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

Cook, Justin Producer

Kunihiro, Mamoru Producer

Hirokawa, Taku Producer

Yashima, Yoshitaka 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

PieroDiaz

Mixed Feelings

All the chapters are boring until the fanservice comes (The only good ones are chapters 17-18-19) The ending is horrible, the only characters that deserve to be canonized in the super canon line are Majin kuu and Majin duu. I honestly think that Toriyama couldn't finish creating Daima and the fanservice was on Toei's part.
Do I want more of daima? No, I'm sure toei will make the continuation of daima only be fanservice to sell merchandising and dlcs in the games. Despite everything DAIMA is still a better product than GT
Gomah? The villain is horrible, he has such a bad design and he only existed ... for the fanservice of SSJ4 and SSJ3 Vegeta. The worst of all is that at the end of the story they show you that the demon eye that Gomah wanted is sold in a store as if it were something common to find, if you want a good Toriyama product before his departure to heaven, please play and watch SAND LAND

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 1, 2025

Oberon37

Not Recommended

Funny

This anime sound like an insult to Toriyama and his work. I doesn't even like Super but this made me regret it.

Sad for the animators who have made a great job but the writing and the story are so bad that he look more like something a seven years old would write and not a professional scenarist.

Without the Animation I have no shame to say that he is equivalent to Db Evolution. Just a marketing product made for creating new toys, their not the first to did that but they didn't even try to make something good from this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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