Tiffany Vollmer Tells Geekdom101 Why History of Trunks Is Her Favorite Bulma Work

Tiffany Vollmer, the English voice of Bulma across Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT, says the episode she loved doing most was The History of Trunks special. In her words, it showed "a much more grounded version" of the character. Many people have voiced Bulma, even just in English, but I'd argue none are more celebrated than Tiffany.

She sat down with me after a battle with COVID-19. Before we spoke, we had found out she was legitimately sick with the virus. It was a scare, because the Japanese voice of Bulma had died, and people were saying they couldn't lose another one. Word went out, and by the time we talked she had overcome it. Like Bulma from the future, she's a survivor. "Glad to still be around to be able to chat with you," she said.

Tiffany Vollmer played Bulma from age 16 into her 40s

Tiffany said Bulma got easier and more natural the more she played her. She also found it strange to look back on, because she voiced the character from the age of 16 through the age of 40 something. She was even older by the end, since she also voiced Bulma in GT.

I asked whether she changed her performance or her view of the character as Bulma aged, became a mother and raised Trunks. She said she did. When people ask her for a favorite saga or a favorite Bulma scene, she always tells them she loved doing The History of Trunks, because you get to see all sides of Bulma, including the widow, and all the sensitive, more mature and more grounded parts of her.

What she wanted from Dragon Ball Z directors

Tiffany said she loved working with her director on that special. She contrasted that with how different directors worked. Some would bring her in, get the line and trust that she knew who Bulma was. Others would just ask her to try it again.

Her frustration with the second approach was simple. She had been playing Bulma for eight years, so if a director wanted the line done a different way, that was fine, but she needed to be told. "I need you to give me direction," she said, rather than simply being asked to do the line again.

Returning to teenage Bulma for the Funimation redub

After she had done Z, GT and the Trunks special, Tiffany had to go back and redub seasons one and two. That came after Funimation stopped using the Ocean dub and moved to its in-house dub, and it also covered Dragon Ball. That meant reverting her voice to teenage Bulma.

Bulma is a very important character. I don't think people understand that she's the second character ever introduced in the series, after Goku. She created the Dragon Radar and the time machine. In my view, she created the plot of the entire series, which makes her, in many ways, the second most important character. People forget that because they think of Dragon Ball as an action show, which it is, but she was there from the very beginning, and she discovered Goku.

Why Bulma is essential to Dragon Ball, according to Tiffany and me

Tiffany said she has been entertained by the idea that there are fans out there, conspiracy theorists, who believe the entire series could have gone on without Bulma. Her answer is that Bulma is the one who got the Dragon Balls together and made the wish.

I think that idea is nonsense. She invented the Dragon Radar. Had Bulma not invented the time machine, Trunks would never have been able to go back in time and save the main timeline from Goku's heart virus and the androids. This series cannot exist without Bulma, and I'm not saying that because I'm talking to the woman who voiced her. I'm saying it because it's the truth.

Even in the Japanese version, Bulma is the second main character, and Akira Toriyama himself talked about this. The first episode of Dragon Ball in Japanese is titled with Bulma's name first, Bulma and Son Goku. In the discussion, we also noted that she's the reason Vegeta would eventually become good.

Tiffany Vollmer never acted opposite Vegeta

I asked Tiffany whether she and Chris, the voice of Vegeta, had chemistry as Bulma and Vegeta because they knew each other in real life, or whether it even mattered when actors are in the booth at separate times. "I never ever got to react opposite him," she said.

In Japan, from what I understand, everyone is in the booth at once with one or two mics. Tiffany said she wasn't completely clear on the differences. She believes that in America, on a show like The Simpsons, the actors do a table read and the artists try to mimic the shapes of the actors' voices. In anime, she believes the dialogue is drawn in first, so voice actors there have to match the mouth, as English dub actors do too.

The catch is that Japanese mouth sounds and language are very different from English. Tiffany explained that Japanese doesn't have some of the consonants English has in the middle of a word, so the voice stays open the whole time. That's one reason scripts had to be rewritten, and she spent time in booths hammering out new lines because there was no way to make some of them fit.

The Dragon Ball Z script and a fight for better pay

The script for Dragon Ball Z has historically been a bad one. One of the people behind the English adaptation changed a lot from the Japanese, and I think some of it was unnecessary. I've heard different stories about him: some say he was a taskmaster, others a nice guy. So I asked Tiffany what working with him was like.

She said she thought he was great and liked him, up until the point where she felt the voice actors deserved more money. By her account, she called them all into a meeting and said, "we're not really being paid what we should and we gotta raise the next year."

I'm sure the cast should thank her. Dragon Ball Z was, at the time, the biggest cartoon on television in the late 90s and early 2000s; I think South Park was the only one that edged it out. It superseded Pokemon and Sailor Moon at one point. I've heard stories that Chris Sabat made 20 grand a year, which seems wild for the biggest show going. This show made Funimation, which before Dragon Ball Z had other properties that nobody cared about.

Tiffany Vollmer's surprise makeup artist credit

That led to an unexpected revelation. Tiffany said she had worked on a movie from one of those earlier properties, as the key makeup artist. She thinks it was around the same time she auditioned for Dragon Ball, but she doesn't remember exactly whether it was before or after she started on the series. I didn't mean to dismiss anyone's work there; my point was only that people weren't buying it, and Dragon Ball Z is what hit.

What inspires Tiffany Vollmer about Bulma

Bulma's dad invented the capsules, and she invented the Dragon Radar and other gadgets. She also helped turn Vegeta, who I'd say was most shaped by Bulma, Trunks and Goku. I asked Tiffany what she found most inspirational about her.

She said she loved that Bulma was a strong, independent woman who was also very in touch with her sexuality, however naive or shy it was. Later you see her go from a girl to a woman, using that sexuality to pursue Vegeta. For Tiffany, "the rocket science brain smarts" and the naive feminine side work together to make a pretty incredible character. I'd add that this is a woman who reprogrammed a Namekian spaceship, alien technology, so it could be translated into a language she could read.

No Japanese audio, except for the games

Funimation dubs very differently now, so I asked whether she had access to the Japanese audio to pattern herself after. Tiffany said it was all directing. The only time they used the Japanese voices was when dubbing the games, where lines had to fit their timing exactly, so they listened to the Japanese timing and matched it in their own voices.

She did share the booth at times. She and the voice of Chi-Chi got in the booth together and had screaming matches, which she said was a lot of fun. The walla, or crowd scenes, also had everyone standing in a booth together making mouth noises and crowd sounds, which meant voicing extras as well.

Tiffany Vollmer thought her voice career was over

Tiffany said nobody told her what was coming for Bulma. She hadn't researched the job; they wanted her voice, it was a cold read, and she was happy with that. Then, with the planet exploding in the story, they said they'd call her back, and she didn't hear from them for about two weeks.

She compared it to a sitcom storyline where a character gets written out of Days of Our Lives, and wondered whether her character had died and her voice acting career was already over. But they kept calling her back for more scenes, and when they started doing Dragon Ball she knew. "I was not an anime fan trying to become a anime voice actor," she said. "I was an actress that got a job on an anime show." Now it's the reverse, with fans who want into the business, and she wished them all luck.

She said she didn't realize how big a deal it was until the Dragon Ball series. In theory, if Goku is the main character and Bulma the secondary main character, she voiced Bulma more than Goku's main English actor voiced Goku, since Goku had another voice as a child. Tiffany noted that even Chi-Chi had a different voice actor as a child, making her the longest running voice actor on the show. She was there from start to finish, and to me that's a tremendous body of work.