Bulma is a fictional character in the Dragon Ball franchise, first appearing in the original manga series created by Akira Toriyama. She made her appearance in the first chapter "Bulma and Son Goku", published in Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine on June 19, 1984, issue 51, meeting Goku and befriending him and traveling together to find the wish-granting Dragon Balls.

Akira Toriyama was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the popular manga series Dr. Slump, before going on to create Dragon Ball and acting as a character designer for several popular video games such as the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon. Toriyama came to be regarded as one of the most important authors in the history of manga with his works highly influential and popular, particularly Dragon Ball, which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration.