Dragon Ball Daima

After saving the world from the destructive might of Majin Buu, Gokuu Son and his allies look forward to a well-earned rest. However, unbeknownst to them, their battle was recorded and observed by Gomah, an evil being who assumes the title of King in the Demon Realm, filling the void left behind with the death of former ruler Dabura.

At Gomah's side is Degesu, the younger brother of Higashi no Kaioshin, a being who lords over the universe. Jealous of his brother's power, Degesu works alongside Gomah to steal Earth's Dragon Balls and preemptively subdue any potential future enemies. Calling upon the power of the legendary dragon Shenron, Gomah wishes for Gokuu and his friends to be reverted into children, intending to rob them of the limitless power that defeated Buu. With Earth's greatest warriors shrunken down, Gomah abducts Dende, the planet's acting god.

But Gokuu refuses to be set back by his new body, working to master his younger form to fight as proficiently as he could as an adult. Joined by Kaioshin and Glorio—a mysterious but seemingly rebellious demon—Gokuu pursues Gomah to the Demon Realm in order to rescue Dende and restore his friends to their natural ages.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Son, Gokuu Main

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Higashi no Kaioshin Main

Kobayashi, Yumiko Japanese

Glorio Main

Uchiyama, Kouki Japanese

Panzy Main

Fairouz Ai Japanese

Vegeta Supporting

Mino, Yudai Japanese

Son, Gohan Supporting

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Piccolo Supporting

Yamaguchi, Tomohiro Japanese

Trunks Supporting

Yonaga, Tsubasa Japanese

Bulma Supporting

Nakahara, Mai Japanese

Muten-Roushi Supporting

Kanemitsu, Nobuaki Japanese

Hirokawa, Taku Producer

Kunihiro, Mamoru Producer

Yashima, Yoshitaka Director

Komaki, Aya Director

Reviews

Feb 28, 2025

Marinate1016

Recommended

In what would end up being his final gift to the world, Toriyama sensei left us with some of his best ever work, Dragon Ball Daima, returning to the magical sense of adventure that the original Dragon Ball series had, while delivering some of the franchise’s best action and transformations. What it may lacked in story, it made up for in epic moments. This simply put felt like a love letter to the dragon ball community and fans who have supported this series over the decades. It’s fanservice in the purest and most wholesome form. Canonising previous transformations and concepts that would’ve seemed unbelievable just ... a couple months of ago. Many will sit and debate how this fits into the canon of the franchise and to those I simply say, “just enjoy it man”.

As someone who grew up watching the original dragon ball with my dad back in the early 2000s, there was a strong sense of nostalgia watching Goku in kid form going on a classic shonen style adventure to gather the dragon balls and making friends along the way. For newer fans this may have felt like a departure from what they know in the Z and Super era, but for me this was Toriyama going back to his roots and frankly his prime when writing. Dragon Ball at its best was when Goku didn’t have all these transformations and had to actually rely on his friends to help him. While Daima does have those big action set pieces and newly canonized forms as I mentioned before, it strikes a healthy balance between the magic of the original series and the epic fights of the more recent DB franchise. It almost felt like Toriyama knew he was going to die and wrote this with that in mind, satisfying both types of fans while opening up possibilities for future instalments.

The story wasn’t the strongest in Daima, I felt like there was much more emphasis on the journey itself. The companions, the banter, the sticky situations Goku, Glorio and Panzy got into, etc. I found the antagonist to be pretty disappointing as a big bad on his own. He felt more like a device for Toriyama to be able to bring out all these cool new abilities and transformations which I’m ok with. It’s dragon ball, it’s no stranger to mediocre antagonists who do just that. For me, the big highlight was just seeing Goku and the others go on this adventure together in a new realm we’ve never explored and expanding upon the existing Dragon Ball lore and mythos.

Production values are where Daima really shines to me. It’s easily the best looking DB show ever. It has movie quality art and animation for most of the series and episodes 19 and 20 are probably the best we’ve seen outside of DB Super Broly and a handful of ToP episodes. This show looked great. Also really enjoyed the musical selections! Credit to the staff who brought this to life.

My general feelings after 20 weeks of watching this are this is the second best Dragon Ball instalment ever. I know I know “GT BAD!” Is the general narrative online, but I personally loved the villains and story in that the most out of any Dragon Ball so that’s my top 1. BUT Daima canonized some concepts from that series and goes back to that Dragon Ball gathering sense of adventure so it’s a close second and a fitting final gift from Toriyama-sensei to us longtime fans.

Dragon Ball Daima gets 9 out of 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Feb 28, 2025

Hallideus

Mixed Feelings

It's a fine last hurrah from Toriyama and I think you can tell, especially in the earlier parts of the series he had a big hand in its vibe. I feel if he didn't unfortunately pass away it would have lead to a much more cohesive series but I feel the vision was carried on well enough even if the story falls apart towards the last half of the series.

The action, animation, choreography were all immense to make up for it though but if I'm honest its a bit of a "what could have been" in the end.
If you like Dragonball you'll love this, warts ... and all. If you're not a huge DB fan, I don't think it'll be for you.

I wouldn't mind more of Daima, but I would personally prefer more Super with the team that worked on this adapting the manga of Super but more Daima next? Won't say no.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Feb 12, 2025

Sasori_Nagashi

Not Recommended

Preliminary (17/20 eps)

The definition of corporate media content slop.

GT Remastered brought to you by the people who revived Freeza (twice) to be an antagonist and made a movie about Doctor Gero's fat grandson making a giant mentally impaired red Cell copy that's as powerful as the strongest beings in the multiverse. After rinsing off and reusing Freeza and Cell was it not predictable next they would come for Majin Boo? Daima is a completely soulless endeavour to print more money from merch that will come out in the coming year and other related media (gacha units, blu-ray sales ETC.) The plot is utterly bland in every possible ... way, somehow the pacing is simultaneously dragging it's feet in some episodes then rapidly blitzing through events that feel like they should take much longer in order to fit into a small 20 episode window. Nothing about this anime captures any kind of magic or feeling of adventure whatsoever as our characters blitz around the world between goals rapidly and experience very little of this new world around them. Daima re-treads ground from the original series as well as GT heavily, reusing character archetypes, jokes and more. More retcons to things and more contradictions with previous statements just as GT and Super did before it and more bloated 'world building' that struggles to fit into established lore.

IF Toriyama had the passion to tell another story again (big if considering how soulless both this and Super have felt and the way they seem to just be trying to introduce maximum characters and forms to use for merch purposes) then he would have been much better off telling an entirely new one than trying to bash the already tortured and broken Dragon Ball franchise into the mould of a JRPG fantasy video game style story.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Dragon Ball Daima Episode 20 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Feb 28	72 replies	by magatetus »» 26 minutes ago
	Poll: would you like a daima sequel? deg - Feb 28	1 replies	by Saphiran »» 28 minutes ago
	Fusion Bug closet_-_weeb - Feb 28	3 replies	by Foxtsune »» 1 hour ago
	My thought on Daima Bh5040a6 - Feb 28	2 replies	by scabab »» 2 hours ago
	official daima toys merchandise calls it super saiyan 4 deg - Feb 22	10 replies	by deg »» 2 hours ago