Bulma Briefs ( )

Bulma has a temperamental personality while being very tomboyish and girly at the same time. While known for her extreme intellect, Bulma is quite spoiled and vain, using her beauty as an excuse for doing and getting whatever she wants; this sort of behavior seemingly 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, complaining when circumstances prevent her from taking a bath or replenishing her beauty supplies, even when it is the least of her worries, such as when stranded in the wilderness. At times, her wanton outbursts have landed her and her friends in deeper trouble.

Despite her temper, Bulma frequently displays friendliness and helpfulness towards others. She also tends to seek out excitement and adventure despite her haughtiness and sheltered upbringing. When calm, she tends to approach major situations rationally, often making crucial decisions on her own, and is 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, a part of being chipper and easygoing. In the Japanese version, she even refers to Goku as "Son-kun," indicating she feels very close to him.

Bulma enjoys strawberries,[10] attractive boys and bubble baths. Though she shows a strong dislike towards perverted men, she would not hesitate from taking advantage of them; she has been known to use her sex appeal for self-gain on occasion and would herself become infatuated with men she'd just met based entirely on their looks. This happened even during times when she was dating Yamcha, whom she claimed to intend to marry. Hypocritically, her infatuation would also sometimes cause her to flirt in a very crass manner, as demonstrated with General Blue, having grabbed his arm and licked it while meowing like a cat. She also had zero tolerance towards Yamcha being approached by other women when she was still dating him; she broke up with him when she thought he was cheating on her with Hasky, and again when she saw Maron attempting to flirt with him. She later lost interest in Yamcha due to his lack of commitment and showed greater commitment and maturity herself in her relationship with Vegeta.

Despite their rocky start and quarrelsome natures, Bulma has a unanimous relationship with Vegeta, which further improves after their marriage. Bulma tends to boss Vegeta around and often berates him for his rudeness, goading him into further argument, though they both seem to glean some bizarre fulfillment in their rapport, and she in particular takes pleasure in teasing him. Although they argue often and despite him being a former enemy, Bulma is very devoted to Vegeta and truly loves him, taking great pride in being his wife. After becoming a mother, Bulma is a loving one towards her children, though she doesn't hesitate to lay down the law when Trunks misbehaves.

Bitter breakup and marriage to Vegeta notwithstanding, Bulma and Yamcha still care for each other as longtime friends, enough so that the former openly wept in the latter's arms at the news of Vegeta's death battling Buu. By the time of Super, Bulma clearly still considers him an important part of her life, enough to have him at every one of their frequent parties and happily lets him hold baby Bulla (though Vegeta was not amused when Yamcha made her cry).

One of Bulma's most interesting relationships is her friendship with Goku, having known him for the majority of his life and becoming his first and among closest friends. Initially, she expressed frustration and annoyance towards his lack of hygiene, manners, and knowledge of the world, and sought only to use him as protection whenever they encountered trouble while looking for the Dragon Balls. Soon after however, Bulma came to warm up and care for Goku, their relationship being akin to that of an older sister and younger brother. As they grew up together into adulthood, Bulma showed great concern for him whenever he was in serious danger and would assist him whenever he needed it, despite never-abating irritation at his unrelenting immaturity. Bulma's faith and trust in Goku's abilities have shown to be absolute to the point where she often displays more confidence in him than Vegeta, such as in 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-Chi's and showing a great deal of warmth to their sons Gohan and Goten.

Though she isn't a fighter, Bulma can be violent when angered and defend herself if need be. Several characters such as Krillin, Goku, Vegeta, and even Beerus have shown fear at her violent temper. When it seemed Frieza had been destroyed by the Large Spirit Bomb, Krillin freaked when he remembered they had left Bulma alone on Namek and even suggested that an angry Bulma is more terrifying than Frieza. Much later, Goku panicked 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 he simply wanted to be there for her in this unsure time.

On a related note, when facing down an enemy, Bulma is known to be even more vicious. When she comes face-to-face with Frieza for the first time after his revival, confronting him alongside her friends and Jaco, Bulma bravely confronts him, addressing the tyrant outright and rudely, though this was due to believing that Gohan and the others utterly outmatched him, and she quickly began backpedaling once Gohan and Piccolo pointed out that Frieza was far stronger than before. This turned back around however when she insisted Frieza to wait for Goku; when Frieza agreed to wait only for ten seconds, she began raging and violently cussing him out. She was also shown to use rude and politically incorrect terms regarding certain people during her youth (largely in the original Japanese version), best demonstrated in her first meeting with General Blue in the full color manga. After the latter refused her advances in a manner indicating he wasn't into girls, she called him a f--; this was toned down in the VIZ translation to simply have her say "phooey, must be gay."

Bulma was shown to have some irritation towards her friends 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 and Krillin out for insisting, they'd revive Goten and Trunks with the Dragon Balls if they died, disapproving of taking the lives of children so lightly. This is comedically contrasted later when, as she grew older, she became so paranoid about losing her good looks that she collected the Dragon Balls to make herself look only 5 years younger and other cosmetic treatments. It's implied that she'd done this a few times before. Such wishes have caused some of her allies to question her actions such as Goku and Piccolo.

Being a scientist, Bulma has a strong sense of curiosity, willing to delve into forbidden territory just to see if she could accomplish it. This was shown in the anime, when she requested Future Trunks to give her the damaged Time Machine used by Cell so she could study it, which she gave up after being unable to decipher anything due to lack of context.[21] When she gained context via the notes from her future counterpart, she attempted to create an entirely new Time Machine despite various warnings from Jaco, Whis, and Beerus that time manipulation is a grave sin, simply to see if it can be done. When Beerus destroyed her incomplete Time Machine and the notes, she wept over her losses.[22]