What If Goku Married Bulma? is a Dragon Ball What If? fanfic by Lawrence Simpson, aka MasakoX of Team Four Star fam as part of his Dragon Ball Discussion series of Youtube videos. This particular topic started on October 27th, 2017, as the fifteenth entry in the series.
As the title suggests, he explores his interpretation of an alternate version of the story where instead of marrying Chi-Chi, Goku gets together with Bulma instead, turning their relationship into a Childhood Friend Romance where the First Girl Wins.
You can find the series playlist here
.
What If Goku Married Bulma? includes the following tropes:
- Abled in the Adaptation:
- Though he could easily regrow it, Piccolo never loses his left arm in the Raditz saga.
- Freeza has his full body intact before Goku obliterates him instead of having cybernetic replacements after his accidental self-mutilation.
- Gohan's left arm wasn't broken in the battle with Cell and instead obliterates the monster untouched.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Gohan now has purple hair instead of black due to being Bulma's child.
- Adaptational Backstory Change:
- Gohan is now the son of Goku and Bulma, rather than Goku and Chi-Chi.
- Bra is born as the daughter of Goku and Bulma, rather than Vegeta and Bulma.
- Adaptational Badass:
- Since Bulma is much more understanding of Goku's passion, Gohan actually gets some training in and is the one to defeat Raditz.
- Cell goes underground to fake his death, with the resulting Zenkai boost and metabolizing the people he'd consumed. This results in him emerging already as strong as Semi-Perfect Cell. Then he absorbs the Androids and jumps straight to Perfect far stronger than he was originally.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Future Trunks, who is still the son of Vegeta and Bulma from the regular timeline, is not pleased to find out she hooked up with Goku in this universe. He even considers not telling Goku about his heart disease and letting him die. Downplayed, since he still gives the medicine to Goku and later helps the group out against the Androids.
- Adapted Out:
- Zarbon, Dodoria and the Ginyu Force are absent in the Freeza saga.
- Present Trunks isn't born, much to Future Trunks' surprise. Likewise with Goten.
- Cell absorbs Androids 17 and 18 simultaneously and as a result skips his 2nd form straight to his final one.
- Ascended Extra: Android 16 is the main antagonist of the early Android Saga, as 17 and 18 had their programming deleted and left to continue their lives as they see fit.
- The Berserker: Freeza killing Bulma sends Goku into such a rage that he skips Super Saiyan Grade 1 and reaches Super Saiyan Grade 2. He completely NoSells all of Freeza's attacks and absolutely obliterates him, and his fury causes him to nearly attack his friends and even his own son before he's able to restrain himself.
- Original Character: Chi-Chi and Yamcha's daughter, Tousa, is not based off any of the canonical children had by the cast and is her own character.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Goku and Bulma, as opposed to their canonical Like Brother and Sister relationship. As Masako mentions Once an Episode, there were hints when Goku met Bulma again after becoming an adult that she was attracted to him. It just ends up being that Goku ends up liking Bulma as well as more than just a friend due to admiring her intelligence as well as feistiness.
- Composite Character: This version of Gohan is a blend of regular Kid Gohan and Trunks, most noticeably, the latter's brash attitude and arrogance.
- Cosmic Retcon: Following the below Downer Ending, the Grand Priest, sensing the deaths of Shin and Beerus, takes it upon himself to deal with Buu. He unfuses the characters from Buu and resets time to before he started actively destroying the Universe.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Goku goes berserk after Freeza kills Bulma, knocks 7 shades of shit out of Freeza, and then vaporizes him.
- Super Saiyan 2 Gohan completely dominates Perfect Cell even more than canon, since he's more serious and used to the Super Saiyan 2 form and had trained for the 3 years that had gone by. This is despite Cell being stronger than the canon Perfect Cell.
- Death by Adaptation:
- In canon, Bulma's first death happened during the Buu saga. Here, Bulma was the one killed by Freeza that triggers Goku's Super Saiyan transformation instead of Krillin.
- Freeza himself was outright killed by Goku at the conclusion of their battle instead of Future Trunks a year later.
- Dabura and Babidi were both killed by Vegeta before Buu was released instead of dying by the monster's hands.
- Even though the Grand Priest resets time to stop Super Buu's rampage, both Shin and Beerus remain dead.
- Demoted to Extra:
- Piccolo doesn't become Gohan's mentor since Goku survives the fight with Raditz and trains Gohan himself, but he still gets to merge with Kami to defeat Imperfect Cell with Android 16, forcing Imperfect Cell to revert to larval form to hide.
- Due to the premise, Trunks is forced to not interact with the gang as he did in canon.
- Tenshinhan didn't participate in the Cell saga.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Vegeta doesn't marry Bulma, so Trunks isn't born.
- Did Not Get The Guy: As you probably guessed by the title, Chi-Chi doesn't end up with Goku. Even though he still promised to marry her as he did in canon, when the time comes for it, he apologizes and says that he can't marry her because he likes Bulma. She's surprisingly understanding. She does get a happy ending in marrying Yamcha who ends up being a baseball star and much more grounded than Goku, at least.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation:
- Raditz was killed by Gohan instead of Piccolo.
- Piccolo was outright killed by Nappa instead of Taking the Bullet for Gohan, who in this version arrives with Goku.
- Bulma's first death happened at the hands of Freeza instead of Super Buu.
- King Cold was killed by Goku, Gohan, and Vegeta on his home planet instead of Future Trunks on Earth.
- Vegeta kills Dr. Gero instead of Android 17.
- Cell was killed by both Goku and Gohan four years after he was killed canonically.
- Androids 17 and 18 aren't brought back to life after being absorbed by Cell.
- Dabura was killed by Vegeta before the latter was controlled by Babidi instead of by Majin Buu following Babidi taking control of the Saiyan prince. Likewise, Vegeta also kills Babidi shortly before Majin Buu's release instead of by Buu himself much later.
- Downer Ending: And how! First, Goku breaks Bulma's trust by keeping Buu alive to fight after telling everyone that they were just going to keep him sealed away. Then, they apparently succeed in sealing Buu away a second time, only for Bulma to show up and reveal she's pregnant. Shortly, she's then killed by Buu, who reveals he tricked them by cloning a small part of himself and that he absorbed all the other Z-fighters except Piccolo and the Saiyans. He then fights the Saiyans and absorbs Gohan after a bit. Then he kills Shin, thus killing Beerus and inactivating Whis. Then he absorbs Goku, Vegeta and Bulma, so they can "Live forever, together". Buu then goes on to terrorize Universe 7. After criticism to the rushed nature of the ending, Masako ultimate settled with hitting the Cosmic Retcon and kept it going.
- Edible Theme Naming: Tousa, Yamcha and Chi-Chi's daughter, is named for sugar, to go off of Yamcha's tea themed name and Chi-Chi being named after milk. So It's Tea, Milk, and Sugar. Masako was quite proud of the pun.
- Family Theme Naming: Goku and Gohan, Bulma and Bulla.
- For Want Of A Nail: Gohan never becomes The Great Saiyaman due to not encountering the Ginyu Force, and thus wasn't inspired by them.
- Happily Married:
- There are a few pitfalls, but overall, Goku seems better off with Bulma than he is canonically with Chi-Chi. At first...
- Chi-Chi is this with Yamcha, as well, with them visiting regularly with the Son family.
- In Spite of a Nail
- The Saiyan saga still plays largely the same despite the Raditz saga playing out differently. Goku still trains with King Kai and the fates of the non-Saiyan Z-Fighters' are the same with the canon ones.
- Piccolo still Fuses with Nail in the Freeza saga, and later Kami in the Cell saga.
- Goku still ends up on Yardat after defeating Freeza and learns Instant Transmission.
- Vegeta still becomes Majin Vegeta.
- After Vegeta kills Babidi and regains his senses, Buu is still released, but Goku still wants to fight him, so he seals him in the Mafuba, intending to fight him later while stronger.
- Evil Buu is still released as being hit with the Mafuba technique and sealed away for many years had made Good Buu so angry he was tricked that it did take much for Evil Buu to form and take control during his imprisonment. Once Goku and Vegeta release him with intent to finish him for good (thinking they were still dealing with Fat Buu), Evil Buu goes on to terrorize the world. and later, the universe after the Saiyans are absorbed and Shin killed.
- The Juggernaut: No matter what Freeza throws at him, Super Saiyan Grade 2 Goku cannot be stopped, not only because of his overwhelming power, but also his sheer determination to kill Freeza for murdering Bulma.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Goku and Vegeta are shaken they couldn't defeat Buu hand-to-hand and had to rely on the Mafuba to defeat him. The two train to gain the strength needed to defeat him and try to keep the fight in the Room of Spirit and Time when they release him from the bottle he was sealed in. They didn't expect to find Evil Buu in the place of the one they sealed away, nor him escaping the room and going on to terrorize the world in revenge. Bulma, understandably, is furious when she finds out what they've done when there was no reason to do so other than their Saiyan nature. What's more, this dumb act ultimately ended up dooming their whole universe as Buu ends up tricking them, absorbs them and kills Shin and God of Destruction, giving Buu free reign to terrorize the universe.
- Pair the Spares: After their potential romances with canonical partners fall through, Yamcha and Chi-Chi end up getting married, granted there was some hinted attraction in the anime. They're surprisingly Happily Married.
- Related in the Adaptation:
- As the title suggests, Goku being married to Bulma is the main premise of the series. This results with Gohan and Bulla being siblings. Post Cell saga, Android 16 has been living with them.
- Since Chi-Chi didn't end up with Goku, she marries Yamcha instead.
- Robot Buddy: Android 16 to the Son/Briefs family following the Cell saga.
- Shoddy Knockoff Product: They have Dende ask Porunga to create fake Dragon Balls to fool Freeza. In artwork they are depicted as having off-center stars and called "Dorgon Bolls".
- Spared by the Adaptation: Quite a few.
- Goku survives through the Buu saga as he didn't perform his respective Heroic Sacrifices in the Raditz and Cell Sagas.
- Vegeta, Dende, Krillin, the Namekians (technically except Nail) and by extension planet Namek itself all survive the Freeza saga.
- Future Trunks, King Kai, Bubbles, Gregory, and Android 16 all survive the Cell saga.
- Dabura never obliterated Kibito in the Buu saga.
- Sudden Downer Ending: For the most part, the What If is fairly jovial with the Z-Warriors going through the usual trails they would in their main timeline. But once we hit the Buu Saga, a boneheaded decision by Goku and Vegeta based solely on their pride ends up getting them and their friends absorbed by Buu and dooming their universe.
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: As the title suggests, Goku never marries Chi-Chi and Bulma never marries Vegeta. This results in Bulma being Gohan's mother and Goku being Bulla's father.
- Unstoppable Rage: Bulma's death at Freeza's hands during the Namek Saga results in a royally pissed off Goku actually skipping Super Saiyan Grade 1 and going right into Grade 2. The downside is that his more primal instincts take over and reduce him to a cold-blooded killing machine who almost blasts Gohan before managing to restrain himself.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Bulma is utterly furious at Goku and Vegeta for releasing Buu when they didn't have to. He was trapped within the bottle, sealed away and locked deep within the Capsule Corp vault. All releasing him did was just put the world at jeopardy and Bulma reads the two the riot act when she finds out.
