Bad ideas, bad execution
(GT --- Daima)
Just for reference, a bad idea executed well is Black Goku from Super. An evil Goku is an idiotic idea, but whith the added darker tone of the story, the distopic timelines, Trunks having a small PTSD, the transformations and fights, it got really good... until Toriyama gave up and called Zeno to fix the problem.
Daima revamped the kids idea, but forego the exploration. The group has a guide and destination already set. The Demon Realm is new and full of misteries but there's no side quest. At best the cast meets Panzy's father and a Namekian city. The first adds nothing since Panzy being a princess makes no difference with exception of a free plane, and the Namekian they meet is a walking plot convenience. There's a few lore pieces that are great for DB Wiki, but of no relevance to plot or character growth.
The main antagonist in the series is a generic power seeking weakling that gets buffed to unimaginable power, maybe invincible with the means the cast has.
The transformations are very cool I'll give them that, but they come out of nowhere. Vegeta and Goku training off screen is a given since we know their nature, but suddenly showing its result feels more like a fan servisse or pull than true progression. Vegeta goes SS3 in less than a year while Goku needed seven in the Other World post Cell saga! Oh, and he seems to control it better. Goku has his powers awakened by Neva. That's it. A literal "a wizard did it". Later Goku tells Vegeta that he had an ace up his sleeve all al along. It didn't make it better.
SS4 but lame
If you search on youtube for think pieces or deeper analysis of the SS4 transformation you'll see a common theme of taking the primal roots of a saiyan and combining it with the self control and immense, power that an experienced saiyan can achieves after many battles, and some kind of emotional connection from his "human" side. Goku connected to his granddaughter Pan and Vegeta to Bulma. Before super, at least in the realm of DB ideas and anime philosophising it was the ultimate step for Goku and Vegeta to reach. It looked cool, it was powerful, the Golden Oozaru step fit the lore perfectly and it made sense both phisically and mentally. With Super's god and blue forms SS4 was pushed aside in terms of power, but it continued to be an elegant power up and a fan fovite.
Daima has none of it. It used again the "hidden power" excuse to boost Goku from a "useless" SS3 (many quotes there) to a completely dominating beast. I wasn't expecting SS4 at all at the beginning, but if they were to bring him back I wouldn't expect to see a full recap of GT's SS4 explanation and progression: blutz waves, full Earth, regular Ape, golden Ape, talking to pan, etc. But at least a nod to the sayian nature, or regaining control after an Oozaru's like rampage should be mandatory after so many years. We got nothing.
Unlike the 2018 Brolly movie that canonized Brolly with a full backstory and seems to be slowly integrated into the Super story, Daima's SS4 has zero backstory, and as a bonus, it also won't be seen again, since Daima leads to Super and we already have 8 story arcs of Super where SS4 could have been pretty handy.
Toryiama and whoever worked with him went lazy mode again and rode in the appeal of a 30 years old form. Fan servisse for us, easy Money and praise for them.
Canonizing Xeno Goku would have been a better way of stealing someone else's work
Majin Koo saves the day
The early jokes were pretty terrible. Goku having to poop during the journey, he being constantly hungry and wasting a healing bug, the planes being stolen twice, Goku and Vegeta playing janken to see who fights first, the Gomah's elite troop parodying Ginyu Force. All bad. The only saving grace were Koo and Doo.
The two majin brothers were the only funny characters in Daima. Koo having very high self esteem of his strenght even when he's no match for his oponentes, always happy and trying to help Arinsu and his brother. Doo being a cookie eater goof ball, with incredible power that can get even more powerfull when given a giant chocolate cookie. What a great pair of characters.
The ending of the fight with Koo slamming the book on Gomah, taking the Demon Realm throne and giving tiles and admin positions to everybody were great jokes that didn't ruin the severity of the situation. It did feel like peak Dragon Ball humor.
It was bad
In a vacum Daima's story would be average at best. A new world to discover, decente plot for Dragon Ball standards, great animation, hype fan service transformations and a climatic final battle. Once you put it in the DB-DBZ-Super continuity though, it loses all the weight and leaves major gaps and plot holes. The hidden powers pulled of thin air are a great reminder of how modern Dragon Ball doesn't want to "waste" time building things up, they just rush for the big powers to sell toys and DLCs.
After 20 episodes it felt like a glorifyed filler saga that will need some serious patch work to fit where it's supposed to fit. More of a high budget Garlick Junior vibe than a proper entry to the main story line. Who knows if we'll be getting a Season 2 to tie all loose ends or a manga chapter adressing the events.
Either way, this reluctancy of going beyond the ending of Z has been hurting the series since Battle of Gods, adding piles and piles of events, transformations and lore, but never going forward. GT despite his flaws at least had the courage of stepping forward and finishing the story on a high note: Goku reaches a higher state and flies on the back of the dragon he was chasing since he was a kid.