the Brave Sword. It made short work of Frieza and his troops when it was first used, but proved to be inferior to the strength of the Androids in the main timeline.
The present-day version of Trunks also received his own version of the Brave Sword, which was given to him during Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon.
The Brave Sword was given to Trunks by Taipon and he would later use it during Dragon Ball GT. The Dragon Ball video games have included numerous references to the fact that Future Trunks was also given the Brave Sword by Taipon. This doesn’t make sense, due to the timelines not matching up and the fact that the Androids essentially ruled the Earth by that point.
4 The Desk Power-Up
The cast of Dragon Ball Z has appeared in numerous commercials over the years, due to the sheer popularity of the series in Japan. These have often involved advertisements for food, which makes sense, considering how much the Saiyans love to eat.
The Saiyans of Dragon Ball Z have also appeared in commercials for the most exciting product of all time… a reading desk!
The Koizumi Desk had commercials featuring Gohan, Goten, and Trunks, which aired during episodes of Dragon Ball Z. The commercial showed each character showing off their moves and Super Saiyan transformations, which were compared to the various features of the desk. Trunks’ speed and skill were compared to how awesome the chair of the Koizumi Desk.
3 Old Trunks Was Still Awesome
Dragon Ball Online revealed the reason why Frieza’s army never came to Earth in order to seek revenge for their fallen leader. They had come to believe that Hercule was responsible for Frieza’s demise and believed the propaganda that he was a powerful hero. When Hercule passed away in the year 820, the remnants of Frieza’s army launched an assault on Earth.
The Earth was saved by the combined might of Goten and Trunks, who were now in their fifties. Frieza’s army unleashed an army of Jigglers on Earth, who were immune to standard martial arts techniques, thanks to their resistance to punches and kicks. It took the strength of Goten & Trunks sword fighting school to defeat the Jigglers and save the Earth.
2 Future Trunks Inspired The Creation Of Bleach
A lot of modern manga fans were introduced to Weekly Shonen Jump magazine through one of the “Big Three” series; One Piece, Naruto, or Bleach. Bleach was a series about a young man who became involved in the world of the afterlife. Ichigo Kurosaki was forced to become a Shinigami (a kind of Grim Reaper) and help spirits pass on to the afterlife.
Bleach was created by Tite Kubo, who was inspired to become a mangaka due to his love of Dragon Ball Z. Kubo has talked about how the scene where Future Trunks first arrived was one of the most exciting and shocking moments he ever experienced while reading a manga. It makes sense that he would go on to create a manga which was based on cool characters fighting with swords.
1 No Swords Here
Future Trunks is one of the few characters in Dragon Ball Z to use a sword in battle. The series had always made weapons seem redundant, with Goku shrugging off bullets in the first chapter of the manga. Future Trunks changed everything, with his weapon being used to bisect one of the most threatening villains in the series. Dragon Ball Fusions changed the iconic scene where Future Trunks defeats Frieza so that he now slays him with a wooden stick.
The international versions of Dragon Ball Fusions replaced all of the swords in the game so that they were replaced with sticks. This is despite the fact that the game had a T-rating in most regions and no blood was actually shown when the swords were used.
