MAX Power Kamehameha

The MAX Power Kamehameha is the technique that introduced the world to energy attacks in Dragon Ball. When Master Roshi first demonstrated the Kamehameha to Goku and the gang, he did not fire a casual demonstration blast. He transformed into his massive, muscular Max Power form and unleashed the full force of his life's work. The result was a wave of energy that completely annihilated Fire Mountain, solving the Ox-King's problem while creating a much bigger one by destroying his castle and everything inside it.

Roshi's bulked-up form is essential to the technique. In his normal state, the Turtle Hermit's body is too frail and thin to channel the full output of the Kamehameha. The Max Power transformation swells his muscles to enormous proportions, giving him the physical vessel needed to handle the energy surge. It is a brute-force approach to power amplification, and it works.

The MAX Power Kamehameha's most famous use came during the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament, when young Goku transformed into a Great Ape after looking at the full moon. With a rampaging giant ape threatening to destroy the entire arena, Roshi powered up into Max Power form and fired his Kamehameha at the moon itself, destroying it completely and reverting Goku to normal. The moment was absurd, dramatic, and quintessentially Dragon Ball.

The fact that Master Roshi could destroy the moon with a single blast established early on that the power ceiling in this universe was far higher than anyone had imagined. It also exhausted Roshi so completely that he could barely stand afterward, demonstrating the severe toll that the MAX Power Kamehameha takes on its user.

Roshi continued to use the MAX Power Kamehameha in later appearances. During the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament, he disguised himself as Jackie Chun and employed the technique against Tien Shinhan. In Dragon Ball Super, Roshi proved the old man still had fight left in him during the Tournament of Power, where he unleashed Kamehameha blasts against multiple opponents from other universes.

The technique holds a unique place in the franchise as both the origin point for the Kamehameha and a reminder of Master Roshi's strength. Every Super Kamehameha, God Kamehameha, and Final Kamehameha that came after traces its lineage back to this one old man in a Hawaiian shirt who spent fifty years perfecting a single attack. Roshi may have been surpassed by his students many times over, but the foundation he built remains the bedrock of Dragon Ball's entire combat system.