Bulma, the prodigal inventor and most prevalent female character in the Dragon Ball series, is actually a pretty complex character. While at first, she may seem like a smart woman who is just a bit quick to anger, there's actually a lot more to who she is and what her motivations are.
So, with that in mind, let's take a bit of a deeper look at Dragon Ball's Bulma and talk about some lesser-known facts about her.
10 She Has An Older Sister Named Tights
Right off the bat, let's talk about the fact that Bulma has another member of her family that DBZ fans typically, on average, barely know anything about. In her family, Bulma has her parents Dr. Brief and Bikini as well as her own daughter Bulla, but how many fans remember that Bulma also has an older sister?
That's right, Bulma isn't an only child, and of course, her sister also follows the same naming convention as the rest of her family, which is why her name is Tights. Not all too much is known about Tights, other than the fact that she was smart enough to graduate university at 16, went on a whole series of misadventures with Jaco in the Jaco The Galactic Patrolman one-shot, and then became a science fiction writer not long after.
9 She's Technically Been In The Dragon Ball Story Longer Than Goku
Bulma is by far the female character with the most screen time across all the different Dragon Ball series. And there's a reason for this as Bulma is basically the series' secondary main character, at least in the original Dragon Ball. To prove it, people often forget that Bulma shows up on the 4th page of the very first issue of Dragon Ball and is a continuous part of the series from then on.
In fact, if The Jaco The Galactic Patrolman series, which came out in 2013 but takes place 10 years before the events of Dragon Ball in-canon, then Bulma was actually part of the story before even Goku was since Jaco originally came to Earth to find Goku
8 Her Hair Color Constantly Changes For No "Canonical" Reason
Here's an interesting question: if Trunks is supposed to have the same hair color as his mother, Bulma, then why is it purple? Well, there are numerous examples throughout the different anime series and even the colored spreads of the manga where her hair color flips between purple, blueish-green, and the canonical bright blue. Remember that the original anime for Dragon Ball came out in 1989, which is relatively far from when digital coloring became the norm.
Because of this, Bulma's hair could change colors based on how the ink was mixed that particular day. At some point, they just kept her iconic hairstyle purple in the manga, but by then it was already seen as blue in the anime, leading to this confusion. Now, in Super, Future Trunks finally has the same shade of blue hair as his mom and it's explained in-universe as him dyeing it as a tribute to her passing away in his original timeline.
7 She Had A Smoking Phase After The Cell Saga
This next fact is such a minor thing, but it becomes more memorable simply because the show doesn't put any emphasis on it. Long after the Cell Arc and a bit before the world-destroying Buu Arc, Gohan was getting into crime fighting as the Great Saiyaman. And, the one responsible for his "amazing" costume is Bulma.
She comes up with this solution one night when Gohan is talking about how Videl is suspicious of his real identity. And, while they're having this conversation, Bulma just casually grabs a pack of cigarettes and starts smoking. She's never shown smoking again and it seems like it may have just been a short-term vice, but who really knows for sure.
6 She's The Genius Mind Behind Most Inventions In The Series
Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Dragon Ball IP is likely very aware that Bulma is hyper-intelligent. This heir to the Capsule Corp conglomerate has earned her stripes as an inventor, a scientist, and an all-around intellectual.
But, people often forget just how far her expertise goes, including the fact that she even expanded to being able to perfectly replicate and even improve upon alien technology. To give a few examples of her many inventions:
- She created the Dragon Radar for the Dragon Balls and later made the Super Dragon Radar for the multiversal Super Dragon Balls that the Tournament of Power was fought over.
- She reverse-engineered Freiza's Saiyan Armor for the Z Fighters.
- She's built numerous vehicles of all types including bikes, planes, spaceships, and even submarines.
- She even created the Blutz Wave Generator in GT which was responsible for getting Vegeta to Super Saiyan 4.
5 She's An Expert-Level Machine Operator
Even in her first appearance, it's incredibly clear that Bulma knows her way around vehicles. Her debut panel in Dragon Ball's first chapter has her standing next to her very own Capsule Corp motorbike, and her driving skills don't stop there.
Throughout the franchise, Bulma has been seen behind the wheel or controls of bikes, cars, planes, spaceships, submarines, tanks, and much more. And the best part is, she's also incredibly skilled at driving all of them as well.
4 She Fixed Jaco's Spaceship At Five Years Old
Jaco is a character that many DBZ fans only saw for the first time during the Golden Frieza Arc of Dragon Ball Super. But dedicated fans of the IP as well as its author, Akira Toriyama, would actually recognize this character as the same Jaco from the one-shot series Toriyama released two years before Super started called Jaco The Galatic Patrolman.
In this one-shot, there's a lot that goes on, but at one point Jaco's ship is broken and the Briefs family is visiting Omori Island (where Jaco is staying). While Jaco is conversing with her older sister Tights, the five-year-old Bulma manages to not only repair Jaco's ship on her own but then proceeds to fly it with gusto right after.
3 Her Original Wish Was For Strawberries & A Boyfriend
Throughout all the Dragon Ball anime, there are quite a lot of examples of dumb wishes characters have made or have wanted to make. Some examples include:
- Oolong actually wishing for women's underwear.
- Mai wishes for the world's best ice cream.
- Yamcha aspires to wish that he was less scared of women.
- Even Gohan simply wished for Pan's fever to go away.
Even Bulma is guilty of having some truly awful wish ideas. In the original Dragon Ball adventure, she had two wishes in mind. First, she wanted to wish for a lifetime supply of strawberries but later decided that this wasn't quite enough and wanted to wish for a perfect boyfriend instead.
2 She Might Have Cheated On Yamcha
The relationship between Bulma and Yamcha was always a rocky one. Throughout the events of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, the couple is "on-again-off-again" pretty often. And, after the incredibly long Freiza Saga, the two are still technically dating when Vegeta and the Namekians start staying at Capsule Corp.
During this time, there are a lot of scenes with Bulma doting on Vegeta and acting concerned for him, leaving Yamcha gaping in surprise as they walk away. And, a year later, Bulma gives birth to Trunks, proving that sometime during this period the two of them started seeing each other, which very much implies she cheated on Yamcha or at the very least broke up with him and immediately moved on.
1 She Slapped Beerus For Ruining Her Birthday
Lastly, this is probably the thing Bulma is most known for in Dragon Ball Super, the act of slapping the God of Destruction (who fans really want in Dragon Ball: The Breakers) across the face. Of course, this was all due to a misunderstanding, as an angry and irritated (tipsy) Bulma had no idea that Beerus is an actual god.
Then, when a conflict between Beerus and Buu eventually turns into an all-out brawl between Vegeta and Beerus, Bulma steps in and slaps the cat god for ruining her party. This results in him slapping her back, Vegeta screaming his, now-iconic, "My Bulmaaaaa!" line while trying to force himself into a Super Saiyan God transformation.