Why Is Mai a Kid in Dragon Ball Super? (& How Old Is She?)
A lot has happened since we first saw a kid Son Goku on his journey to find the Dragon Balls with Bulma. Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball has since “given birth” to Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super, all of which have shown us what happens to all the characters in the aftermath of Dragon Ball. This, of course, includes the villains as well and the one we are going to talk about here is Mai, a member of Emperor Pilaf’s gang. We all know that Mai was an adult woman in Dragon Ball, yet in Dragon Ball Super she is – along with the rest of the gang – a kid. Why is that?
At some point during the three years before the Android conflict, i.e., before Dragon Ball Super and after their last appearance at the end of Dragon Ball, the Pilaf Gang used the Dragon Balls to wish for their youth, which resulted in them being turned into children. This is how Mai, along with Pilaf and Shu, turned back into a child, although she was a grown woman at the time.
The rest of this article is going to focus on Mai, a secondary villain from the Dragon Ball series. We are going to focus on the fact that she, along with the other members of the Pilaf Gang, turned back into a child at one point in the story and explain why that happened. We are also going to tell you how old she really is.
Why is Mai a kid in Dragon Ball Super?
Mai is a human who is part of Emperor Pilaf’s Gang. She always works with Shu and although she is very smart, the two of them always manage to miss their targets, but unlike other villains (aside from not having physical strength) they never give up. Her power does not exceed that of any common human, however, she always possesses a large number of weapons.
When we first see Mai and Pilaf’s Gang, they were looking for the Dragon Balls so that Pilaf can be the King of the World. She locates the Dragon Balls and was the one who built the Pilaf Radar. She runs away when Goku transforms into the Giant Ape but then returns on Pilaf’s orders. In the Red Ribbon Army Arc, she makes a minor appearance looking for the Dragon Balls for Pilaf again.
Later, when Goku went after them, they saw that Goku did not have a tail (Son Gohan had ripped it off in their fight) and Mai along with her companions got into three robots (each one in one) and wanted to face Goku, who proved to be much stronger, but finally they joined the three robots and formed an even stronger one, but even so they could not beat Goku.
Just after the 22nd edition of the great martial arts tournament, they free Piccolo thinking that he would give them half the world, which he did not do, showing how naive and gullible they are. At the beginning of the movie Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure, Mai is seen working on a Global Dragon Radar with Pilaf and Shu for General Tao and Master Shen.
Once finished, they ask for a payment. It’s not shown exactly what Tao did to them, but it definitely wasn’t nice. Before the events of the Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods movie, Mai, Pilaf, and Shu gathered all the Dragon Balls and wished they were young again, but Shenron made them too young, turning them back into children.
In the film, they appear as children and manage to sneak into the Capsule Corporation, where Bulma’s birthday party is being held, in order to steal the Dragon Balls. Bulma doesn’t recognize them and invites them to the party as a result. It is not known why exactly Pilaf wanted them to be young again, but Shenlong did fulfill their wish and this is the state that they are in now, i.e., why Mai is a child in Dragon Ball Super.
How old is Mai in reality?
The fact that Mai is a child at this moment might confuse people as to her exact age; now, since Mai was reverted to her younger self via Shenlong’s magic, she didn’t really de-age in the literal sense, she just looks like a kid, but she has – as it seems – retained her reasoning and experience, which was confirmed later. Having said that, we can explain Mai’s age.
In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, it is confirmed that Mai is 41, despite being a child at the time already. Knowing that Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods takes place in Age 778, Mai’s birthday is around Age 737. She died the first time on May 7, Age 774, aged 37, and the second time during Age 779, aged 42, when she died during the Buu Conflict, along with the rest of Eart’s population. Both times, she was resurrected.
Since we’re now well into the 780s, we can confirm that Mai is currently around 45 years old.
