Fights and fight animation:
The early fights feel extremely good with Goku jumping around and dodging dynamically in a way that’s super reminiscent of the original DB. The
The later fights
As far as the general animation style I felt like it worked pretty well for slower scenes and the earlier fights but once it got to the aforementioned lightshow segments it felt pretty discongruent. As well they use a pretty thick outline which I think can make things feel a bit weird sometimes and a bit too storybook for lack of a better term.
This decrease in quality creates a pretty unfortunate viewing experience as you end up hoping they bring the good stuff only to be disappointed at every turn towards the end. However I still can’t fully discount the beginning that rocked. .
Characters:
I like the new characters they introduced here, with my favorites being Glorio and Majin Kuu with Arisnu, early Gomah, and early Panzy also being fun. I also enjoyed Glorio’s vibe of this little sad guy and it was a lot of fun to watch him bounce off Goku. Similarly, the Kuu/Duu dynamic is really fun and [Ending spoilers]
As alluded to earlier I didn’t like the later versions of Gomah and Panzy. In Gomah’s case, I found his early interactions with Degusu funny and the cuts to him were a great way to give some feeling of impact after fights. However, I think it all turned into a disaster at the end when [Twist spoilers]
As for the old cast, it’s nice to get to see Piccolo do stuff and Vegeta and Bulma have a lot of cute interactions throughout the show.
Comedy:
I will easily admit I am a very poor judge of comedy and I’m not someone who laughs very often from the media. I think there are some bits in Daima that a lot of people will find funny and one of the characters' gags did get a chuckle out of me. Certainly, it has the markings of Toriyama’s other work so if you find that funny you will probably find Daima funny.
Treatment of women:
This segment is obligatory in my reviews but I don’t have much to say about it here. There’s nothing notable in either direction but there is a nice lack of toriyama weirdness which has been toned down for years at this point but is bad in early DB and with the vile pervert (Roshi). It’s nice that the cast has some women in it even if they don’t do any fighting I guess. But it’s Dragon Ball so I don’t know what you were expecting.
Music:
I don’t have much to say about the general music which did a decent job of punctuating the feeling of scenes but didn’t stand out to me as a banger or anything. The exception to this is the theme song which is whatever tune wise and probably wouldn’t stand out but has truly horrible lyrics. I truly do not know what possessed them to turn an ad read into a song with lyrics such as “Here comes a new story, with thousands of jabs and silly jokes” but it doesn’t work at all. I found it a bit distracting when they tried to do an epic theme song drop thing with it as well because it’s a pretty soft song.
Plot:
The plot is pretty whatever but it’s Dragon Ball so that’s mostly to be expected. I liked the setup of the demon world even if the later aspects felt a bit forced and the first two worlds were fun to watch the cast explore. Hearing about the background for the Supreme Kai and the Nameks was a fun addition and I like the way they handled the demon vs alien conundrum.
Final score and wrap up:
To me Daima feels like a firm 7/10 because of how it fell off at the end, it’s possible it could’ve been an 8 if it kept up the great animation style at the beginning. However, for a show that doesn’t have much to say and whose fights trail off into the middling, I think there’s no other fair rating here even if I enjoyed the earlier segments.
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