Bulma (ブルマ Buruma) is a brilliant scientist and the second daughter of Capsule
Corporation's founder Dr. Brief and his wife Panchy,[11] the younger sister of
Tights,[12] and is Goku's first friend.[1][2] She used to be the girlfriend of
Yamcha,[13][14] but moved on (while remaining friends with him) and, eventually,
became the wife of Vegeta, as well as the mother of Trunks and Bulla. A
technological and scientific genius who can turn her talents to almost any field
and understand alien technology near-effortlessly, her inventions, and the
resources of Capsule Corporation, have been invaluable to Goku and the rest of the
Dragon Team many times. Her most notable invention is the Dragon Radar.
Bulma is the most significant female character in the series. Aside from Goku,
Bulma is the single longest-running character in the entire meta-series, being
introduced in the first Dragon Ball chapter and episode, and maintaining a
prominent role until the end of the series.
Bulma's original incarnation in Dragon Boy was the Princess of the Flower Country.
In Toriyama's first draft of Dragon Ball, Bulma's design was significantly
different giving her the appearance of a western girl. During the second draft
Bulma had the braided ponytail that she had in her first appearance but older
looking with a different styled dress. The third draft gave her the name of Pinchi
and had exactly the same design as the final draft but her clothes her tight black
pants with a shirt that had her shoulders exposed.[15]
Throughout the entire series, Bulma has changed her appearance more than any
character going through a total of 18 different hairstyles. Her hair colors varies
between appearances, being colored: purple, blue, or turquoise. Her hairstyle was
shoulder-length as a teenager. Many of the clothes Bulma is seen wearing often bear
her name or the Capsule Corporation logo on it.
She had a tender appearance in her teen years, like her milky colored skin. In her
teen years her bust measurement was 85cm, her waist measurement was 58cm, and her
hip measurement was 84cm.[7] As an adult her bust measurement was 87.2cm before
breastfeeding, and 83.4cm after.[16]
Bulma's appearance just before going to the desert
In her initial appearance, Bulma had her hair in a braided ponytail with a red
ribbon and wore a very short pink dress with her name on it with blue sneakers and
purple socks. Due to wetting her panties when being captured by a pterodactyl, her
clothes are quickly changed to a pair of boots, gray pants and a blue jacket with a
white tank top underneath with her hair unchanged.
When she was staying the night in her Capsule House she wore a pink nightgown with
one side of her hair in a pigtail and adds a pair of pink socks and blue sneakers
to it when she was forced to take Turtle to the beach. After coming back from the
beach, Bulma is briefly seen in a white shirt and pants with brown shoes and gloves
when attempting to ride Goku's Flying Nimbus.
When dealing with Oolong in Aru Village, Bulma is seen in one of her more
consistent appearances featuring her hair down and wearing a pair of brown short
shorts, red and white shoes, pink socks, a red jacket with a white shirt underneath
and a red hat with her name on it.
Since she loses her Capsules at a river, she is forced to wear a Bunny costume
since she thinks the previous outfit got too dirty for her to wear. She wears the
Bunny costume until she gets a pair of gypsy styled clothes at Monster Carrot's
Village. The gypsy clothes consisted of her hair in a ponytail while wearing a
white suit with a red waistband, a golden collar, a small blue jacket, gold
armlets, and red sandals. She wears this outfit until she gets back to West City.
Bulma's appearance in the Fortuneteller Baba Saga
When she attended the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament she wears a red tank top
that has her name on it, a white shirt underneath, orange skirt, yellow socks, and
purple shoes. Her hair is also ponytail with a red bow on her head. During the
time, Bulma met back with Goku in West City during his time being targeted by the
Red Ribbon Army, Bulma wore a red tube top that leaves her shoulders exposed,
orange shorts, and pink shoes with purple socks while having her hair in a side
ponytail. When she was with Krillin being pursued by General Blue in the Pirate
Cave she left her shorts, shoes, and socks behind to swim and was just in her red
tube top and red panties although at the back of her panties it shows her butt
cracks while wearing it. After getting back to Kame House after the incident she is
seen wearing an outfit which is identical to the outfit worn before but everything
being pink. She wears this outfit all the way until the end of the Fortuneteller
Baba Saga.
After the three year time skip, has her hair cut shorter and wears an opened up
orange sweatshirt, a red shirt underneath, white skirt, orange socks and blue shoes
with orange laces at the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament. She wears this same
outfit minus the orange sweatshirt for part of the King Piccolo Saga. In the later
half, she switches to a blue shirt and skirt. After King Piccolo's defeat, Bulma is
seen wearing a white and blue striped shirt with an orange skirt. After another
three year time skip during the Piccolo Jr. Saga, she wears a sleeveless purple
dress with a white belt that has a pouch to the side. She also is wearing white
boots with yellow socks and has her hair at shoulder length again as well as
wearing red lipstick. She also wears pink earrings and wears a pink bracelet on her
left wrist. She also had the same appearance in Dragon Ball Z: The World's
Strongest and Dragon Ball Z: Lord Slug.
Bulma during the Namek Saga
After the five-year gap that begins Dragon Ball Z, Bulma has her hair cut short
again and wears white shorts, blue socks, blue and orange shoes and a blue shirt
that leaves her shoulders exposed underneath an open white coat. After the year has
passed in the middle of the Vegeta Saga, Bulma wears a blue shirt with a white
collar and white edges on the sleeves as well as matching blue shorts with the
edges on the bottom. Her hair is also back to a ponytail with a red bow. After the
battle of the Saiyans is over, Bulma wears a white shirt that says Capsule
Corporation and a pair of tight red jeans and has her hair all the way down with it
longer than before. While on the ship on their trip to Namek, Bulma had her hair
cut to shoulder length again and wore only her gray tank top and panties while
traveling on board the Nameless Namek's Spaceship (a reference to Ellen Ripley in
the Alien films). While on Namek, she wore a perfectly fitting black jumpsuit on
the whole body with a yellow tunic over it and pair of orange boots as with as a
red hairband. In the Androids Saga, she wore a red crop top with an orange vest,
capri jeans, & high top snearkers. By the end she's wearing a burgundy long-sleeved
shirt, white pants, and her hair was still shoulder-length which is also retained
in Dragon Ball Z: Broly - The Legendary Super Saiyan while in Dragon Ball Z: Bojack
Unbound, she wears a yellow crop tank top which bared her midriff, a yellow
headband, short-shorts, a pearl necklace, a red ring around her wrist, and also
retains her hairstyle from the Android Saga.
In the Buu Saga, she wore a sleeveless green dress with the shoes similar to what
her sons wear and her hair is bowl-cut and she also wears gold hoop earrings. At
the Capsule Corporation garage, she wears a brown long-sleeved button-down shirt
with dark green pants, a dark brown vest, and brown gloves. At the 25th World
Martial Arts Tournament and for the majority of the Buu Saga, her green dress is
replaced with a sleeveless red dress and a yellow kerchief tied around her neck,
although she switches back to the green dress for the party celebration for the
defeat of Kid Buu in "He's Always Late".
In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and early Dragon Ball Super, Bulma wears a
sleeveless purple dress and a light green kerchief tied around her neck resembling
her outfit that she wore in the 25th World Martial Arts Tournament and wears red
sneakers and also wears small gold earrings instead of gold hoop earrings and she
also retains her bowl-cut hairstyle from the Buu Saga.
In Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn, she wears the same appearance from the 25th World
Martial Arts Tournament in the Majin Buu Saga while in Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the
Dragon, her red dress and a yellow kerchief is replaced by a blue dress which
resembles her green dress.
Bulma's primary outfit in Resurrection ‘F’ and Dragon Ball Super
For Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’ and Dragon Ball Super, Bulma receives a new
outfit which she wears a white t-shirt, a red bandanna, jeans, cowgirl boots, and
wears stud earrings. She later wears an outfit identical to her future self but her
short sleeved undershirt is green, her jeans is pale blue and wears brown flats.
While pregnant with Bulla, Bulma wears a pink sleeveless maternity dress with a
white long sleeve shirt, gray leggings and black shoes.
In Dragon Ball Super: Broly, she wears a purple jacket with yellow sleeves, a black
bra-like garment, white shorts, yellow sunglasses, blue shoes and nail polish, and
red lipstick.
After the Kid Buu Saga, she wears a yellow and black dress with a black leather
jacket and brown gloves and black boots and retains her bowl-cut hairstyle from the
Majin Buu Saga, but with an open bang and now wears gold triangle earrings.
In Dragon Ball GT, Bulma wears a long-sleeved orange dress with white pearls and
black boots and retains the same hairstyle and the same gold triangle earrings from
the end of Dragon Ball Z.
Personality
Her personality was based on the princess from Akira Toriyama's one-shot Dragon Boy
and her appearance was from Plamo from another one of Toriyama's one-shots named
The Adventures of Tongpoo.
Bulma's tantrums when stranded in the wild
Bulma has a temperamental personality while being very tomboyish and girly at the
same time. While known for her extreme intellect, Bulma is considerably spoiled and
vain, using her great beauty as an excuse for her selfish behavior. Her selfishness
prevented her from being able to ride the Flying Nimbus. While in stressful
conditions, she becomes frightened easily and gets angry toward everyone including
her allies. Bulma tends to have a great deal of concern over her hygiene,
frequently complaining when circumstances prevent her from taking a bubble bath or
replenishing her beauty supplies, even when her hygiene is the least of her worries
such as being stranded in the wilderness.
Despite her temperament, Bulma often displays friendliness and helpfulness towards
others. She tends to approach major situations rationally, often making crucial
decisions on her own, and she tends to be very persistent in achieving her goals.
As she gets more mature, Bulma focuses on becoming a great scientist and helps out
by creating and fixing inventions that help the Dragon Team and her family. She is
shown to be very witty, usually teasing her friends, apart of being happy and easy-
going.
An example of Bulma's attempts at using her sex appeal
Bulma enjoys strawberries,[6] attractive boys and bubble baths. While dealing in
certain social dilemmas, Bulma sometimes has to deal with using her sex appeal to
get what she wants. Though she shows a strong dislike to perverted men, she herself
got infatuated towards any attractive guy she saw even in her early adulthood, even
during the time she was dating Yamcha, whom she claimed she was in love with and
intended to marry. However, she loses interest in him due to his lack of commitment
to her and becomes more committed to her relationship with Vegeta. At times, she
doesn't watch her mouth, which gets her into trouble.
Despite their rocky start and quarrelsome natures, Bulma tends to have a unanimous
relationship with Vegeta, which increasingly improves after they get married. Bulma
tends to take control over Vegeta and often berates him for his rude behavior, yet
she takes pleasure in teasing him. Although they can argue often and despite him
being a former enemy to the Z Fighters, Bulma is very devoted to Vegeta and truly
loves him, even taking great pride at being his wife. After becoming a mother,
Bulma is a very loving one towards her son and daughter, even though she
demonstrated some irresponsibility when she took Trunks to the Androids battlefield
when he was a baby, but she later learns from this mistake.
One of Bulma's most interesting relationships is her friendship with Goku, having
known the Saiyan for the majority of his life and becoming his first, and one of
his closest, friends. Initially, she expressed fustration and annoyance towards his
lack of hygiene, manners, and knowledge of the world and sought to only use him as
protection whenever they encountered serious trouble when looking for the Dragon
Balls. But soon, Bulma came to warm up to and care for Goku as a dear friend, their
relationship being akin to that of an older sister-younger brother. As they grew up
together, Bulma would assist Goku whenever he needed it and often showed great
concerned for him whenever a task seemed too big or if he was in danger of being
killed, though she would still get annoyed with his immature tendencies and
forgetfulness and Goku has often shown to fear her temper to the point of being
submissive and obedient to her. Even after they had both become adults, Bulma
remained good friends with Goku even though she expressed irritation at him often
being quick to fight someone and his habit of not taking things seriously enough.
Despite this, Bulma's faith and trust in Goku whenever it came to combat has shown
to be absolute to the point where she often displays more confidence in him than
even her own husband, Vegeta; such as the battles with Majin Buu as well as Goku
Black and Future Zamasu. Bulma's companionship with Goku also extends to his
family, being a good friend of Chi-Chis and showing a great deal of warmness to his
sons Gohan and Goten, even after the former grows up.
As she got older, Bulma was shown to have some irritation towards her fellow Z-
Fighters for constantly relying on the Dragon Balls to revive people when dealing
with a threat. This eventually came to a head when Piccolo, Goten, and Trunks were
sealed inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber when fighting Super Buu, where she called
them out on their stating they'll revive Goten and Trunks with the Dragon Balls in
case they get killed, especially when Goten and Trunks were children (also calling
the rest of the Z-Fighters cowards in the Japanese dub), after Krillin suggested
that Piccolo, Goten, and Trunks commit suicide and then revive them.
Though she is not a fighter, Bulma can be violent when angered and defend herself
if need be. Several characters such as Krillin, Gohan, Goku and even to some extent
Vegeta, are shown to fear her violent temper. When it seemed Frieza had been
destroyed by the Large Spirit Bomb Krillin freaked when he remembered they had left
Bulma all alone on Namek and Krillin even suggested that an angry Bulma is more
terrifying than Frieza. Much later, Goku freaked out when he realized he had
forgotten it was Bulma's birthday and even suggested she might be more terrifying
than Beerus. Also, Vegeta adamantly refused to go training with Goku during Bulma's
pregnancy because he feared she would never forgive him, although it's more likely
that Vegeta wanted to be there for Bulma in this unsure time.
Even though she has noble qualities, she puts too high of an emphasis on her
appearance, which is possibly one of the reasons why the Nimbus Cloud wouldn't
allow her to ride on it. As she grew older, she became so paranoid about losing her
good looks that she went so far as to collect the Dragon Balls simply to make
herself look 5 years younger, as in Dragon Ball Super: Broly, she had already
collected 6 out of 7 of the Dragon Balls. It's also implied that she'd done this a
few times before.
She even angrily slapped the God of Destruction Beerus for ruining her party
(however this was partially due to her belief that Beerus was a friend of her
husband's). Fortunately, Beerus responded by simply slapping her right back,
causing Vegeta to angrily attack Beerus in order to defend his wife. Over time,
even Beerus came to fear her temper and often tries to avoid saying anything that
will anger her. When she finally comes face-to-face with Frieza after his revival
and confronts him along with the Dragon Team and Jaco, Bulma bravely confronts
Frieza, to the point of even addressing the tyrant impolitely and rudely. However,
her confidence and bravado were shown to due to her belief that Gohan and the other
Z Fighters were stronger than Frieza and quickly lost her bravado (to the point she
began speaking politely to Frieza) when Gohan and Piccolo pointed out that Frieza
had become far stronger than he was previously. She even attempted to get Frieza to
wait for Goku, but when Frieza agreed to wait only ten seconds for Goku to appear,
she lost her temper and called him a stingy jerk (and in the Funimation dub even
said "Screw you!" to Frieza and called him names, such as bastard and scumbag). On
that note, in the Japanese version, she was shown to use very coarse language at
times, with a very notable example of this being the aforementioned interaction
with Frieza, where she demanded bluntly that Vegeta and Goku return to Earth
immediately due to Frieza having returned from the dead, while describing him as
being an "evil, rotten, [censored]ing asshole", with Frieza taking offense to the
last part of the description (the Funimation dub tones this down to have Bulma
refer to Frieza as an evil scumbag instead)
