Sonic X is an anime based on the video game series Sonic the Hedgehog and is separated into eight sagas. The story begins on Sonic’s home planet. The evil Eggman has power within his grasp, collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds, but Sonic stops him in his tracks. Sonic and Eggman’s battle caused an enormous explosion, blasting everyone on the planet to Earth. Bent on the task of bringing justice to the planet, Sonic and his comrades attempt to collect the Chaos Emeralds and defeat the sinister Eggman.

Cosmo is one of the main characters in this series. She is a unique child of an alien plant species, and when her home planet was decimated, Cosmo became the only one of her kind in existence. On her quest to find the one that can wield the Chaos Emeralds, Cosmo remained secretive about her past but later proved to the gang that she was a valuable asset. Because Cosmo is a plant herself, she can understand and gage the state of plants, wood or an entire world. When Cosmo is transformed, she turns into a tree.

Pokémon XY follows the group as they travel throughout Kalos. Satoshi (Ash), Citron and Serena set out on their journey with various goals and ambitions driving them forward. As life throws at us challenging obstacles and successful accomplishments, the gang meets new companions, battles unfamiliar opponents, and dodges the peculiar Team Rocket, all the while learning piece by piece the mysterious subject of mega evolution.

With so many types of pokemon to choose from, the one that comes to mind when we think of wood power is Trevenant. Trevenant resembles a tree, with bushes, branches, and leaves as part of its anatomy. This Pokémon can control trees, do harm to those who harm the forest, and protect the creatures that reside there. “Leaf” the woods alone and you won’t get hurt!

The fourth season of the Digimon saga, we follow five new adventurers journeying into the Digital World. As our friends catch the next train into this fascinating place, they arrive in a world where evil is fought. Takuya, Izumi, Junpei, Kouji, and Tomoki learn that one of the three angels sent to save the world from evil has turned to the dark side, leaving the Digital World in danger. Our five heroes must search for the Legendary Spirit to cast away this threat once and for all.

As one of the descendants of the Ten Legendary Warriors, Arbormon is the Warrior of Wood, commanding the power of wood. Arbormon has a deep connection to plants and trees, using them to regenerate. In his various forms, Arbormon can attack using multiple elements of forestry including vines, leaves and seed-like bombs.

Yumekui Merry follows the story of Yumeji Fujiwara. As he appears just like your average high school student, ten years prior, he gained the ability to see dream auras, predicting what kind of dreams a person would have next. Even though he has insight on everyone else’s dreams, Yumeji is clueless about his own. What does it mean when you have a mob of cats led by a mystery John Doe claiming that he needs to take control of your body to enter reality? As if this wasn’t weird enough, things get stranger when Yumeji meets a dream demon longing to return to her world named Nightmare Merry. Yumeji decides to help Merry, but doing so crosses a fragile line between the living world and dreams.

In this series, we run into a wide variety of dream demons. One of them is Sequoia Elder who is a tree Dream Demon. With his silver tongue, Elder can manipulate plant life. In his old age, Yumekui reminds him of his previous life before sending him back to the Dreamworld.

Black Clover follows the story of two boys, Asta and Yuno, as they go on a quest to become the “Wizard King”, who is known throughout the kingdom as the most powerful mage. Asta and Yuno vowed to one another to compete for this famed title. After some time, the boys drift apart but reunite when Lebuty, someone who wants Yuno’s Grimoire as his own, attacks Yuno. Lebuty’s power surpasses Yuno’s, but after hearing a familiar voice, he fights with all his might and is bestowed the “Black Clover”. Lebuty is defeated and the two boys unify to continue their promise.

William Vangeance is the first captain of Clover Kingdom’s Golden Dawn squad of the Magic Knights. In battle, William uses World Tree Magic, allowing him to manipulate trees. Additionally, with his Immense Magic Power, William can summon massive tree roots. Being the captain of the magic squad, he can absorb mana from others to increase his powers

InuYasha is a fantastic fantasy adventure that is cheerful and refreshing from start to finish. InuYasha follows the story of a girl named Kagome Higurashi, a gal who leads a normal life until a demon drags her into a cursed well, transporting her 500 years in the past. Reborn with a wish-granting jewel called the Shikon, Kagome becomes a target for all evil forces. Fleeing and fighting, when they engage in a battle with a demon, the jewel shattered into many pieces. Enlisting the help of a demon named Inuyasha, the two make their way across feudal Japan in search of the jewel pieces.

Nikosen was a yokai who devoured Inuyasha and Kagome to ensure his immortal existence. Nikosen, prior to being a yokai, was a monk who decided to absorb the life force from trees in order to live longer and stay immortal. Nikosen underwent significant physical changes, appearing as a wooden beast with an elderly man’s face. His wood power includes root manipulation. Additionally, Nikosen possessed the Seimeikan, a particular organ resembling a white root that allowed his body to heal from any damage.

Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic is a supernatural, fantasy shounen about a magi—a rare class of magicians—named Aladdin, who embarks on a quest to journey around the world. This anime captures a timeless adventure stemming from Arabian Nights and other Middle/Far Eastern mythology. Aladdin joins several others on his expedition; Alibaba, Ugo, Morgiana, Sinbad, and a ton of other familiar names. In this magi world, several dungeons have appeared, filled with various magical items and treasures beyond imagination. Only a few have come out of these dungeons alive and have claimed the riches within. As our characters focus on conquering these dungeons for themselves, this anime is filled with excitement, taking on the long-lived folklore by adding modern elements and surprises.

Hakuryuu Ren used to have prosthetic limbs made of wood but later they are restored when Kouen Ren exchanges his using Phenex’s powers. While he had his wooden prosthesis, his arm helped him in battle by turning into vines and trees. Also, he used his arm and created a wooden dragon attack called Zaug Mobarezo.

Naruto Shippuden is the continued story of Naruto’s life journey several years after the first series. Naruto still strives to be the best ninja of his age. He has progressed tremendously but is still under the threat of the Akatsuki organization. As Naruto leaves the Hidden Leaf Village, the path before him leads to more intense training and discipline. A world-renowned title in the anime community, watch Naruto proceed in his endeavor towards becoming Hokage.

Yamato uses his Wood Release where he can combine other elements to strengthen his abilities. Wood Release also branches off into specific and detailed powers such as transformation, clone technique, and becoming trees and vegetation of a myriad of sizes. Notably, Yamato’s Wood Release gives him the ability to keep Nine-Tails sealed inside Naruto in control.

In the magic land of Fiore, there exist many magical guilds of heroes and adventurers. Among the best and brightest, many heroes belong to Fairy Tail. Fairy Tail is a bright and friendly guild and is the sole focus of Lucy Heartfillia, a celestial key wielder, who wishes to become a part of the guild someday. Along her journey to collect new keys, she meets the charismatic Natsu Dragneel, the adopted son of a dragon and a member of Fairy Tail. Through him, Lucy joins the guild and meets all powerful and exciting characters, i.e., Azuma who uses a form of Lost Magic called Great Tree Arch that allows him to manipulate and produce trees. Azuma can also place power within the fruits of trees to create massive explosions. However, using this power has a downfall: he will eventually turn into a tree.

In a world where a majority of the population is born with a superpowered “quirk,” U.A. High School is where students learn the essence of becoming a hero. Once again, we meet the gang of Class 1-A and 1-B, who are about to endure the most miserable summer of their lives. There’s no time for fun as the heroes are at training camp. A group of veteran heroes, the Wild, Wild Pussycats, are testing everyone’s limits, challenging heroes to push their Quirks past their potential. Besides overcoming their environment, training camp soon becomes camp survival.

Kamui Woods’ quirk is Arbor, giving him the ability to control wood on his body. He uses Arbor in offense and defense. Binding, shielding, sustaining and extending, Kamui Woods uses various parts of his body to demonstrate that wood power can be destructive and helpful.

One of the fifty-two Clow Cards in the anime, the Wood is one of the cards Sakura uses multiple times throughout the series. Appearing as a young woman with long hair and a leaf symbol on her forehead on the card, the Wood card has the ability to generate and control vines, bushes, and branches, something Sakura uses to her advantage whether in combat or in certain situations, such as rescuing a young girl falling from a great height. The Wood card also stands out in the sense that it is one of the 3 cards Sakura finds at her own home, although forgetting to sign it once she finds it leads to chaos as Wood terrorizes her house as part of her escape. The Wood card may not be that powerful compared to Sakura’s other cards or other characters on this list, but the power to manipulate branches as one sees fit certainly comes in handy.

As wood is most commonly associated with trees, it makes sense for a talking tree to be represented on this list. While there are actually a fair amount of Digimon that revolve around the concept of wood with the most obvious being Woodmon, Cherrymon stands out not only in size but what he represents to the first DigiDestined with his first appearance. Cherrymon, due to his wisdom and manipulation, is able to take advantage of Matt’s self-doubt when he leaves the group by turning Matt against Tai. Convincing Matt that eliminating his biggest rival would set things right for him, Cherrymon sets forth a chain of events that will not be resolved until right before the final battle with Piedmon. In the end, it is because of Cherrymon’s wisdom that he is destroyed, as informing Puppetmon that he cannot defeat the DigiDestined ends up being his undoing. However, it’s because of his manipulation skills as well as symbolically representing the “darkness” of the forest that Cherrymon made the cut.

A dual-type Ghost/Grass Pokémon that evolves from Phantump when traded, Trevenant is another character on this list that visually represents wood in a darker way. A menacing tree with claws and a giant red eye that stands on 6 curved bent roots, Trevenant’s bark-like exterior conceals the black shadow (and in turn essence) within. Trevenant’s abilities are impressive, as it can control trees at will by using its roots as a sort of nervous system in order to be connected. It can also learn Ghost-type moves such as Shadow Claw, Destiny Bond, and Phantom Force in addition to Grass techniques such as Wood Hammer and Horn Leech, resulting in some unique combinations. With all of these abilities matched with a fierce desire to protect the Pokémon living in both its forest as well as its own body, Trevenant certainly deserves to be ranked among the best wood users.

A Mamodo that Zatch and Kiyo face early on, Sugino possesses the ability to manipulate plants, and takes full advantage of the Mochinokihe Botanical Gardens with his partner Haru. Sugino’s most important contribution to the story is helping to provide Zatch and Kiyo a communication system while fighting that they continue to use throughout the series, as Haru’s tactics almost prove to be too much for them to handle. While many of Sugino’s attacks revolve around summoning giant flowers that either fire seeds or poisoning pollen, Sugino does summon a giant tree warrior as well as attacking Zatch with the roots of the trees around them. It is only due to a well-timed “Rashield” from Zatch in addition to the hostages’ help that Sugino and Haru lose, but Sugino does demonstrate a pretty solid skillset involving wood techniques despite his brief appearance.

A member of the Neo Marines in One Piece Film: Z and once a member of the Marines in the past, Bins wields the power of the Grow-Grow Fruit, which allows him to accelerate plant growth as well as control said plants. Although Bins performs a bizarre dance to accelerate the growth of his plants, they are certainly effective both in capturing and immobilizing his opponents as well as fending off attacks, best seen against Usopp, Chopper, Franky, and Brook. With these plant techniques combined with Bins’ skills as a Marine, he is actually a legitimate foe for the Straw-Hats, as he was able to hold his own against Sanji (before succumbing to his most powerful techniques in their 2nd fight) as well as become the first opponent to ever successfully dodge Robin’s Flower-Flower Fruit attacks. While his techniques are more associated with plants as opposed to wood, Bins certainly proves himself capable in his brief appearances.

Kosuke Ueki is an extremely kind student who is ultimately granted the ability to turn trash into trees by his homeroom teacher, Mr. K, in order to compete in a tournament against other students with unique abilities. He is also one of the first anime characters people think of when the power of wood comes into play if they haven’t associated his ability with that of the earth element. Kosuke’s ability actually serves as a combination of both, as he not only creates the trees from trash, he is able to strengthen them using the earth surrounding him. As Kosuke continues to get stronger and stronger, he’s able to reverse the process by taking pieces of his trees and turning them into trash in order to grow even more trees. While his wood power shares strong ties with the ability to manipulate earth, the core of his ability first lies in being able to create trees, solidifying him as someone who relies on the use of wood.

A young Mage of the Fairy Tail Guild with easily identifiable purple hair, Laki’s skills with magic lie in the art of wood-making, a form of Molding Magic. Laki can create a variety of weapons or other miscellaneous items out of wood that can be used for both attacking an opponent as well as defending against one. Some of her signature techniques in this regard include the Dam of Shy Love, where Laki summons multiple blocks of wood carved as weapons from the ground, and the Wood Wall, where Laki surrounds herself with a wooden wall for protection. Laki can also merge herself with the wood she creates in order to perform stealth actions, such as walking unnoticed. With a variety of wooden weapons at her disposal as well as multiple ways to defend herself or even escape harm’s way, Laki is one of the best anime characters to wield the power of wood.

A core member of the series, Kurama is a fox demon who escaped to the human world after fleeing a Sprit Detective and merged with a human baby, Shuichi Minamino, in order to recover from an almost fatal wound. Initially planning to flee once he was old enough, Kurama ends up having a change of heart when his “mother” suffers an accident and remains by her side to care for her. It is only after the events involving King Koenma’s stolen treasures that Kurama ends up becoming a close ally and friend to Yusuke and his endeavors. Kurama’s signature weapon is his Rose Whip, which he creates through channeling his Spirit Energy into a flower in order to transform it. As time goes on, Kurama reveals other plant based techniques that only grow deadlier as Kurama grows stronger, especially when he becomes Yoko Kurama during the Dark Tournament. Perhaps Kurama’s deadliest technique is his Sinning Tree, a tree that slowly drains the life of its victim as it shows them a hallucination of their worst nightmare, on Elder Toguro, who had achieved eternal regeneration abilities. With Kurama’s multiple plant-related techniques in conjunction with his superb analytical abilities while fighting, he deserves to be ranked near the top of this list.

A member of the Chess Pieces, Weasel is the oldest of the 12 Knights and the 6th strongest Knight. With a long white beard and a small tree growing out of the top of his head, Weasel looks strange to say the least, much less someone that can fight among the best warriors of the Chess Pieces. Yet Weasel fought in the final round of the 1st War Games, defeating and killing his former friend Jake, Jack’s father. As a result, Jack and Weasel face off in the final round of the 2nd War Games, and Weasel demonstrates his amazing wood abilities throughout the fight, using exploding plants and even summoning Yggdrasil, a giant tree so large that their fight continues throughout its branches. Weasel also possesses ÄRMs that wither away plants, with his other signature move being Bird of Rotten Wood, a giant wooden bird that instantly withers plant-life. In the end, however, Weasel ends up losing by suffering at the hands of one of Jack’s Guardian ÄRMs that can summon fire, who directs it at the tree on top of Weasel’s head, ultimately the source of his magic power. Weasel accepts his defeat honorably, something rare among the Chess Pieces. However, even though we only see him truly fight once in the series, the power of Weasel’s wood techniques in addition to a variety of them devastating wood and plants as well as creating them are why Weasel is up high on the list.

Hailed as the God of Shinobi and the 1st Hokage of Konohagakure, Hashirama is one of the most powerful ninja in Naruto, and with good reason. The chakra that he possessed in addition to his abilities in both taijutsu and genjutsu were unparalleled during his time, and even afterwards. While the list goes on and on with the variety of techniques he excelled at, one of Hashirama’s signature techniques was Wood Release, where a combination of earth and water-natured chakra resulted in the creation and manipulation of wood and plants from the ground or even his own body. As a result, Hashirama could create wood clones and even completely rearrange the landscape with whatever he built with wood, so powerful were his wooden techniques. What made this ability even more amazing was that for Hashirama, it was acquired naturally; no one else can say this, and while certain ninja can replicate his techniques, they are somewhat weaker than when Hashirama performed them. For Hashirama to be able to perform these wood techniques at such a high level in conjunction with all of his other techniques and abilities as well as possessing an intelligent outlook as to when and how to use them, it’s without a doubt that Hashirama Senju is #1 when it comes to the ability to wield wood.