Bulma
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| Bulma | |
|---|---|
| Dragon Ball character | |
 Bulma by Akira Toriyama |
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| First appearance | Book 1 (Chapter 1) (manga) Episode 1 of Dragon Ball (anime) |
| Created by | Akira Toriyama |
| Voiced by | Hiromi Tsuru (Japanese) Tiffany Vollmer (English) Lealie Alexander (DB Movie 2) Ocean dub Lalainia Lindbjerg Maggie Blue O'Hara Kelly Sheridan (Canceled Dragon Ball anime) |
| Profile | |
| Aliases | Lena (Harmony Gold dub)[1] Bulma Brief(s) Bloomers |
| Age | 16 (Start of Dragon Ball) |
| Gender | Female |
| Species | Earthling |
| Known relatives | Dr. Briefs (father) Mrs. Briefs (mother) Vegeta (husband) King Vegeta (father-in-law) Trunks (son) Future Trunks (son, alternate future) Bra (daughter) Vegeta Jr. (descendant) |
Bulma (ブルマ Buruma?) is a fictional character who first appears in the Dragon Ball manga created by Akira Toriyama, followed by an identical anime, including Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT. She was originally portrayed as a secondary main character, but her role was quickly downplayed as the series continued, even though she did still remain an important supporting character for most of the series. In the series, Bulma is the daughter of the Briefs family who own Capsule Corp., a fictional corporation that plays several roles in the universe and plot throughout Dragonball and its sequels. Being the daughter of a brilliant scientist, Bulma is also a scientist and inventor. Bulma is most credited for inventing the Dragon Radar, a device that is specifically designed to detect the signal emitted by the Dragon Balls in the series.
Bulma's father is Dr. Briefs, Bulma's mother is shown several times in the anime and manga, without an official name.
Bulma's role as an inventor becomes important at several points in the series. Several of her creations were major to various plotlines, including a microband that could make her shrink, the time machine that brought Trunks to the past in the Android Saga of Dragon Ball Z and the generator that allowed Vegeta to achieve Super Saiyan 4 in Dragon Ball GT.
In the early Harmony Gold English Dragon Ball dub from the 1980s, she is known as Lena.
In Japan, Bulma was voiced by Hiromi Tsuru. In the Ocean Group dub she was first voiced by Lalainia Lindbjerg and later by Maggie Blue O'Hara. In the FUNimation dub, she has always been voiced by Tiffany Vollmer (Except for Dragon Ball Movie 2, where she was voiced by Lealie Alexander). In the canceled ocean dub of the original Dragon Ball series, she was voiced by Kelly Sheridan.
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[edit] Name and character origin
Bulma is a direct parody of the character Xuanzang from the Chinese novel Journey to the West. Even though Bulma's character parodies a monk, her Japanese name "Buruma" is the brand of a popular gym short worn by girls in Japan. Her re-adapted name Bulma is a direct take on the word bloomers, which was a popular brand of women's underwear in the early 20th century.
As with most characters in the Dragon Ball series, Bulma's name is consistent with those of the rest of her family. Her family name has been said by Toriyama to be "Briefs", which is a type of underwear. All of Bulma's family members are named after underclothing of some sort.
[edit] Appearance
Bulma's appearance in the anime differs slightly then her appearance in the manga. In the manga, her hair is a shade of fuchsia, while in the anime, her hair is a shade of turquoise. Her hair in the Dragon Ball 10th Anniversary Special is changed to the manga color for unknown reasons.
Bulma's appearance in the series is not as consistent as the other characters as she quite often changes her hair style and clothing. Bulma has also been seen topless, in an episode using that apparel as a toolbox, the only topless female character in the entire Dragon Ball series.
Her breasts are often viewed as rather large by other characters.
[edit] Personality
Bulma's personality is like the typical female characters in Toriyama's stories; nagging and temperamental. Bulma at first is the identical to the image of a pampered city girl for most of the series; arrogant and adventurous, but afraid of being alone. Her arrogance can be seen to stem from her intellect; Bulma is most recognized for her fierce determination to get what she wants, and can be viewed as reckless in those quests.
Bulma mellows out as the series continues, ultimately befriending Vegeta and helping him adapt to Earth. She gradually switches her focus from Goku to Vegeta as this develops. Initially depicted to support Goku, her relationship with Vegeta and his rivalry with Goku sparks a friendly rivalry with Chichi, Goku's wife, but she manages to remain one of Goku's strongest supporters due to their long friendship.
[edit] Plot overview
[edit] Dragon Ball
Bulma is the second character to be introduced in the Dragon Ball series. In the early part of the story, she is the inventor of the Dragon Radar and is searching for the legendary Dragon Balls. Bulma was hoping to use the Dragon Balls to wish for the perfect boyfriend. While searching for a nearby Dragon Ball, she runs into Goku. It is at this time that she finds out Goku inherited one of the balls (the four-star ball) she is searching for from his Grandpa Gohan. Because of Goku's love for the ball and his belief that his Grandpa's spirit lives in the ball, Goku is not willing to give it up. Bulma then asks him to loan it for her in exchange of taking him in her travels. At that point, they team up to find the remainder of the balls and the adventure begins. As the search progresses, Bulma and Goku meet Master Roshi after finding his pet turtle; Oolong, a shape-shifting pig who is terrorizing a village; and Yamcha, a desert bandit who Bulma soon finds herself attracted to, and who she eventually starts a relationship with. Throughout the series, Bulma goes through many life-threatening situations and is often a damsel-in-distress, needing the protection of Goku and the others. Despite their heroics however, Bulma at times takes advantage of them by escaping whenever possible, uncaring of how they will survive. In one of the final episodes in Dragon Ball; Bulma can be seen having a crush on Goku when she witnesses his mature features. This affection for Goku never becomes anything serious due to Chichi's arrangements for their marriage, thus prohibiting any love relations between Goku and Bulma.
[edit] Dragon Ball Z
As the anime progresses, Bulma's role waxes and wanes. In the later action-oriented episodes of the series, there is little room for a genius but Bulma continues to play a role as a secondary character, helping Goku and his friends with her gadgets, and having a rather rocky relationship with Yamcha.
After five years of peace, an evil menace came to the Earth. It was Goku's elder brother, a Saiyan, named Raditz. After Goku and Piccolo killed him, Krillin and Bulma took the scouter from Raditz, and fixed it to find the power levels of people in human numbers. The only way to get to Namek, was with a spaceship. When Mr. Popo got Bulma to one, he tried to figure out if it really was a spaceship or not. After closer inspection, it was indeed, an actual spaceship. She fixed it with the help of her father, and flew off to Namek with Krillin and Gohan. While on Namek, Bulma is seen thinking a lot about Goku during the Namek and Captain Ginyu Saga. At one point she even looks up a a cloud and it's odd shape reminds her of Goku's unique hair. It may be that around this time or possibly even before arriving on Namek, she developed deep feelings for Goku, since as aforemenetioned, at the end of Dragon Ball she was shown to be attracted to the adult Goku. Also while on Namek, she had her body switched with that of the frog version of Captain Ginyu after she gave his frog body a special collar she developed that allowed him to speak in her language. Being able to speak once again, Captain Ginyu became able to shout "Change now!", allowing himself to switch bodies with Bulma.
Ginyu attempts to use Bulma's body to fight, but soon decides she is too weak. Ginyu then tries to swap bodies with Piccolo, but Gohan throws frog-Bulma in the way and she is transferred back into her own body. Bulma is well known for her intellectual approach to situations and her sexiness. Master Roshi frequently harasses her. She is also very proud of her abilities and can be very cantankerous when slighted, which may indicate a similar approach with other men.
After the Namek saga, Yamcha, along with Tien, Piccolo and others slain during the first saga, were revived by the Dragon Balls. However, Bulma's romantic relationship with him ultimately ended, though they remained friends afterwards. Vegeta eventually returned to Earth, staying with the Briefs family. Bulma chose to befriend him, developing a strong bond that led, three years later, to a romantic relationship that led to the birth of her first child, Trunks. Several years later she would give birth to Bra, Trunk's sister.
In the Great Saiyaman Saga, She helped Gohan by making a watch which automatically changes his clothes into a super hero costume so he could fight crime, without his real identity being known. In the Fusion Saga she and the other Z Fighters, with the exception of Goku, Vegeta and Gohan, hide on the Lookout from the monstrous Majin Boo, however she is killed when Super Boo turns her into chocolate and eats her. In heaven, she, along with Chichi, Videl, and a reformed Dabura looked for Gohan. She is revived by the Dragon Balls, along with her family and friends, and gives her energy to Goku to create the huge Spirit Bomb to eliminate Kid Boo once and for all.
[edit] Dragon Ball GT
In Dragon Ball GT she becomes possessed by Baby, who takes her as his apparent queen and lover (or second in command), as possessing Vegeta gave him all of his memories and emotions.
During this time, she organizes the migration to Planet Vegeta (Renamed Planet Tuffle), and creates the Blutz Wave device that helps Baby become a Golden Oozaru. However, the Holy Water hidden in Dende's lookout is used to free her and the rest of Earth from Baby's enslavement. Later, she helps Vegeta reach Super Saiyan 4 by exposing him to a new Blutz Wave Cannon, and helps the rest of the group defeat the One-Star Dragon.
[edit] Future Bulma
Bulma survived the Artificial Humans' onslaught in the "Trunks Timeline," as seen in The History of Trunks special. Bulma lives at the former site of Capsule Corp, attempting to build a time machine. She's very protective of Trunks and hates the idea of him fighting, but nevertheless allows him to take the time machine to the past to stop the Artificial Humans and also deliver Goku an antidote for a heart virus that claimed his life in the alternate timeline.
In this timeline, Bulma aged very quickly, probably due to the stress of living in the hell that was Earth. She still was as smart as ever, but she didn't look as young as she used to. She had also grown more mature and wasn't as selfish. She spent most of her life devoted to building a time machine so that Trunks could go back in time and prevent the devastation brought by the Artificial Humans, by saving the life of Goku, whom Bulma believed was the one who would save them all. Once the Artificial Humans (or more importantly, Cell) were taken care of in the main timeline, Trunks returned to his original time and defeated the much weaker Artificial Humans and this timeline's Imperfect Cell with ease, thus restoring peace to the future timeline world. After Cell's defeat, the future world is never shown again.
[edit] Appearances in other media
[edit] Video games
Bulma usually appears as nothing more than a one-line character in cut scenes for most Dragon Ball video games, such as Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3. The biggest rumor on Budokai 3 game was that Bulma was playable, for the fact that she was seen in the 11th stage of the training mode, to explain how to use capsules during a duel. She barely could move, but it was a complete game model of her. Also in the DVD that comes with the special edition, her voice actor is seen recording fight sounds for Bulma. Note: Bulma is unlockable using a cheats disc. She has no moves and cannot set skills. This shows that they made a Bulma model, but for one reason or another they decided not to use it.
In Budokai 2, Bulma sells capsules in the Skill Shop. Bulma will wear a different costume depending on how many you have collected in Dragon World. In Budokai Tenkaichi, Bulma appears in the Options Mode explaining how the various game settings work. In Budokai Tenkaichi 2, she appears in the data center, explaining about custom characters and in practice mode along with a pink shirt-wearing Vegeta. She also comes with her desert costume from the original Dragonball anime, once unlocked.
Bulma is a Help Koma in Jump Ultimate Stars. She gives more SP for collected coins to the Battle Koma she is attached to.
[edit] Manga crossover
She has a cameo in a Dragon Ball and One Piece crossover.
[edit] Live-action film
Bulma will appear in the upcoming Dragonball live-action film. She will be played by Emmy Rossum.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ http://templeotrunks.com/media/lost_dub/index.html
- ^ Live-Action DBZ info., McKlde's Live-Action DBZ movie blog, December 14, 2007.
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