Bulma from the series Dragon Ball is a terrific character! Who wouldn’t like Bulma? She’s an excellent depiction of a woman in fiction. Let’s look at these amazing things about her.
- She invented the portable Dragon Radar, which was superior to any other radar for tracking the Dragon Balls in the series.
- She brought Goku out of the mountains.
- She piloted the spaceship to Namek (note: this is completely false).
- She gave birth to Trunks.
- She invented a Time Machine.
- She stopped Beerus from destroying Earth by making him meals (note: this is also completely false).
As you can see, all of these things make Bulma such an oh-so very important character in the series. Oh, wait a second, they don’t. She’s an objectively garbage and useless character with no actual importance in the story. But how? Just how can I declare that when I just mentioned those six examples of her usefulness in the story? She’s done this and that, so she must be important, right? No. Those six examples just happen to be the go-to arguments Toriyama apologists use to defend her worthless existence. None of those things make her even one bit significant. Her purpose has only ever been to satisfy perverts. This what they look like, btw.
What these incel ass apologists fail to understand is that there is a critical difference between a character’s importance inside of the fictional universe that they appear in, and their importance to the actual writing of the story. The former is discussed from an in-universe (with synonyms being intradiegetic and Watsonian) perspective, and the latter is discussed from an out-of-universe (with synonyms being extradiegetic or Doylist) perspective. A character may be important inside of the fictional universe they appear in, but that’s not relevant to us viewers because we don’t exist in that universe; we’re just the audience that views the story. And in a visual story, the only things that matter to the audience are the things they see with their own eyes. The stuff that the author takes the time to actually show and flesh out; these are the only things that the author bothers putting any real effort into, and these are the only things that the viewers care about. Because these are the only things that leave any impression on them; you can’t leave an impression on anyone if they don’t even see what you’re doing. The off-screen bullshit in the background or lore, aka the strictly in-universe bullshit? No one gives a fuck about that, not even the author himself. It’s really just nerds with nothing going on in their lives that do. “Show, not tell” is a basic writing rule that they fail to grasp.
So, the first point, Bulma inventing the portable Dragon Radar? Off-screen and before the story even began, so it’s worthless. We don’t see Bulma invent that shit; the plot doesn’t go into detail about it or flesh it out because the author knows no one cares about it. Like, it emits a subtle energy? What kind of energy? Nobody gives a shit, because it doesn’t matter; everything about this supposed accomplishment is hollow and empty. This isn’t rocket science; for a character to be truly important or relevant in the story, they have to actually be SHOWN doing important things throughout it, on a consistent basis. Swiping their supposedly notable accomplishments off-screen means we don’t see them, and therefore, they’re worthless. Because we don’t see it, Bulma inventing her portable Dragon Radar is nothing more than a lazy plot device to kick the story in motion; it’s not even necessary for that to be what kicks the story off, because you could have just had the Dragon Radar be created by some monkey shitting it out and nothing would actually change. A radar doesn’t magically justify the existence of a stereotypical teenage brat being shoved down our throats, because there’s no reason for said brat to be the one who makes the radar or even for said radar to exist. Here’s a tip about writing a plot point; if it can be replaced by something else or taken out altogether without the rest of the story changing much, it’s not important.
The same logic works for dismantling the next point, her bringing Goku out of the mountains. It’s not necessary for her to do it, and even looking at the story in-universe, it’s clear that other people like Pilaf and the Red Ribbon guys would have come for his Dragon Ball sooner or later as they had their own radars. And in that event, it’s anyone’s guess what happens afterwards; maybe he’d end up befriending the Pilaf guys or some mooks from the Red Ribbon army. After all, Bulma and Yamcha ended up becoming his friends after trying to kill him. Ox King was an evil son of a bitch, too, killing tons of people for their treasures. And many other characters throughout the series end up befriending Goku after trying to kill him. There’s nothing special about Bulma for pulling Goku out of the mountains; someone else would have done it sooner or later. Having someone else do it and become his friend isn’t altering the story in any substantial way. If the plot calls for something to happen, it’s going to happen and there’s no actual rhyme or reason to it. The bullshit that happens in the plot is just determined by the whims of the author.
More importantly, though, here’s another thing that Toriyama apologists fail to understand; doing just one important thing at the start of the series doesn’t make you important for all of it. All it means is that you were important at the beginning, but that doesn’t mean jack shit if you do nothing else for the rest of the story. To argue that Bulma is an important character because of something she did at the beginning of the story is the equivalent of arguing that Mizuki is the most important character of Naruto because he told Naruto about the Shadow Clone scroll at the start of that story; without Mizuki telling Naruto about the scroll, Naruto would have never learned how to make Shadow Clones nor would he have graduated from the ninja academy, which also means he wouldn’t have joined Team 7 and the rest of the story can’t occur as it did. Too bad Mizuki is worthless, because he doesn’t do jack shit for the rest of the story. He’s only relevant to the first chapter.
And while Bulma doesn’t literally vanish after the start of the story like Mizuki did, she’s not any better because she doesn’t do anything useful. Whatever credit Bulma may have deserved for pulling Goku out of the mountains in the first chapter is immediately negated (as in, before the chapter even ends) because right after deciding to take Goku along with her, she gets into the role of a damsel-in-distress as she gets kidnapped by a dinosaur; of course, it’s up to Goku, the boy, to save the girl from being kidnapped. This totally isn’t a cliche or stereotypical way to write a female character; making them damsels-in-distress who need to be rescued by boys. At the end of the chapter, she pisses herself in an unfunny gag to satisfy perverts who love seeing teenage girls pee themselves. Satisfying perverts, right from the get-go, was Bulma’s only purpose. The first time we even see her, she’s 16 years old and she flashes her ass at 12 year old Goku (although he says he’s 14 in the beginning, it later turns out that he’s actually 12 because he can’t count. Even though Goku was only retconned to be younger later, the whole time Bulma is under the impression that he’s a young child, so the point still stands), offering to let him touch it; this bitch literally seduces children and some people think she’s a good example of a female character. In the second chapter, we see her bathing in a tub and Goku stripping her of her underwear while she sleeps. This stupid bullshit isn’t funny; it’s just perverted gross.
Anyway, third chapter, they come across Roshi’s turtle; Bulma wants to leave it behind but Goku wants to return it to the sea. They part ways due to their disagreement, but Bulma immediately changes her mind and tags along when she gets scared from seeing another dinosaur like a brat. People want to pretend she’s a capable character but the story is literally showing that she needs to be protected by a strong male 24/7. That some people want to give her credit for Goku meeting Roshi is ridiculous, too. Goku got to meet Roshi because he himself chose to return his turtle to the sea; Bulma’s brat ass wanted to leave it behind, so she gets no credit for it, especially not when she opted to leave it to be killed by a tiger. Oh, right, but then the apologists whine, “B-but without Bulma taking Goku on her quest, Goku would have never met Roshi in the first place!” It’s a laughably stupid argument, because there isn’t any direct correlation. You could walk into a mass shooting at your supermarket; by chance, a few minutes earlier, some guy was dropped off by a bus driver at the same shopping center. This same guy then walks into the supermarket and kicks the mass shooter’s ass, saving your life.
Are you actually gonna thank the bus driver who dropped him off by chance earlier … or are you just gonna thank the guy who kicked the mass shooter’s ass, saving your life? You’re just gonna thank the guy who kicked the mass shooter’s ass, as he’s the only one who saved your life. It was only a coincidence that the bus driver had already driven him to the supermarket, and you damn well wouldn’t thank him if he opted to leave you when the shooting started. Likewise, Bulma opted to leave the turtle behind instead of taking him to the sea; she was literally gonna leave him to be eaten by the tiger, so she doesn’t deserve any credit. Goku was the one who actually decided to return the turtle back to the sea and most importantly, he’s the one who saved the turtle’s life from the tiger; we clearly see that the reason he got to meet Roshi was a gift from the turtle for saving him. He was allowed to meet Roshi not because of anything Bulma did, but because of his own courage and bravery. Even the turtle himself acknowledges that Bulma didn’t do shit.
Imagine thanking the parents of the guy who saves your life when they weren’t the ones who saved or even interacted with you once. Or worse, if they themselves chose to abandon you and leave you to die. It doesn’t matter that they’re the ones responsible for your savior’s birth; the fact is, they didn’t save you. You would only be thanking the person who saved you, period. This whole practice of giving Bulma credit for every one of Goku’s accomplishments simply because of the fact she pulled him out of the mountains is nonsense; the only person who deserves credit for them is Goku, because he is the one who actually pulls them off. He is the one directly responsible for the things he does, so he is the only one who deserves credit for them. Simply put, if you’re not the one directly responsible for something happening, then you don’t deserve any credit for it. The fact people try to give Bulma credit for things that were only connected to her indirectly at best is a testament to how useless she is. She herself doesn’t actually do shit; it’s someone else who does it, and people try to give her credit because of something totally irrelevant. She sucks.
Oh, right, but she did convince Roshi to give up his Dragon Ball by flashing her vagina at him so that must mean she’s important, right? Huh? RIGHT?! No, that was just an excuse to show a teenage girl’s bare ass to the series’ target audience of socially stunted perverts. Frankly, Bulma could have saved the whole world; if the way she does it is like this, namely being blatantly sexualized for the sake of appeasing perverts, then no, she’s still a worthless character. Imagine if she saved a whole multiverse by letting all the bad guys gangbang her; you could say her getting gangbanged was useful to saving the world in that story, sure, but it’s completely negated by the fact that the story is utter misogynist perverted trash. She wouldn’t truly be an important character; she would just be a glorified sexpot for perverts to jack off to, which negates any accomplishment she makes. Just like Bulma in this story.
She’s an absolutely terrible depiction of a female in fiction; she’s deliberately intended to be a stereotypical, misogynist depiction of a woman who constantly gets sexualized and humiliated, because this is Toriyama’s unfunny idea of funny. She’s literally named after underwear, for fuck’s sake; “Bulma” is just Toriyama’s Engrish for what was always intended to be “bloomers” (note: the “s” is obscured, but you can still see it). The following scenes further exemplify how useless she is, especially compared to her male companion. One, she can’t ride the flying cloud, so Goku has to slow it down in order for her to keep up with him. Next up, Goku and Bulma run into Oolong’s village, Goku gets struck by an axe while Bulma helplessly screams, and when they decide to work with the villagers, Bulma herself acknowledges how useless she is compared to Goku. “My male friend can survive getting hit in the head with an axe and not even be hurt, but I can’t!” And then “I, a girl, won’t be the one to save your village by beating the bad guy terrorizing it. No, my male friend will do it!”
How the fuck does anyone not see how worthless she is, especially in these first few chapters? She’s a constant reminder of whole stereotype about women being weaker than men; for fuck’s sake, she literally surrenders and begs mercy to Goku when they first meet, which about sums up the whole dynamic between males and females in this series. From that point on, she just finds herself needing to be saved by Goku or unable to do things that Goku can easily do. As well as being sexualized and humiliated for cheap misogynistic laughs. Case in point, she devises a plan to stop Oolong from terrorizing the village, but she literally interrupts it to flash her tits at him because she’s horny. Then, upon seeing Oolong turn back into a monster, she runs off scared and goes right back to telling Goku to save the day as always. Even one of the villagers note she’s an unlikable person. Then, Goku saves the day again and is the only one who is thanked for it. Bulma didn’t do shit but flash her titties. She’s fucking trash.
Oh, right, but she did trick Oolong into staying in their quest for the Dragon Balls by using her panties and feeding him a laxative, so that must mean she’s important, right? Nope. These are just more perverted, unfunny gags that only amount to very brief scenes in the story, just like her flashing her shit at Roshi. That’s another thing that the apologists fail to understand; if your moment of supposed usefulness is only brief, then it’s not actually important. Especially if it’s dumb perverted gags. Bulma then screws the gang over by dropping her capsule case into the river like the dumb bitch she is. The gang finds themselves in a desert, Bulma bitches like a brat before immediately falling asleep, and so, Goku is the only one who actually faces Yamcha and Puar when they attack. Of course, in the end, Bulma wakes up and scares Yamcha off by simply being a girl; y’see, folks, it turns out Yamcha is a beta bitch who gets scared around girls. In the next chapter, we see Bulma’s fully naked body in the shower for more perverted fan-service. Remember, she’s only 16 here. Then, she gets drugged by Oolong, who plans to sexually assault her in her sleep. Then, Yamcha stumbles upon her naked body and leaves in shock because again, he’s a beta bitch.
No, none of this stupid perverted shit makes Bulma a useful or important character; she only exists to satisfy the boners of perverts and that’s all there is to her. It’s pathetic how every seemingly “useful” moment from Bulma involves these dumb gags. Roshi’s Dragon Ball? Flash her shit at him. Make Oolong stay? Give him her panties. Scare Yamcha away? Just be a girl or unknowingly show him her naked body. Oh, yeah, and when she wakes up, she puts on a bunny costume because herp derp Toriyama gotta sexualize underage teenage girl some more to satisfy his perverted audience. This is a good depiction of a female. Not. Then, she gets knocked the fuck out when Yamcha shoots their vehicle with a rocket; this time, she can’t wake up when Yamcha attacks and then it comes down to Goku to save the day, again. We get to Fire Mountain, Bulma is scared shitless when Ox King shows up and again, Goku is the one who saves them by showing to Ox King that he’s an acquaintance of Roshi. Goku then picks up Chichi and brings Roshi, who only agrees to put out the fire in Ox King’s castle as long as Bulma agrees to let him touch her tits, which she agrees to. Roshi puts out the fire and motorboats her likeness when Oolong disguises himself as her. We see Bulma’s bare titties again. Man, so useful. Without Bulma agreeing to let Roshi motorboat her, they would have never gotten that Dragon Ball, huh? She’s so important! Haha, no. Fuck no. Jesus fucking Christ this character sucks and Toriyama is a fucking talentless hack. I’d expect nothing else from someone who wrote and drew a comic about a woman turning to prostitution after repeatedly being raped, though. Or someone who proudly admitted to wanting to spy on his daughter bathing. This man is a degenerate, sexually repressed pervert and the anime/manga industry is full of them.
Anyway, they go to the Middle East. Bulma is a damsel in distress yet again as she gets turned into a carrot by a rabbit gangster, Not Bulma saves the day and they continue on with their quest. Finally, they go to Pilaf, and Bulma doesn’t do jack shit during that whole ordeal; Not Bulma is the one who saves the day by stopping Pilaf from getting his wish. All Bulma does is get trapped underneath some rubble when Giant Monkey Goku goes on his rampage, slowing the other characters down. Oh yeah, and she gets used for more perverted gags. So, anyway, for the whole first arc, Bulma is just the butt of nonstop perverted gags and is made a damsel-in-distress multiple times. Whenever shit goes down, it’s up to a male character, usually Goku, to save the day. She’s fucking useless; an annoying bitch who just whines and wants to fuck every handsome guy in sight, but for some reason, we must pretend she is important simply because she kick-started the whole adventure (remember, by that logic, Mizuki is the most important character of Naruto because he kick-started Naruto’s adventure). Too bad kick-starting it means nothing when she does absolutely nothing of note when it actually begins. Anyway, she gives Goku her Dragon Radar and returns to the city so she can start dating her beta male bitch boyfriend.
Oh, right, I forgot to mention. Why the hell did she make her radar in the first place? Because she wants to wish for a boyfriend. Of all the things she could wish for, she wants a fucking boyfriend (why not just get one normally? Oh, right, no normal guy wants her nasty ass). She could wish to feed a starving nation, or end world hunger. She could wish for the poor to get money, or end poverty all around the world. She could do something truly noble with her wish. But instead, she just wants to abuse the Dragon Balls, which we later learn were created by God to help humankind, for her own selfish desire; she just wanted a boyfriend. That’s the only reason she made her radar, and this effectively means that she gets no credit for any positive usage of it because that’s not what she made it for. This character is fucking garbage. An utterly half-assed, stereotypical depiction of a spoiled rich teenage girl. She’s then completely irrelevant for the entire Jackie Chun arc and just cheers her male friends on when they fight in the finals. Oh, yeah, and another dumb gag. So important. Not.
Yawn, we get to the Red Ribbon arc, which is really just a nonstop Goku wankfest. We don’t even see any other preexisting characters until the Muscle Tower phase is over, when Goku decides to go to Bulma to fix his radar. “See? Bulma’s useful because unless she fixed the radar, the rest of the story couldn’t occur!” is what an apologist would use to defend her right about now, but it’s worthless because her fixing it is off-screen and she doesn’t do jack shit afterwards. Just look at how quick it was; a page of unfunny perverted gags, and Bulma begins work on the radar off-screen. We cut to the Red Ribbon Army, and when we next see Bulma less than two pages later, it’s already fixed. Brief, off-screen moments of supposed “usefulness” aren’t one bit significant, no matter how important they may seem to be in-universe. You need to consistently be shown doing important things over the course of the story on a regular basis. And Bulma doesn’t do jack shit; she shows off a device that lets the user shrink, which is really just used for another perverted gag with Roshi trying to spy on her taking a shit or piss later. “It let her be able to ride the cloud by going underneath Goku’s shirt!” Goku could have just carried her the old fashioned way, or she could have just used a ship to follow Goku; hell, Goku could have just rode the ship with her.
She tries to be useful by bringing a capsule with a submarine, but screws up by accidentally bringing her dad’s porn mags instead. Utterly fucking useless. Then, some perverted Red Ribbon Soldiers then try raping her and then Goku has to save her. Useless. Then, Roshi tries to spy on her taking a shit. Useless. So, because her stupid ass forgot to bring her own submarine, they have to use Roshi’s instead and they enter a cave. She slows Goku and Krillin down when she can’t keep up with their superhuman abilities. Useless. She can only run and hide when Goku fights the robot. Useless. She can only stand and shriek as Blue kicks Krillin’s ass; oh, and she shrieks as he’s about to kill Goku (while also reminding us how awful her personality is; “I’m gonna die and I’m so sexy!” Shut up, bitch). Oh, right, but she also flirts with Blue and shakes her ass at him for more perverted gags. It’s actually pretty detestable of her to assume that a guy is gay just because he doesn’t find her attractive. And isn’t she still dating Yamcha? But she’s flirting up some other dude and invading his personal bubble to grab his guns. Utterly useless character. But she does manage to hide a whole diamond up her vagina, so I guess that must count for something. Not.
After they leave the cave to return to Roshi’s island and Not Bulma unties Goku from Blue’s ropes so he can throw away his bomb, the Goku fest resumes. Bulma doesn’t appear again until later on, when she and Goku’s other useless cheerleaders decide to help him attack Red Ribbon’s base. They’re gonna help out, right? However, by the time they show up, Goku has already destroyed it all by himself. Wow, what an amazing cast of side characters; they literally don’t do shit! Bulma then doesn’t appear again until they go to Baba’s palace, where she’s just used for yet another perverted gag; Krillin pulls down her shit to expose her bare titties so Roshi can get a nosebleed and expose the invisible guy Yamcha is fighting. So usefu-No; getting sexually assaulted does not make her an important, useful character. She then does absolutely nothing for the whole Tenshinhan, Daimao and Piccolo Junior arcs; just staying behind and/or watching the men go fight, like a useless background character. Or she and the other useless background characters try to help out against the bad guys … only to find out Goku saved the day before they even arrived, just like in the Red Ribbon arc. Of course, every now and then, there’s a perverted gag with her.
Imagine actually pretending a character is important when there are such long stretches of them doing absolutely nothing in the story. For fuck’s sake, this character isn’t important; in fact, no one in Dragon Ball is truly important with the exception of Goku. Everyone else is nothing more than his cheerleader or punching bag (even if they give him trouble at first, they’ll ultimately just become his bitch when he surpasses them. Such is true at least for the original manga. Only time this wasn’t true was when Gohan briefly took his place as the protagonist); they just exist to make him look better, because he’s the only one who matters here. I could go into detail how everyone else sucks as well, but that’s for another day. Instead, let’s talk about this particularly stupid moment of Bulma at the end of the Piccolo Jr arc, where she’s touched by how Goku spared Piccolo. Oh, you know, the evil bastard who tried slaughtering an entire stadium full of people twice. The evil bastard who tried killing all of Goku’s friends. Goku let this piece of shit go just because he wanted to fight him again (and him not wanting Kami to die is a bullshit excuse, because they could have just sealed Piccolo away with the Mafuba. Piccolo wasn’t even on the verge of death, as Kami noted he was eventually gonna wake up), thereby putting the entire Earth at risk (and at this point, no one has any reason to think Piccolo would ever turn over a new leaf) … and Bulma is moved, thinking he just did something good. For fuck’s sake, he let an unrepentant genocidal maniac go and Bulma admires him for doing so; what a dumb fucking bitch.
Anyway, things don’t improve for Bulma one bit when we enter DBZ territory, either. What does she do in the Saiyan arc? Well, first, as soon as we see her again, another dumb gag. Next. She fixes Raditz’s scouter (off-screen, so worthless) and uses it to locate the other Z Fighters … you know, the same jobbers who do nothing but job to the bad guys as a way of “buying time” for Goku to arrive. Oh, cool, she located Tenshinhan, Chaozu and Yamcha; these guys fucking suck, so who cares. Hell, she wasn’t needed to find them as Kami could have done so himself and Popo could have just picked them up with his carpet. In any case, it’s completely insignificant as it’s off-screen. She supposedly helps out to gather the Dragon Balls to bring Goku back to life, but this is also off-screen and it’s not like she herself was needed to do anything as everyone else helped gather them; her sitting out would change nothing and how could she have helped, anyway? Did she just seduce more guys for their Dragon Balls again? Worthless. No one gives a fuck about this totally off-screen search for the Dragon Balls as that’s not what the story is about. Then, she just stays behind with useless characters such as Roshi, Oolong and Puar as the Z Fighters fight the Saiyans and doesn’t appear until the battle is over; she just cries over Yamcha’s death. Useless.
Well, we get to the Freeza arc, and she’s particularly insufferable here. They go to planet Namek, and this brings us to the third talking point you saw all the way at the top of this post. She was needed to pilot the ship to Namek? This is completely false, as she didn’t pilot shit; we literally see that the ship runs on autopilot when it goes to Jupiter, when they first take off for Namek and when Bulma is sleeping. Yeah. She even regrets not building a stasis chamber on the ship to put her in suspended animation for the whole ride. She was never needed here; you know her fans are full of shit when they literally don’t pay attention to the story. The only reason she even went on this trip was because Krillin was afraid something would go wrong with the ship; we see that he wanted her to come along in case because she’d be the only one able to fix it. The issue with that is that nothing went wrong with the ship at all, so there was never any reason to bring her along; Krillin was just a scared little bitch. And translating Kami’s ship from Namekian to a language they could understand was also pointless, because all they needed to know was a few buzzwords from Popo (“Open door”. “Close door”. “Go to Namek”. “Land”. All in Namekian and that’s it). She also wasted time building useless shit like a stereo into the ship. It is true though that Bulma was the first one to realize that Kami’s ship, the one they used to go to Namek, had voice sensors. Indeed, without her realizing that, they would have never been able to use the ship to go to Namek. She also helped Kami’s ship to be sturdier and cleaned it of dirt. So, that must make her useful, right? Oh, wait, it doesn’t, because the only reason they even needed to use Kami’s ship was because Bulma’s stupid ass blew up Nappa’s ship. Dumb bitch. She gets no kudos when she screwed everyone in the first place.
Anyway, so they land on Namek, and she does absolutely nothing the whole time they’re there. When they find out Vegeta and Freeza’s men are invading the planet right after they land, she wants to dip back home. Then when Freeza’s men confront them, she hides behind the spaceship. When Gohan and Krillin save her life by defeating them, she has the audacity to badmouth them. And then she just cries like a bitch when the ship is destroyed. She slows Gohan and Krillin when they’re trying to move discreetly, all while moping. She’s confused how Gohan and Krillin can sense energy; just look at how clueless she is. Then, it’s agreed to just leave her behind in a cave. She does absolutely nothing for this whole arc. The entire time the Namekians are getting fucking slaughtered by (an image for every word highlighted here) villains, she’s just chilling, doing her lipstick or some shit. Her reaction when she meets Dende, who had just been saved by Gohan and Krillin after seeing his people including his own brother be slaughtered, is ridiculous. Then, she panicks some more when the bad guys show up again, oh but she wants to fuck one of them just because he’s handsome, a repeat of when she met Blue; so much for her character development (note: Zero). She gets left behind for her own safety again, and she has the audacity to complain about not being left in a better spot; bitch is pigging out, moping while they’re risking their necks.
When they see her next, she doesn’t know what the hell is going on and is left behind again. When they see her again after that, she literally badmouths them again. Remember that they had just come back from getting their asses (that’s Krillin) beaten by Freeza’s men (that’s Gohan) and nearly died; Goku showed up to save them right when they were about to be killed. What was she doing then? Pigging out and moping some more, thinking they’re just fooling around. She gets left behind again, and she just thinks about how she wishes she fucked Goku, (here’s Goku) who is currently dying in another person’s body. Oh, and Nail’s busy getting tortured by Freeza, too. And then, they fight Freeza and Piccolo comes back. They’re all getting their shit rekt, badly (an image for every word highlighted in this sentence. Krillin, Gohan, Piccolo, Dende, Goku, Piccolo again and Krillin again). What’s Bulma doing as all this is going on? What she always does: bitching. When Gohan comes to pick her up and save her from being crushed to death by a rock, how does she thank him? She bitches at him, and then she bitches at him some more. All these guys are out there fighting, getting the shit beaten out of them and dying, and Bulma has the nerve to complain when she’s hiding safe and sound, doing nothing for the whole arc. For fuck’s sake, this is not a useful character in the slightest. It’s the most half-assed, stereotypical representation of a woman ever. Even the author himself knows how much of an awful person Bulma is; she was only ever intended to be the stereotypical bitch because he knows damn well he hates women for rejecting his ugly ass. This right here is not a useful character in any regard whatsoever; she’s fucking useless. Oh my God. This shouldn’t even be an argument.
And now we come to the Android/Cell arc. Remember that piece of shit mass murderer Vegeta? Bulma fucks him and has his baby. Yeah, same dude who slaughtered a bunch of Namekians (as well as plenty other people throughout his life), including the kids. He even threatened to murder her to her face. What a douche. Doesn’t stop her from inviting him to her home, though. It’s all just a lazy plot device for Trunks to exist, and that brings us to the fourth talking point at the top of this post. Yeah, no, giving birth to someone else doesn’t make Bulma important. Your parents don’t take credit for your accomplishments just because they birthed you. You may as well be arguing that Gine is the most important character of Dragon Ball for giving birth to Goku, but no one gives a fuck about Gine because she never even appears. Women being no better than babymakers is the most stereotypical role they can have; getting knocked up by a bitch ass mass murderer and giving birth to the baby off-screen doesn’t make anyone important. If anything, only Trunks is important; the circumstances behind his birth are irrelevant. All that matters is that he’s a time traveling Super Saiyan from the future. Hell, you could have just put Future Gohan in his role and nothing would change! Oh, but speaking of time traveling, how did Trunks come back in time? The Time Machine. Bulma supposedly invented that. Fifth talking point. That must make her important, right? No.
First of all, it wasn’t the main Bulma we came to know who even invented that shit. It was a different version of her from an alternate future who did. And this counterpart never even shows up in the story proper; one panel of a flashback, an optional bonus chapter that isn’t required reading (that’s why it’s called a side story) and two chapters right at the end of the story arc after the main conflict has been resolved are irrelevant. For practically the whole story arc, meaning the entire conflict with the androids and Cell in the past, this alternate Bulma never appears; she’s just drinking coffee in the alternate future while all of this is going on. And apologists want to pretend she’s super important simply because she invented a Time Machine, as if that makes up for the fact she never fucking appears. No, you can’t be an important character in a story when you never fucking show up, period. Whatever significance you may have from a purely in-universe perspective is overshadowed by the fact you never appear; when you never appear, you don’t have any real significance in the writing because your presence can’t be felt one bit and that’s why Future Bulma is worthless.
Her inventing a Time Machine is nothing more than a lazy plot device that the author put zero thought into it; it’s really just a lazy excuse for Trunks to show up in the story, because again, if anything, Trunks is the only one who matters here (although he’s not really important, either, because he’s ultimately just another cheerleader for Gocow). He’s the one who actually uses the Time Machine to go back in time to fight with the good guys; as a result, he’s the only one who leaves any impression on us, the viewers. How he shows up is irrelevant; as long as he’s there, that’s all that matters, which is why the story puts no focus on Bulma making the Time Machine. We don’t even know how she made it, because again, it’s just a lazy plot device that the author put no thought into. Nothing more than a lazy excuse for Trunks to exist and that’s it. He’s the only one who gets any focus in the story, so if anyone actually matters, it’s just him. Focus is the key here, and thus Future Bulma doesn’t matter because she isn’t focused on at all; she never fucking appears, for fuck sake!
It’s like Bibbidi and Bobbidi. In the manga, Bibbidi is the one said to have created Boo; that would certainly give him in-universe significance, but because he himself never shows up (loser was killed long before the story starts), he has no importance in the actual writing. The only warlock we actually see is his son Bobbidi; he’s the one who releases Boo and uses him to terrorize Earth. Because the viewers actually see him do things in the story, he leaves an impression on them; his father, on the other hand? No one gives a shit about Bibbidi except stunted nerds. In fact, the story could have been written so that Bobbidi was the one who created Boo the entire time; Bibbidi wouldn’t even exist, and nothing would change. That’s how insignificant he is. Likewise, it’s not even necessary for Trunks to use Bulma’s Time Machine. He could have traveled back in time through a wormhole in a squirrel’s anus, and nothing meaningful would change. As long as he shows up in the past fighting with everyone else, that’s all that matters.
You don’t need his bitch mother at all. The only characters from the alternate future where the androids terrorize Earth who ever remotely mattered are Trunks and Cell; literally everything about this stupid dystopian future plotline was a lazy ass excuse to have a time traveling Super Saiyan fighting alongside the Z Fighters against androids (later cyborgs and an insect bug boy who’s packing the anaconda to satisfy perverts with a vore fetish). Future Gohan, Future Bulma, Future Goku, all the Future Z Fighters, no one gives a fuck about them. Nothing about it even makes sense; what the hell were the Z Fighters doing after they were killed? Why didn’t they ask the Namekians through Kaio to use their Dragon Balls to revive them? Why didn’t they tell Gohan and Trunks about the Time Chamber? Why didn’t they use their one day pass on Earth to fight the androids after training in the afterlife for years like Goku surely would have? This whole arc is full of questions, plot holes and inconsistencies because Toriyama simply didn’t give a fuck.
So, what else does Bulma do in this arc? Oh, right, this whole time, I’ve just been talking about Future Bulma. What does the main Bulma do? Nothing whatsoever. She suggests tracking down Gero and kicking his ass before the androids are made, but she gets shot down by everyone else and being the weak little bitch she is, she has to go along with their decision. Next up, oh, right, already discussed her getting knocked up by a mass murderer. She certainly has good taste in men, wanting to fuck bandits trying to kill her and her friends (Yamcha), misogynist Nazis trying to kill her and her friends (Blue) and aliens trying to kill her and her friends (Zarbon and of course, Vegeta). Goddamn, this character sucks dick. Some people also claim that she helped soften Vegeta, but that’s bullshit because he was still evil and if anyone softened him, it was just Trunks. You rarely even see Vegeta interact with Bulma at all; it’s only his relationship with Trunks that gets any focus, and him fucking Bulma was just a lazy plot device for Trunks to exist. You can probably count on one hand the number of times Bulma and Vegeta actually have a conversation in the original manga. But check this out, her stupid ass literally brings her baby to the scene of the android attack, just because she wants to see how the androids look like. Jesus Christ. Wanting to endanger your own life is one thing … but why the hell would you bring your own baby with you? And as if that wasn’t bad enough, this dumb fucking bitch literally brings her baby to ground zero (Mother Of The Year, mirite?), which gives Gero the opportunity to escape and activate stronger androids; oh, and this nearly gets her baby killed. Bruh.
People pretend this piece of shit is useful when she’s literally endangering the lives of everyone including her own infant child and HELPING the bad guys get away with her stupidity? Just look at her fucking face as she’s doing this shit; that perverted hack Toriyama knew damn well what he was doing here. No, she’s not useful; she’s a useless, dumb ugly bitch who is a garbage person, a garbage mother and a garbage ass fucking character. Absolute fucking irredeemable trash. She was insufferable when she first appeared as a teenage girl, and she’s insufferable as a mother in her 30s. Then, she invents a switch to shut off the androids, but she fumbles it by handing it to Kucklin‘s bitch ass. He’s a beta bitch who crushes it because he wants some cyber sex. “But it was Kucklin’s fault, not hers!” Nope, her fault for trusting the incel cuck bitch with it. “Wh-what the hell do you expect? She’s not a fighter! She’s only an inventor!” Another dumbass argument.
Being an inventor does not preclude you from being a fighter at all. There are a ton of fictional characters who fight in addition to being genius inventors and scientists. Dr. Gero’s genius completely shits all over Bulma’s, and he himself was a fighter. There’s Android 21 from the FighterZ game, too; she’s both a genius scientist and a fighter. From other franchises, Batman, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Mr. Fantastic, the Beast from X-Men, Donatello from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc are all inventors in addition to being fighters. And some characters who possess no real physical strength whatsoever find a way to help out in fights by controlling robots and other machines; the characters who pilot Gundam mechs come to mind, as does Roger from Big O. Megas XLR anyone? Child Emperor and Metal Knight from One Punch Man, as well; they’re genius scientists, too. Bulma would have been significantly better if she commanded robots and other machines to assist the Z Fighters in fights, but of course, 80s/90s Shonen audiences and authors are sexist pigs so you can’t have women being fighters at all.
Let’s face the fact that needs to be said; in a fighting series, you can’t be useful or important unless you actually are a fighter. Why? Because shocker, the fighters and fights are the crux of a fighting series; damn, crazy how that works. Being an inventor doesn’t preclude you from being a fighter, because there is no reason why you can’t be a fighter in addition to being an inventor. There are plenty of characters in fiction who are both fighters and inventors, as mentioned before. And if you wanted a series where the act of building shit actually matters, you would watch Bob the Builder or some shit. And as far as Shonen go, Dr. Stone is actually one that primarily focuses on it; the protagonist Senku rarely fights but he still drives the plot forward by building shit, and the story primarily focuses on him making stuff to rebuild human civilization. We get to see him make them and search for the materials he needs with his allies. Like Bulma, he isn’t a fighter, but unlike Bulma, he finds a way to be important in the writing of the story. His accomplishments aren’t swept off-screen; they’re the meat of Dr. Stone. The same can’t be said for anything Bulma does. She is both a failure as a character who invents and a character in general. She sucks. Some people also argue she was useful for repairing Sixteen, but he’s useless, too; no, he wasn’t needed for Gohan to turn SS2, as Cell already noted that he was on the verge of transforming before Sixteen spoke to him. Sixteen just happened to be the first person he saw get destroyed, and it makes no difference is he transforms over someone weak like Krillin, Yamcha or Tenshinhan dying. You can remove Sixteen from the plot entirely and nothing changes.
Anyway, Boo arc. She does fucking nothing. Making a stupid disguise off-screen in the span of one chapter for Gohan to wear is worthless, and his cover quickly gets blown as Videl figures out who he is, anyway; his other school acquiantances like Erasa and Sharpner also find out when he’s at the Budokai. There was never any point in him putting on some stupid disguise when he could have just taken out criminals faster than anyone can see, like we see Kale do when she fights Freeza in Dragon Ball Super; no way ordinary humans would be able to see him. She then forgets her Dragon Radar at Capsule Corp like a dumbass, prompting Goku to use up all his time on Earth by stalling Boo as a Super Saiyan 3 so Trunks can go fetch it. Wow. She was literally just at Capsule Corp with her radar right before she went to the lookout. She also cries like a bitch over Vegeta’s death; you know, that mass murdering piece of shit who had just slaughtered hundreds of people an hour earlier. This is who she is crying for. Jesus Christ. Vegeta deserved to fucking die! Then, she just chills on the lookout for the rest of the arc until Boo kills her and the other useless background characters (shame it was off-screen in the manga, goddamn Bulma deserved a gruesome death). End of the manga, she becomes an old wrinkly bitch wanting to waste wishes with the Dragon Balls to look younger. She’s really developed from the spoiled teenage brat who wanted to wish for a boyfriend, huh? Not. Anyway, we never see her again, because Dragon Ball ends. Good riddance, bitch.
Oh, right, GT and Dragon Ball Super. She makes a spaceship right at the start of the former, then never appears again until she gets taken over by Baby. Doing one thing at the start means jack shit when you don’t appear afterwards, and popping up at the end of the second arc to aid the villain is also worthless. Popping up at the end of the series to help Vegeta transform is also worthless; Vegeta is a loser jobber, anyway, and him turning SS4 was just a lazy plot device for him to fuse with Goku into Gogeta, who doesn’t do shit. Then, everyone decides that GT sucks ass and Dragon Ball Super replaces it. What does Bulma do in DBS? Jack shit. Let’s get this out of the way, the last talking point at the top of this post. Beerus didn’t decide to spare Earth because of Bulma; he didn’t give two fucks about Earth’s foods when he was about to blow it up after Boo pissed him off. Duh. He spared it only because he was entertained by his fight with Goku; for fuck sake, even the two Kaioshin note it was only because of Goku. Bulma’s meals are irrelevant; he just wants to see Goku become a worthy rival to him someday. That the Bulma simps thought they could spin this to make her look important is pathetic. Resurrection F, “she called over Goku and Vegeta over to fight Freeza so she’s important”. Literally a fucking damsel making a distress call to her boy toys to save her, fucking worthless. She can’t do anything herself, so she just calls over men to fight for her.
Really, Bulma’s role in DBS is just what we’ve come to expect of her; every now and then, she’ll invent (the Super Dragon Radar) or fix (the Time Machine. Oh, hey, we finally learn something about how the Time Machine is made, 24 years out after Future Trunks’s debuted on it. It runs on … Blue Electric Liquid 15! … what the fuck is blue electric liquid? How exactly does it fuel the Time Machine? LOL, none of this convoluted nonsensical bullshit matters) something for the plot to continue, but it’s all brief and off-screen so it’s inconsequential no matter what any apologist says. No one is watching for Bulma; people are just watching Dragon Ball to see characters fight and anyone who denies this is delusional. Nothing Bulma does is ever a focus; it’s never the crux of the plot. The Champa arc? The crux is just the tournament, which Bulma doesn’t participate in; she just cheers the men fighting on along with the other useless background characters like she always does. The Zamasu arc? The crux is just the fight against Zamasu and Goku Black in the alternate future; she never goes there in the manga, and while the anime shoehorns her in at the end, all we really get are dumb cringy gags like this. Look at this dumb bitch, doing the same shit she did with Blue all those years ago as a teenager; she’s nearly 50 at this point in this story. People seriously think she’s developed? Nonsense. Sure, she fixes the Time Machine after Zamasu blasts it, but it’s her fault for not immediately turning it back into a capsule after she arrives in the era with everyone else.
Then, Bulma pretty much sits out the entire Tournament of Power arc; we get pointless filler scenes of her pregnant at the very beginning, and that’s really it. She convinces Eighteen to participate by offering her money? Couldn’t Mr. Satan just pay her again? No one cares about any of this nonsense; it’s not one bit important when the only focus is the tournament itself. How shocking, the focus in a tournament arc is a tournament. Bulma doesn’t appear at all during the tournament, the most significant and popular part of all of DBS. So much for her supposed importance when there are such long stretches of her not appearing. Then, she does nothing in DBS Broly other than let her Dragon Radar and six Dragon Balls that were in her possession be stolen by Freeza’s men. I’m not even gonna bother getting into the Moro, Granola or whatever the fuck the latest arc is about, because at this point, nearly 30 years after the original manga ended in 1995, it doesn’t fucking matter.
Gotta love this, though. In the Super Hero movie, Bulma wastes a wish with the Dragon Balls on a bigger ass. Of all the things this dumb fucking bitch could have wished for, it’s a bigger ass. Remember when Bulma first appeared? She wanted to wish for a boyfriend. Now, as a grown woman, she wishes for a butt lift. Character development at its finest. This screws them over because they can’t summon Goku and Vegeta to deal with the bad guys. She’s also been wasting the Dragon Balls on other pointless wishes over the years regarding her appearance (“it’s to keep the Dragon Balls inactive in case another bad guy tries to use them” is bullshit, because they can just seal them away somewhere, like a Dragon Radar proof box, and in any case, there are far better wishes to grant than cosmetic surgery). Oh, and there’s also a scene where Bulma’s bending over underneath a table, showing her ass off for the audience; obviously, this scene had no other purpose than to make perverts blow their loads. You already know how people reacted in the theaters.
It’s not that sexualizing a character is bad; it’s when the character has no real purpose other than to make people horny that there’s an issue. And Bulma’s only purpose, right from her very debut, was just to give perverts something to jack off to. She just exists to be a comic relief character for Toriyama to poke fun at women, because he is a sexually frustrated misogynist piece of shit. “B-but she was the one who kickstarted the plot by pulling Goku out of the mountains, so this is all A-okay!” Fuck out of here with that bullshit. Even looking at the story from a purely in-universe perspective and giving her credit for things that she was only indirectly responsible for like her apologists love to do, she caused more harm than good. Let’s see here.
1. She created a portable Dragon Radar to gather the Dragon Balls, for the sole purpose of wishing for a boyfriend. In other words, she wanted to abuse the Dragon Balls for her own selfish desires, completely going against the entire reason God created them. Her Dragon Radar also makes it easier for the characters to overuse the Dragon Balls, which shouldn’t even exist on Earth to begin with as per the highest God in the original manga.
2. She pulled Goku out of the mountains. Goku, who would later go on to destroy the Red Ribbon Army, which would lead to Dr. Gero creating the androids that would slaughter almost everyone on Earth (and Goku isn’t even needed to beat the Saiyans or Freeza, as they could have just been sealed away with the Mafuba if they were to ever come to Earth). Goku himself also continually endangers Earth and causes innocent people to die, like when he allowed Gero to make the androids in his timeline instead of stopping him ahead of time which led to Cell killing a bunch of innocent people, when he allowed Vegeta to beat up on him instead of immediately beating him as an SS3 which led to Boo coming out and killing a bunch of innocent people and when he refused to beat Boo as an SS3 because he wanted two dumb kids to clean up his own mess which led to Boo killing just about everyone on Earth.
3. Her alternate counterpart violated the law of Gods when she creating a Time Machine, which fucked over the spacetime continuum by producing multiple timelines. This eventually leads to Zamasu killing everyone on Earth, and Zeno erasing the entire multiverse in this timeline altogether.
4. She continues to abuse the Dragon Balls for completely worthless wishes like a bigger ass and other forms of cosmetic surgery.
Not even the characters themselves agree with the bullshit argument that Bulma was needed to start the plot. There’s actually a scene in the manga where someone is given credit for everything that had happened in the story; contrary to what dumbass apologists say, it’s not Bulma. It’s literally God who is credited for everything that had happened in the story up to that point, because he’s the one who made the Dragon Balls. We later find out that God comes from the planet known as Namek, which is where the original set of Dragon Balls were made by the Grand Elder. Much later down the line, we find out that the very first set of Dragon Balls were created by Dragon God Zalama; the Namekian Dragon Balls were made from Zalama’s Super Dragon Balls. And there are plenty of other Gods who stand above Bulma, like Enma (Judge of Death), Kaio (King of Worlds), Kaioshin (God of Kings of Worlds), Hakaishin (God of Destruction), Tenshi (Angel), Daishinkan (Grand Priest) and Zeno (King of Everything). So even from a purely in-universe perspective, Bulma is worthless. She’s just some random human who fucks everything up with her stupidity.
But anyway, as I said before, all of this nerdy in-universe bullshit is worthless. The plot in Dragon Ball is convoluted nonsense. None of it makes any sense. It’s all basically just a half-assed excuse for the fighting to occur. That’s the only thing people actually care about when it comes to this series. They watch it for the intense, adrenaline-fueled battles. They only care about characters like Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Trunks, Piccolo, Freeza, Broly, etc because they’re the ones who get to do all the “cool” shit that people remember. Bulma doesn’t get to do any of that and that’s why no one gives a fuck about her. It’s just nerds and degenerates who do. Note how the series was unpopular when it first started with the Pilaf arc. It only became popular during the Jackie Chun arc, which is when the focus first shifted away from Chinese folklore-inspired adventure to martial arts. Interestingly, it was in this arc that Bulma was sidelined as she seldom had any screen or panel-time, only showing up as a spectator for the tournament. She had more screentime during the Pilaf arc, which was unpopular. She gets written off and rarely appears during the Jackie Chun arc, and only then does the series become popular. That just tells you how worthless she is.
You don’t need this stupid bitch. All you need is fighting for the series to be popular. And as fighting would become more of the focus over time, the series became even more popular, reaching a peak in the Freeza arc; what did Bulma do there? Nothing, she just hid while everyone was out fighting and rarely ever appeared. You’re not important when you never show up. Nerdy in-universe stuff like making radars or time machines is just arbitrary bullshit no one actually cares about, because the story never focuses on those things. And while you could say everything in the story is arbitrary in the end, it’s especially the stuff that the author doesn’t bother showing or fleshing out in detail, because none of it amounts to any more than a convenient excuse for the fighting to occur. In other words, a half-assed plot device. The fighting is important, because that’s what makes the series popular and that’s what the story actually focuses on. What the viewers actually see. The plot is convoluted bullshit full of plotholes, inconsistencies, asspulls, etc but viewers don’t care, because they’re entertained by all the flashy shit. Because only that flashy shit matters.
Most American viewers actually started off with DBZ in the 90s, skipping the entirety of the original Dragon Ball as Funimation dropped it after a few episodes in favor of airing DBZ first. Despite the fact this left American viewers with a very limited understanding of the lore and all the events that had happened prior in the plot, they still enjoyed the show. Nerds try to say Bulma is important because she “started” the story in the Pilaf arc, but viewers skipped that whole arc entirely and jumped straight to DBZ, when Bulma is pretty much always left behind. This didn’t stop DBZ from becoming such a hit in America, and why is that? Because it had action. Fighting. It doesn’t matter why the characters are fighting; as long as they’re fighting, then people will tune in regardless of whether or not they actually understand what’s going on. They don’t need to know the specifics of the lore or plot. As long as there’s action, then the series will be popular and that’s all that matters. If the series is not popular, then it makes no money and if it didn’t make any money, it would have been cancelled right away. It’s for that reason the fighting isn’t anywhere near as arbitrary as pretty much anything else in the story; without fighting, no one would give two fucks about Dragon Ball and that’s a fact. Bulma doesn’t fight and nothing she does is a point of focus in the story. She’s worthless.
There are actually some respectable depictions of women in anime, Shonen even. Even if they’re flawed, they’re much better than Bulma. Jolyne Cujoh from Part 6 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Clare from Claymore, Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell (she’s probably the most iconic female anime character of all time, and she certainly deserves that recognition more than Bulma ever will), even One Punch Man handles female characters better than Dragon Ball. For any character to truly be significant in a story, they have to consistently do important things throughout the story and we as viewers have to actually see them do these things. Their accomplishments can’t be swept off-screen or made to be totally brief like a few pages or panels; they have to shown and fleshed out at the crux of the story. Because only then can it be said that the story actually focused on the character and bothered to utilize them. And Bulma was never meant to actually be utilized beyond degenerate fan-service. Akira Toriyama was and will always be a talentless hack, and Bulma was and will always be a worthless character.
“I’d like to be the sort of geezer who pretends to be senile so they can peep on their daughter in the bath.” – Akira Toriyama
Alpha Male Scotty 
