Dragon Ball Daima (2024)

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

Animation is not the issue. Have you watched Digimon 2020? The writing is atrocious, every episode is just "There's no story, things just happen, because that's what kids might find cool." (Words from the producers themselves) And a lot of Super has that problem as well.

Of the main staff only Yashima worked on Digimon 2020 but they only did storyboarding / key animation / animation directing, they had no involvement with the writing of that show.

[AliTheZombie13]

Animation is not the issue. Have you watched Digimon 2020? The writing is atrocious, every episode is just "There's no story, things just happen, because that's what kids might find cool." (Words from the producers themselves) And a lot of Super has that problem as well.

Of the main staff only Yashima worked on Digimon 2020 but they only did storyboarding / key animation / animation directing, they had no involvement with the writing of that show.

That's comforting.

[JulieYBM]

I was pretty optimistic about Daima having Toriyama's heavy supervision.
But then I heard it was going to have Digimon 2020 and Dragon Ball Super's producers/directors/writers, and uh...
Even with Toriyama's involvement, I am now extremely worried about the series' quality.
I really hope it won't be as bad as those two.

Dragon Ball Super had, like, three months of pre-production and zero animators to work with. Daima will have had over 20 months of pre-production before it is released.

It's going to be far better than Dragon Ball Super.

Animation is not the issue. Have you watched Digimon 2020? The writing is atrocious, every episode is just "There's no story, things just happen, because that's what kids might find cool." (Words from the producers themselves) And a lot of Super has that problem as well.

I have watched Digimon Adventure (2020). It absolutely suffers from being a work that is produced in an environment that is not condusive to supporting the creative people who worked on the project. Unfortunately, many anime—especially those aimed at children—suffer from these sorts of things. The same dogma that dictates the flaws of Digimon Adventure (2020) affect anything produced by Toei Animation aimed at children is going to suffer from. Series Composer Tomioka Atsuhiro (who wrote many of the best Dragon Ball Super episodes) gave a good interview about how the process of writing the story for anime is generally decided, and it's rarely a situation where the freelance writers brought onto a title have final authority over the story. There's a lot of 'rolling with the punches', which is what I suspect happened on Digimon Adventure (2020), because Tomioka's writing for Dragon Ball Super—and Pocket Monsters—is much better (and in fact, I would call his episodes of the 2020 series to be the best episodes of the series).

I think that if I have any worries about Daima it is that the people creating the series will remain too reverent of any notes from Toriyama, rather than trusting their own storytelling instincts.

[AliTheZombie13]

I think that if I have any worries about Daima it is that the people creating the series will remain too reverent of any notes from Toriyama, rather than trusting their own storytelling instincts.

I mean, we kind of already had that with GT, and the fandom generally hated it, and proudly declared that if Toriyama was more involved with the project, it would've turned out better. If anything, Daima will sure be an interesting case study about such hypothetical scenario.

[JulieYBM]

I think that if I have any worries about Daima it is that the people creating the series will remain too reverent of any notes from Toriyama, rather than trusting their own storytelling instincts.

I mean, we kind of already had that with GT, and the fandom generally hated it, and proudly declared that if Toriyama was more involved with the project, it would've turned out better. If anything, Daima will sure be an interesting case study about such statements.

I'm not sure why you would assert that one production crew working on a short schedule from 1997 would be reflective of all production crews ever—especially when it's clear that Dragon Ball GT suffered from the same sort of dogma of being both Toriyama-like and also appealing to a market tested plot. I don't think Dragon Ball GT is at all reflective of creating a work that first-and-foremost attempted to be anything more than marketable to the lowest common denominator while also re-enforcing the biases of its mostly cishet male production crew.

Being the optimist that I am, I'm quite looking forward to seeing what contributions we will receive from having Komaki Aya as a series director and having Kakihara Yuuko as head writer. Komaki is a decent episode director and she and Kakihara are both women (to the best of my knowledge), so it's my hope that we'll see them decline to include elements like the Muten Roushi's nonsense or unnuanced depictions of the female characters.

When I think about the best elements of older Dragon Ball animated projects I think about the films directed by Yama-uchi Shigeyasu and Ueda Yoshihiro, both of whom uplifted the story material—which could be quite conservative—with their moody storyboarding and directing. It's my hope that Komaki and other directors on Daima will do the same, both through their adaption of the scenrios by Kakihara (and any other writers), as well as having input on those scenarios themselves.

[AliTheZombie13]

I'm not sure why you would assert that one production crew working on a short schedule from 1997 would be reflective of all production crews ever—especially when it's clear that Dragon Ball GT suffered from the same sort of dogma of being both Toriyama-like and also appealing to a market tested plot. I don't think Dragon Ball GT is at all reflective of creating a work that first-and-foremost attempted to be anything more than marketable to the lowest common denominator while also re-enforcing the biases of its mostly cishet male production crew.

I'm not asserting that GT's production should reflect Daima or vice-versa. I'm not that dense.
GT was released in 1996, Daima in 2024. That's almost three decades later. The people who were involved with GT are not involved with Daima, save for few exceptions like Nakatsuru. And before anybody accuses me of such, I don't see Daima as "GT 2.0, Now With Toriyama Leading The Project!" Aside from the cast turning into kids, I see very little resembling GT in Daima's story. I am mainly talking about the fan perception, especially in the west, since most people are negatively associating the two shows.

I'm just curious to see how exactly the fandom will perceive Daima now that "Goku is a kid again, I hate this!" is back into discussion, but now with Toriyama being heavily involved, and how they will retroactively perceive GT after Daima ends and everybody forms their opinions about it.

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

I wonder if Tadayoshi Yamamuro will be involved as a key animator, given that SDB Heroes has become CGI promotional project. Based on a couple of movies and a leaked reports of the names attached as the Animation Supervisors, it seems that Toei really has moved on from him taking charge of the animation side of the franchise, so it will be interesting to see him work as a key animator with Nakatsuru as the character designer.

[super michael]

I was pretty optimistic about Daima having Toriyama's heavy supervision.
But then I heard it was going to have Digimon 2020 and Dragon Ball Super's producers/directors/writers, and uh...
Even with Toriyama's involvement, I am now extremely worried about the series' quality.
I really hope it won't be as bad as those two.

Dragon Ball Super had, like, three months of pre-production and zero animators to work with. Daima will have had over 20 months of pre-production before it is released.

It's going to be far better than Dragon Ball Super.

Animation is not the issue. Have you watched Digimon 2020? The writing is atrocious, every episode is just "There's no story, things just happen, because that's what kids might find cool." (Words from the producers themselves) And a lot of Super has that problem as well.

Digimon Adventure 2020 was pathetic, the worst Digimon anime I have ever watched. There was so many bad writing and POS.

They rushed the Digimon getting their Ultimate forms, yet in many battles they didn't evolve and chose to lose or get captured. The worst was the episode of Petaldramon, no one evolved to their Ultimate form except Angewomon to heal Petaldramon and that was all. In the end both Petaldramon and the evil Digimon both died.

The episode Joe is on a plane, how they got captured was so stupid. The enemy was on a ship, which they were limited to traveling in the ocean.
Joe plane has the whole sky, yet they didn't get away from the ocean, they only focus going up but not to the side which was snow, which the enemies couldn't follow.


Digimon Adventure Reboot 2020 was terrible. Sometimes the animation was terrible.

[Hellspawn28]

I still feel like the show is going to be set before Battle of Gods. After all, why isn't Beerus and Whis not with the others? They love eatting food with Bluma and the others?

[AliTheZombie13]

I still feel like the show is going to be set before Battle of Gods. After all, why isn't Beerus and Whis not with the others? They love eatting food with Bluma and the others?

Seems to be leaning that way, yes.
The party is probably going to be Videl and Gohan's wedding, which happens before BoG.

[Lance Freeman]

I still feel like the show is going to be set before Battle of Gods. After all, why isn't Beerus and Whis not with the others? They love eatting food with Bluma and the others?

Seems to be leaning that way, yes.
The party is probably going to be Videl and Gohan's wedding, which happens before BoG.

Unless whatever is causing all the characters to turn back into kids also caused Shin and Kibito to defuse early, that seems unlikely.

[ChronoTwigger]

I don't have any clue, but from tidbits wrote around, the party is casted somewhere else (maybe the entire planet is?). So, there could be a plot device that prevent The Cat and The Butler to be there. Like a place they cannot reach/they doesn't know. By this supposition, the plot can happen whenever.

[AliTheZombie13]

I still feel like the show is going to be set before Battle of Gods. After all, why isn't Beerus and Whis not with the others? They love eatting food with Bluma and the others?

Seems to be leaning that way, yes.
The party is probably going to be Videl and Gohan's wedding, which happens before BoG.

Unless whatever is causing all the characters to turn back into kids also caused Shin and Kibito to defuse early, that seems unlikely.

I was assuming that would be the case. The spell or whatever caused them to defuse.

[super michael]

I still feel like the show is going to be set before Battle of Gods. After all, why isn't Beerus and Whis not with the others? They love eatting food with Bluma and the others?

Seems to be leaning that way, yes.
The party is probably going to be Videl and Gohan's wedding, which happens before BoG.

Unless whatever is causing all the characters to turn back into kids also caused Shin and Kibito to defuse early, that seems unlikely.

Piccolo when he was a kid, he wasn't fused to Kami and Nails, yet it doesn't look like their fusion is undone.

[LoganForkHands73]

Piccolo when he was a kid, he wasn't fused to Kami and Nails, yet it doesn't look like their fusion is undone.

Don't we see a wrinkly Namekian-looking eye at one point in the trailer? Maybe Kami (and probably Nail) were defused from Piccolo, and since Dende has presumably been de-aged into a borderline foetus like Goten and Trunks, Kami has had to temporarily live up to his title again until Goku and Shin fix the situation? NGL, that could be a fun plot point: once Kami and Nail get a taste of freedom, they become reluctant to restore the status quo.

My personal theory is that DAIMA is at least some shade of an alternate continuity/soft reboot from Super. Not a full blown reboot, and I'm not dumb enough to bet against Beerus and Whis appearing, but I can't help getting these vibes, especially since many big franchises are doing the same recently.

[ZeroNeonix]

Kami: "Yay! I'm alive again! After all these years, I'm no longer a lesser part of Piccolo! What should I do with my newfound freedom?"

Goku: "Hey, guys! I defeated the guy who cast that spell on us! Now everything can go back to normal!"

"Noooo--!" *Poof*

[Lukmendes]

I was assuming that would be the case. The spell or whatever caused them to defuse.

On the trailer, at 2:23, there's a brief shot of Shin and Kibito on the ground looking at each other while looking surprised, with only one ear visible with a potara, and, it's Shin's left ear and Kibito's right, the same ears that had a potara back in the manga's chapter 501.

So, if this takes place before BoG and the wish defused them, then it seems this is when it happened, and it got some attention to detail if they bothered to see what ears had the potaras back in the manga.

Don't we see a wrinkly Namekian-looking eye at one point in the trailer? Maybe Kami (and probably Nail) were defused from Piccolo, and since Dende has presumably been de-aged into a borderline foetus like Goten and Trunks, Kami has had to temporarily live up to his title again until Goku and Shin fix the situation? NGL, that could be a fun plot point: once Kami and Nail get a taste of freedom, they become reluctant to restore the status quo.

Honestly if they got defused there would be little reason for Piccolo to want them be part of him again, he only did it as part of an emergency in Namek and Cell sagas, so as long as there's no need for him to get an immediate power boost, no one would really have to do fusion again.

If the wish really undid fusions, I can only assume that eventually another wish would undo the de-aging and everyone would go back to normal, including the fusions being restored.

My personal theory is that DAIMA is at least some shade of an alternate continuity/soft reboot from Super. Not a full blown reboot, and I'm not dumb enough to bet against Beerus and Whis appearing, but I can't help getting these vibes, especially since many big franchises are doing the same recently.

Other franchises doing it really doesn't mean DB will do it, specially with Toriyama being involved in the writing, and he doesn't seem like the type who'd bother going for a soft reboot.

Either way, I think maybe this takes place after Super Hero, Shenlong usually can't do much to people stronger than him, but in Super Hero, Dende threw some water on him and that boosted his power, so maybe this wish is only possible because of the power boost Shenlong got? Then again that's assuming Toriyama is paying attention to such details, since sometimes he doesn't (Such as changing the number of wishes Shenlong can grant despite no reason being given for it).

[dragonballhero]

Seems to be leaning that way, yes.
The party is probably going to be Videl and Gohan's wedding, which happens before BoG.

Unless whatever is causing all the characters to turn back into kids also caused Shin and Kibito to defuse early, that seems unlikely.

Piccolo when he was a kid, he wasn't fused to Kami and Nails, yet it doesn't look like their fusion is undone.

Holy CRUD. I kid you all not, this very thought suddenly popped into my head earlier yesterday.

Piccolo when he was a kid, he wasn't fused to Kami and Nails, yet it doesn't look like their fusion is undone.

Don't we see a wrinkly Namekian-looking eye at one point in the trailer? Maybe Kami (and probably Nail) were defused from Piccolo, and since Dende has presumably been de-aged into a borderline foetus like Goten and Trunks, Kami has had to temporarily live up to his title again until Goku and Shin fix the situation? NGL, that could be a fun plot point: once Kami and Nail get a taste of freedom, they become reluctant to restore the status quo.

My personal theory is that DAIMA is at least some shade of an alternate continuity/soft reboot from Super. Not a full blown reboot, and I'm not dumb enough to bet against Beerus and Whis appearing, but I can't help getting these vibes, especially since many big franchises are doing the same recently.

Regarding Daima's placement in the series' timeline, I've had a similar thought for some time now. That being that Daima occurs in an alternate reality where Beerus, Whis, and the other gods (and angels) of their levels just... aren't a thing, or at the very least, they aren't directly involved in the lives of Goku and the gang.

Personally, I've been of the belief that the overall story occurs where Battle of Gods WOULD have taken place, but instead of Beerus and Whis showing up, Goku and the others go on their big adventure to undo the magic that de-aged them into children.

All in all, I just don't think Beerus and Whis are going to factor into this story at all. Daima clearly plans to try and accomplish what GT supposedly didn't feel confident enough in itself to do. That is, to HEAVILY downplay the series' current power scaling, and Beerus/Whis would clearly put a damper on those plans.

Side note, this is also why I assume Goten and Trunks were de-aged into toddlers, and why I see Gohan being written out somehow as well (if he isn't turned into a toddler too). Their potential might render a bi of this story kind of moot, so...

[LoganForkHands73]

I was assuming that would be the case. The spell or whatever caused them to defuse.

On the trailer, at 2:23, there's a brief shot of Shin and Kibito on the ground looking at each other while looking surprised, with only one ear visible with a potara, and, it's Shin's left ear and Kibito's right, the same ears that had a potara back in the manga's chapter 501.

So, if this takes place before BoG and the wish defused them, then it seems this is when it happened, and it got some attention to detail if they bothered to see what ears had the potaras back in the manga.

That's really cool attention to detail, assuming that's hinting to what we're thinking.

Honestly if they got defused there would be little reason for Piccolo to want them be part of him again, he only did it as part of an emergency in Namek and Cell sagas, so as long as there's no need for him to get an immediate power boost, no one would really have to do fusion again.

If the wish really undid fusions, I can only assume that eventually another wish would undo the de-aging and everyone would go back to normal, including the fusions being restored.

Well, that could be part of the drama. We don't know exactly how the scaling with Namekian fusion works, would removing Kami and Nail be negligible at this point, or would it decimate his current power? Probably the latter. If this is set after Super Hero, how gutting would it be for Piccolo to have levelled up so much (after all, Shenron only gifted Piccolo his Orange form because of his reverence for Kami) only to lose it all so soon afterwards and face the possibility of never regaining it? If it's set around Battle of Gods timeframe, Piccolo hadn't really had any massive power leaps since the Cell arc, so splitting with Kami would definitely be a huge loss.

Here's the thing with Toriyama, he's infamously forgetful yet he can be tight with certain continuity points that even fans may gloss over. For example, I'm always pleasantly surprised how often Future Trunks is referenced in the screenplay for Resurrection F, which makes sense as he was the one who actually killed Freeza, but the plot hinges on Freeza's need for revenge against Goku specifically so it wasn't that relevant to keep bringing Trunks up. Piccolo's connection to Kami has been brought up prominently in a few recent projects including Super Hero and the Moro arc. It certainly seems to be fresh in Toriyama's mind. Even Toyotaro's sketch of Nail mentioned him being the biggest sacrifice in the series. By god, it's all coming together...

Regarding Daima's placement in the series' timeline, I've had a similar thought for some time now. That being that Daima occurs in an alternate reality where Beerus, Whis, and the other gods (and angels) of their levels just... aren't a thing, or at the very least, they aren't directly involved in the lives of Goku and the gang.

Personally, I've been of the belief that the overall story occurs where Battle of Gods WOULD have taken place, but instead of Beerus and Whis showing up, Goku and the others go on their big adventure to undo the magic that de-aged them into children.

All in all, I just don't think Beerus and Whis are going to factor into this story at all. Daima clearly plans to try and accomplish what GT supposedly didn't feel confident enough in itself to do. That is, to HEAVILY downplay the series' current power scaling, and Beerus/Whis would clearly put a damper on those plans.

Side note, this is also why I assume Goten and Trunks were de-aged into toddlers, and why I see Gohan being written out somehow as well (if he isn't turned into a toddler too). Their potential might render a bi of this story kind of moot, so...

That feels like what they're going for. I think Beerus and Whis will make cameos, maybe chilling out on their planet far away, but it's possible that this is a timeline where they never met Goku and co.

While I was wrong about the idea of de-ageing Goku in GT originally coming from Toriyama, it still seems like he got attached to the concept, especially bringing the series back to more lighthearted and adventurous roots. He has very frequently criticised the direction Dragon Ball took in terms of the over-emphasis on combat and ridiculous power-scaling. De-ageing the characters serves as a perfect excuse to tone down those elements in a visually clear way.

[Lukmendes]

Regarding Daima's placement in the series' timeline, I've had a similar thought for some time now. That being that Daima occurs in an alternate reality where Beerus, Whis, and the other gods (and angels) of their levels just... aren't a thing, or at the very least, they aren't directly involved in the lives of Goku and the gang.

Personally, I've been of the belief that the overall story occurs where Battle of Gods WOULD have taken place, but instead of Beerus and Whis showing up, Goku and the others go on their big adventure to undo the magic that de-aged them into children.

All in all, I just don't think Beerus and Whis are going to factor into this story at all. Daima clearly plans to try and accomplish what GT supposedly didn't feel confident enough in itself to do. That is, to HEAVILY downplay the series' current power scaling, and Beerus/Whis would clearly put a damper on those plans.

Side note, this is also why I assume Goten and Trunks were de-aged into toddlers, and why I see Gohan being written out somehow as well (if he isn't turned into a toddler too). Their potential might render a bi of this story kind of moot, so...

To be fair, if the characters' power levels are nerfed when turned into kids, then Gohan wouldn't even do that much, considering his power while high, wasn't too powerful until Namek, the real thing to keep in mind is Vegeta, since would completely outclass Goku, and I don't see Toriyama doing that in a way that stays around for a while.

Either way, we have RoF, Broly, and Super-Hero as stories where Beerus and Whis don't really matter, if this is post BoG they could just say Beerus is taking a nap and Whis isn't waking him up for at least a few months... It would be harder to excuse why they don't just go train with him, or even why they don't just use the training they learned from him though...

That's really cool attention to detail, assuming that's hinting to what we're thinking.

I wonder if they intentionally only show one of their ears just to make fans speculate, or this is all some big coincidence lol.

Well, that could be part of the drama. We don't know exactly how the scaling with Namekian fusion works, would removing Kami and Nail be negligible at this point, or would it decimate his current power? Probably the latter. If this is set after Super Hero, how gutting would it be for Piccolo to have levelled up so much (after all, Shenron only gifted Piccolo his Orange form because of his reverence for Kami) only to lose it all so soon afterwards and face the possibility of never regaining it? If it's set around Battle of Gods timeframe, Piccolo hadn't really had any massive power leaps since the Cell arc, so splitting with Kami would definitely be a huge loss.

Sure, it's just that Piccolo wouldn't want to force other people to be fused with him even at a personal cost.

Here's the thing with Toriyama, he's infamously forgetful yet he can be tight with certain continuity points that even fans may gloss over. For example, I'm always pleasantly surprised how often Future Trunks is referenced in the screenplay for Resurrection F, which makes sense as he was the one who actually killed Freeza, but the plot hinges on Freeza's need for revenge against Goku specifically so it wasn't that relevant to keep bringing Trunks up. Piccolo's connection to Kami has been brought up prominently in a few recent projects including Super Hero and the Moro arc. It certainly seems to be fresh in Toriyama's mind. Even Toyotaro's sketch of Nail mentioned him being the biggest sacrifice in the series. By god, it's all coming together...

The most impressive example I've noticed of Toriyama remembering something that fans didn't notice is God Ki.

While it's BoG that made everyone even learn about it, it was actually there during Buu saga. Shin in 439 notes that Piccolo only managed to recognize who he is because he used to be Kami, and Dabura in 447 specifically says that Shin's and Kibito's power can't be used on Buu, but the other characters' can.

So, ever since Buu saga, God Ki was a thing, but it was talked about so vaguely and so briefly in only those two situations (As far as I remember at least) that I'd be surprised if anyone even noticed that there's supposed to be something different about Shin and Kibito before BoG, yet, Toriyama remembered this "prototype" God Ki, and expanded it on Battle of Gods and beyond.

It's also amusing that this "prototype" God Ki also creates a plot hole, because it makes no sense to say that God Ki can't be used to resurrect Buu when eventually it was retconned that there's two Kaioshins within Buu, so there is at least some God Ki within him.

While I was wrong about the idea of de-ageing Goku in GT originally coming from Toriyama, it still seems like he got attached to the concept, especially bringing the series back to more lighthearted and adventurous roots. He has very frequently criticised the direction Dragon Ball took in terms of the over-emphasis on combat and ridiculous power-scaling. De-ageing the characters serves as a perfect excuse to tone down those elements in a visually clear way.

To be fair, we could always have the other universes as a way to go explore, specially the universes from ToP that are of a higher universal level, but Toriyama always wastes the chance and writes himself in a corner.

The most noticeable case was, Jiren existing at all, creating a character who's stronger than Gods of Destruction and letting Goku temporarily have a way to beat his ass with UI is too much, because now there are less believable threats that can get in Goku's way, and Super's manga even went the stupid route of overly nerfing UI.

And then Toriyama got to write movies and, they're made to be full on action with the first half being focused on some character development to justify the fights later on.

So yeah, the exploration angle could be used, but Toriyama's bad habit of quickly increasing power levels, completely abandoning any possible exploration and focusing in straightforward battles on Earth... Yeah, it's stupid and that's all on him lol.