To say that I have a very low opinion of most continuations of Dragon Ball after its original run would be something of an understatement. I'm still able to have fun with it in stuff like the video games but as far as expecting anything from its storytelling after its original ending has consistently been a fool's errand. And this doesn't come from the source material being lacking in that department, in fact it's the exact opposite. Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga is to this day one of the boldest shonen stories to grace any medium, always running at the beat of its own drum and committing to taking huge narrative risks, and while those don't always succeed it never once felt like he wasn't giving his all in writing the kind of story that he wanted to write. Beyond the finale of the Buu saga, however, Dragon Ball as a franchise has been committed to the exact opposite of that. Its continuations either don't fully commit to whatever brilliant ideas they have and lead to a half-assed execution, or are fully content with being as non-ambitious as possible and settling for just playing the highlights from the series' glory days over and over again. With Dragon Ball Daima, the newest TV anime to wear the series' name, coming to a close, which camp does it fall into, if it falls into either camp at all? As much as I hoped it would be the one to be a breakthrough, it somehow manages to fall into both at once.
To start on a kinder note towards Daima, it accomplishes something that Dragon Ball shows have almost never accomplished in decades: it looks really good. It turns out that once you have an actually healthy production schedule and generally much shorter episode count than a weekly series, you get a show that not only has a bunch of extremely high quality fights that are easily among the best in the franchise on a visual (but usually only visual) level, but that level of quality is the standard across its entire run. Designs and movements are often always very expressive and charming while staying on model very often. It also helps that, especially very early on, the choreography of the fights is very creative and memorable. The fight Goku has with the thugs at the bar and his with the first Tamagami are huge highlights in this regard. This aspect does sadly diminish overtime once the fights get into more traditional modern DB-y lightshows with people flying and slamming into each other, but even then there's still a solid amount of creative choreography in select moments. I really hope to see this as the standard for Toei going forward and goes to show the wider industry as a whole how much a show can benefit from a healthier schedule. (As well as the benefit of, y'know, treating animators like human beings)
Within the series, the most common point of comparison for Daima as a whole is to Dragon Ball GT, for some very obvious reasons as well as the overall feel of the series. Goku's turned into a kid and has to go on an adventure out into other worlds to collect the dragon balls in order to save everyone. Both series start off on a note of going back to the roots of the series, a lighthearted fantasy adventure as much about seeing the sights as it is seeking out the dragon balls for a wish. Where I think Daima starts off on a better foot than GT is with its tone. One of the biggest things that held GT's dragon ball hunt back was a mismatch of tone with a race against time to stop the destruction of the earth making its goofy sightseeing come off awkwardly. Daima in comparison succeeds really well with forming its tone. The inciting incident was a hastily executed plan by this goofy villain taking a precaution that was barely going to be an issue in the first place if he didn't do anything. The stakes feel like there's something as risk, but not so much that the idea of taking in the adventure doesn't feel like their priorities are off. It also helps that the Demon World is a very immediately charming setting, with its hallmarks like its towns and shops feeling like something ripped right out of an old school RPG. Seeing places like the shop with all of these edible bugs that act as healing or buffing items and its fast travel-ish system of riding on flowers via a slingshot made me smile. It also has a really strong sense of humor, one of my favorite episodes being when the gang is attacked by a minotaur, and Goku and Glorio fight over who should be the one to fight it off, before they end up in a high octane sparring match where they totally ignore the minotaur's existence by a certain point. As far as pure charm goes, it's pitch-perfect with nailing the feel that the earliest arcs of Dragon Ball have. However, its sense of adventure is where the GT comparisons are at their most apt with how it inherits that show's greatest failing: its lack of confidence.
One of the most fun things about an adventure in any story is its sense of discovery, getting to feel like you're exploring the world and learning about its corners through being in it. Daima feels more akin to taking a trip to the zoo than setting out on a journey. All of its wondrous sights and rich lore are more often than not very dryly and matter-of-factly explained to you. Daima constantly feels a need to explain every single aspect that comes up and doesn't really let you ask any questions, or feel like whoever's explaining it has a unique perspective on whichever respective topic is in view. It's not the most egregious exposition dumping out there but the flow of information doesn't feel very natural. It doesn't feel confident in letting its world speak for itself and gives off the impression of taking you on a guided tour through it. Dungeon Meshi and Made in Abyss raised my expectations pretty high for stories that explore fantasy settings like this, and I have no reason to believe that this series wasn't capable of at least attempting to reach for those levels.
I'd be less harsh about this if it was just the series struggling to find its footing at first before enriching this element further as it went on, but by the latter half it, much like GT, relies extremely hard on flashy action and raw hype. The final battle with Gomah is a complete slog where the gang powers up and slams themselves into Gomah and he smacks them all away, with little to no rapport between him and our heroes. It has its fun moments like Vegeta backing out of the fight the instant Bulma suggests that she won't take a bath with him again if he doesn't, or Majin Kuu getting the true finisher on him. (Majin Kuu and Duu in general are consistently big highlights, I love the two of them a ton) but just about everything else feels completely hollow and doesn't have any kind of unique edge to make it slightly interesting. Goku getting Super Saiyan 4 here feels completely weightless, there's no narrative significance to him using it, nothing it says about him or represents his contrast with Gomah, it's just a loud key jangle to bank on the nostalgia of seeing an old fan favorite form again in a modern flashy new show. The amount of people I saw going "this is why Dragon Ball's the greatest of all time" on twitter when they showed off Super Saiyan 4 again is a more damning statement about the state of the franchise than anything I could ever write in this review.
Daima just bums me out. I went into its premiere with a very optimistic outlook, feeling like this will be the breath of fresh air that the franchise has desperately needed, as well as hoping for it to be a wonderful sendoff to Toriyama, with this being the last piece of Dragon Ball material he had a hand in before his tragic passing last year. I really wanted to love this show and had so much hope, only to see it fall into so many of the same exact trappings that the franchise has been stuck in since Super began. I can tell that so much love and passion is being put into this series from so many angles, but just makes it harder to come to terms with how it let me down. Daima truly is the modern successor to GT, promising to carry on the original story's desire to always keep moving forward, while ultimately staying stuck in the past.
