While most fans think of her simply as Bulma’s mother, she actually does have a proper name in the Dragon Ball series: Panchy. She appeared in the original Dragon Ball anime as well, in a similar role. She’s a very interesting minor character, and the way she talks and acts is quite different from her daughter.

As the wife of Dr. Briefs and the mother of Bulma, even without much screen time, she still has some notability in the series. That said, Bulma clearly inherited her blue hair and intelligence from her father. It’s easy to assume Panchy was more of a trophy wife, especially since Dr. Briefs is insanely rich.

That doesn’t necessarily mean their marriage is happy, at least not from her perspective. She’s very openly (and unapologetically) flirtatious. While her husband was brilliant enough to invent Capsule technology, he apparently wasn’t as skilled in… other areas. Since this is ultimately the kind of humor typical of Akira Toriyama, it wouldn’t be surprising if she wasn’t completely loyal in her marriage.

Even though she’s not exactly the most hands-on parent, she still seems like a good mother at heart, and she’s a proud grandmother as well. It definitely helps that the family has enough money to hire competent babysitters, even if we never actually see them.

At the end of the day, though, she doesn’t do much in the series beyond being a minor background character. Both she and her husband are killed during the Majin Buu saga, presumably during Super Buu’s Human Extinction Attack. Interestingly, when faced with the possibility of the situation beforehand, they seemed pretty calm about it, knowing they would likely be revived with the Dragon Balls and that everything would be restored to normal. Which is exactly what happened.