Is Bulma's age 38 or 45 during BoG?

[Angelus]

She says she's 38 in BOG, which is in 778. But if she's 38, that would mean that she was born in 740. Yet, in the DBZ Wiki, it says that Bulma was born on 733 and even has sources cited for it.

So what gives? How old is Bulma?

/offtopic: Mai, Pilaf's associate, is born 737 (making her 41 in BoG) according to DBZ wiki. Which makes her younger than Bulma even back in DB, yet Mai looks older even back then. Huh?

[Zephyr]

I always explain it as her lying about her age.

[JulieYBM]

Fact #1: The movie states Blooma is thirty-eight.
Fact #2: The movie just to happens to contradict other products, like other Dragon Ball works.

[Kaboom]

It's admittedly a bit of an inconsistency. The early parts of the manga make it very clear that she's at least a year or two older than Goku, so if Goku was born at least 38 years ago, before Planet Vegeta was destroyed as mentioned by Beerus (or three years before, according to Toriyama's revised history in DB Minus)... then Bulma really can't only be 38. She should be more like 45. Either someone miscounted the years, or it was an accidentally-kept tidbit carried over from an earlier version of the story, or something.

So we could just write it off as, "oh, that's a small mistake," which is pretty easy and more than fair. But if we want an in-universe explanation, then it's likewise totally easy to assume she's lying about her age.

[FoolsGil]

Yup. She's been 38 for seven years.

[Hellspawn28]

She most likely lied about her age to make herself feel younger around others.

[Angelus]

Fact #1: The movie states Blooma is thirty-eight.
Fact #2: The movie just to happens to contradict other products, like other Dragon Ball works.

But that's because most of those other movies were Toei stuff. AT was really in BoG right?

Oh and another thing, Vegeta is 46 in BoG then? And Goku is 41?

[JulieYBM]

Fact #1: The movie states Blooma is thirty-eight.
Fact #2: The movie just to happens to contradict other products, like other Dragon Ball works.

But that's because most of those other movies were Toei stuff. AT was really in BoG right?

I don't see how that matters. An official Dragon Ball work is an official Dragon Ball work. Toriyama can make mistakes, too. He certainly never cared about consistency. It's best simply to accept everything happens where everything happens and consistency between every chapter, episode, film, video game or back of a milk cartoon is not going to happen.

[Kaboom]

Yep. It's an inconsistency, but a minor one that ultimately doesn't affect anything important in the film itself or otherwise. No reason to worry about it.

[Angelus]

It just made me wonder because then how old is Vegeta and Goku then?

[JulieYBM]

It just made me wonder because then how old is Vegeta and Goku then?

However old they claim to be in the movie.

Given they don't claim their ages in the movie...they don't claim their ages in the movie.

[Cetra]

Let's see. Bulma was 16 in vol. 1. Goku was 23 in vol. 17 which made her 25. Battle of Gods is 17-18 years after that which makes her 42-43. What is missing are the 5 years that lead to Battle of Gods itself. I guess it was just forgotten.

[Angelus]

And how old was Goku when he met Bulma?

[JulieYBM]

And how old was Goku when he met Bulma?

He claims he was fourteen. During the Twenty-First Tenka'ichi Budoukai (which years later is established to always occur in May) Gokuu claims he learned how to count and is actually twelve. Because Gokuu was training with for the tournament for eight months that means he met Blooma in September of the previous year. If he was in actuality twelve at the time he met Blooma that means he would be thirteen or nearly thirteen at the Twenty-First Tenka'ichi Budoukai.

[Angelus]

Ah so he was 12 when he met Bulma! They only have a 4 year gap... yet Goku looked like such a runt. Yamcha looked older than Bulma too. Vegeta and Goku only have a 5 year age difference then. This could mean that Goku was either 34 or 41 in BoG and Vegeta was either 39 or 46 in BoG?

[VegettoEX]

This is one of those things that gets held up by both sides:

"Toriyama worked on the movie, so it's real/canonical!"

"There's something wrong with it, so that means it doesn't count!"

There are plenty of retcons in the manga itself, nevermind outright errors (like the less-than-a-year-between-wishes I mentioned in another thread today, Trunks naming #19 & #20, etc.). So what's that mean? How do you reconcile that? There are errors everywhere, so if your definition of "truth" or "canonical" means "there are no errors within the product," you have to discount the manga itself.

Furthermore, we have no idea WHO is the one who wrote Bulma's age in the dialog. We know there was a script that Toriyama came in and essentially rewrote. Was this part of it? Was it there beforehand? Who knows? We sure don't! Therefore, you can't hold up this "Toriyama wrote it!" as... well, anything. You're basically left to reconcile it in-universe as best you can, which usually amounts to, "I guess she's just lying about her age."

[The Tori-bot]

It's odd because this is also the movie that has the "Planet Vegeta was destroyed 39 years ago" thing. Leaving aside how accurate that is in and of itself, you'd think someone involved with the movie would have noticed that they were indirectly saying that Goku is older than Bulma, which obviously isn't the case.

I still believe that it's an intentional joke. Bulma really likes to stress throughout the movie that she's turned 38.

[Angelus]

outright errors (like the less-than-a-year-between-wishes I mentioned in another thread today, Trunks naming #19 & #20, etc.).

I want to read that thread. XD

It's odd because this is also the movie that has the "Planet Vegeta was destroyed 39 years ago" thing. Leaving aside how accurate that is in and of itself, you'd think someone involved with the movie would have noticed that they were indirectly saying that Goku is older than Bulma, which obviously isn't the case.

I still believe that it's an intentional joke. Bulma really likes to stress throughout the movie that she's turned 38.

Oh yeah....I didn't even notice that. That would mean that Goku is older. lol wtf

Ah whatever. Just like the movies that aren't in continuity... I guess AT just forgot about these details. lol

[miguelnuva1]

Considering Bulma is a woman and women tend not to tell their true age I'm going with 38 was just a number she picked to throw out. Gohan is 21 which would make Goku at least 40 if he wasn't dead for 8 years so Bulma can't be 38 unless Gohan was conceived when his parents were 15 or 16.

If Goku is retoned to 10 and Bulma to 14 I think it works then or Bulma is retconed to two years older than Goku and not 4.

[RandomGuy96]

Bulma is 45. Goku is four years younger. She wasn't lying about her age, as that doesn't match the context at all. BOG just made a mistake.