Fortuneteller Baba is the ancient, witch-like sister of Master Roshi who operates a fortune-telling business on a floating crystal ball above the desert, serving as a bridge between the living world, the afterlife, and the hidden truths buried in time. Despite her shriveled appearance, wrinkled blue skin, and riding a floating crystal ball with the casual menace of a classic Disney witch, Baba's services have been instrumental to multiple Dragon Ball plots: she located the last Dragon Ball for Goku during the Red Ribbon Army Saga, revealed the hidden fighters of Other World through her champion tournament, and — most crucially — brought Goku back to the living world for a single day during the Buu Saga using her afterlife connections.Fortuneteller Baba is the ancient, witch-like sister of Master Roshi who operates a fortune-telling business on a floating crystal ball above the desert, serving as a bridge between the living world, the afterlife, and the hidden truths buried in time. Despite her shriveled appearance, wrinkled blue skin, and riding a floating crystal ball with the casual menace of a classic Disney witch, Baba's services have been instrumental to multiple Dragon Ball plots: she located the last Dragon Ball for Goku during the Red Ribbon Army Saga, revealed the hidden fighters of Other World through her champion tournament, and — most crucially — brought Goku back to the living world for a single day during the Buu Saga using her afterlife connections. Baba's fee is famously exorbitant (billions of zeni), though she accepts alternative payment in the form of defeating her five afterlife champions in combat — a tournament that Goku and his friends managed thanks largely to Goku's tearful reunion with his deceased Grandpa Gohan, who served as Baba's strongest champion. Baba operates a concession stand in the afterlife, and her ability to temporarily resurrect the dead for twenty-four-hour visits is one of the few abilities in the Dragon Ball universe that bypasses the standard Dragon Ball resurrection rules. Her personality is sharp, greedy, and thoroughly unsentimental, yet beneath the crone's exterior lies genuine affection for her brother Roshi and a grudging respect for Goku's friends. Baba's design — a tiny, wizened woman in a witch's hat, perpetually hunched over her crystal ball and cackling at misfortune — is classic Toriyama witch aesthetic, visually referencing the broader fantasy genre from which Dragon Ball's early arcs drew inspiration. Baba represents the mystical infrastructure of the Dragon Ball universe: the hidden knowledge, the afterlife bureaucracy, and the acceptance that death is not an end but a different state of being with its own rules, fees, and champion fighters.... Read more
