Revisiting Dragon Ball after not seeing much of it for God knows how long made me remember how vain someone like Bulma is as a character. Between her history of being a rich woman and her overall tendencies to use her feminine charms to get what she wants from others, she may come off as the usual fanservice-type. That being said, she manages to not be like that whatsoever, especially considering how intelligent she actually is, on top of her ability to remain tomboyish even if she can still act girly. And now both teen and adult Bulma share the spotlight for this review. We'll see if I want to get the third version with the guns, but until then, let's see how these two fare!
Here we have Bulma in hand. This figure represents her teenage years, and while she has a pink dress with the crisp tampographs featuring her name and the number 97, she has as much adventure to her as a tomboy would normally have. I like how the right hand is wearing a glove while the left one is exposed, and the addition of a belt and a pouch that stand out from the pink of the dress makes her feel less girly than people would assume she would be. Her left arm has a watch sculpted and painted on, though I wish it were a separate piece and glued onto the arm instead of being molded on, since you'll have to deal with the unfinished exposure of the flesh tones on what is supposed to be the straps. The proportions generally capture how she looked in the older era of the series, though you do have the disk-like protrusions of the elbow and knee joints.
Her head sculpt captures the art style of the Dragon Ball series from that era well, with a fairly big shape for her noggin as well as the hairstyle she was known to rock at the time. I prefer the adult Bulma haircuts better, but at least the strands of hair look good with the red bow on her head. She would have hung out with Ms. Pac-Man and Sailor Venus, undoubtedly (especially with the Bandai Namco merger). Her accessories include a screaming faceplate, a closed smile faceplate, a pistol, two holsters (one empty and one filled), a Dragon Ball, a scanner, four right hands (pointing, gun-holding, scanner-holding, and one with a capsule molded onto it), and two left hands (pointing and relaxed).
The articulation is standard for the female Figuarts if you recall my Sailor Moon reviews from way back; I wouldn't be surprised if they used similar engineering and proportions from those figures while making teenage Bulma given she was made later in the line. She has three points at the neck (head-tilting, rotation, and hinging for looking up and down), ball joints at the shoulders with outward hinging for the arms, bicep rotation, hinged elbows, wrists that can either move in and out or up and down, a double ball-peg torso, ball joints at the hips, slight thigh rotation, hinged knees, and ankles that can swivel, hinge, and pivot. While she could hold her gun and scanner without issues, the Dragon Ball is only resting on her hand. Meanwhile, the gun holster I find questionable, with having to make two versions of it, when I assume it could be easy to plop the gun in there. Maybe its size and how the holster itself is shaped made Tamashii concerned that fans would have a hard time trying to put the gun away, so this decision isn't as stupid as when Hasbro had guns glued in their Fox Deadpool figure despite having separate guns, or even McFarlane's recent Captain Cold where his cold gun is too big to fit inside his holster if it were even made to store weapons. Her screaming face makes her look more like a monkey than even the Saiyans were, though it's due to the art style for the show at the time being a bit goofier than the sharper, more badass look that we're familiar with via Z. Think of it as similar to the artstyle shift going from Spongebob Season 1 to 2 and 3 (and that's ignoring the movie and every shift since its release!).
As for the Namek Planet version of Bulma, we see her as a grown adult and closer to the look we're all familiar with now where she is a mother. Around this time, she got herself more involved into the adventures of the Z Fighters and was also willing to travel to the planet in hopes of reviving Yamcha and the others in addition to her tech smarts being a major help. In addition to growing in certain assets, the figure's outfit is made for survival in unfamiliar territory such as Namek. The yellow and black combo is almost suitable for a Bumblebee type of look, though the orange boots do stand out as much as her teal hair. While it may look far less casual as far as outfits go, Bulma still rocks with the shoulder pads, and the skirt still adds to her feminine nature without issue.
Her head sculpt is now made to better fit the artstyle upgrade that Dragonball Z got compared to the earlier seasons, and that confident smirk for one of her alternate faceplates is perfect! With the articulation mostly the same as her teen counterpart, let's cover her accessories, consisting of a backpack with her name on it (with the zippers painted) as well as an alternate set of hair with her safari hat, with fists to make her look confident.
She also has a hand with her tracker sculpted on as well as a pointing left hand for when she spots a Dragonball, with this one being larger than the one from Teen Bulma. Also she has a screaming face that is something her cowardice normally fits.
The belt is removable if you want her without that look, and it looks like she's realizing that after Megatron stole any capsules as well as the ball. Still less embarrassing than the cliche panty stealing crap a lot of anime do.
For some size comparisons, here is teen Bulma with kid Goku and Namek Bulma with Vegeta. The scale for the kid Goku has varied given how he may not always match the puny proportions he has in the old seasons, especially with how he feels more in line with Z's artstyle. As for Vegeta, she is perfect with the prince of the Saiyans. Now if only we had her post-wedding form. As for the third version of Bulma I don't have, the combat girl outfit, I don't have that version but I fear getting a real one grew difficult thanks to the bootlegs. Teen Bulma should be fairly easy to come by, while Namek Bulma remains harder to get, likely because that is the closest to a present day adult version of the character we currently have. Still better than Chi-Chi's current state of just having her kid self in an outfit that I'd rather see on her as an adult.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ for both
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