How would you fix Daima?

[TechExpert2021]

What are some things you would want to fix regarding Dragon Ball Daima, especially the writing, character designs, exposition, etc.?

Here's how I would fix Daima:

Spoiler:

• Daima would take place 5 years after the defeat of Kid Boo (like GT).
• I would cut out the entirety of the Boo arc recap, skipping to Gomah, Degesu, and Dr. Arinsu.
• I would make Gomah fall in love with Bulma.
• I would cut out Neba slowly walking to Gomah and Degesu while they are preparing to leave the Great Demon Realm to the outside world.
• I would cut out the entirety of Trunks's birthday party and replace it with scenes of Goku battling against Oob with Goku's friends watching the fight.
• Instead of Gomah's wish being "Turn Goku and all his friends into children!", his wish will be this: "Turn Goku and all his friends (except Bulma) into plushies!" His reason for that is this: Gomah wanted the Military Police Squad to initiate a command to turn all of humanity on Earth into evil enemies and render the Z Warriors powerless.
• Bulma luckily has a gadget that can turn anyone into normal when anyone is turned into a child, plushie, or whatever unusual thing (including being shrunk). She calls it the Morph Reverser. Bulma uses it on Gohan and he returns to normal. Gohan then uses it on Videl.
• Videl would make a comeback in Daima to become Gohan's sidekick for the rest of the series.
• I would make Pansy gay.
• I would shove in lots of blood, gore, and battle damage into Daima on the level of DBZ.
• I would make the fights look extremely brutal.
• I would shove in lots of stakes, consequences, and REAL tension into Daima.
• Unecessary lore and exposition would be removed.
• Filler scenes and episodes would be removed.
• Episode structure would be the same as DB, Z, and GT (except that the NEPs would play after the ending).
• The series would be shortened to 12 episodes.

[Yuji]

As I said in the episode #15 thread, I don't mind that it's a low stakes adventure comedy. My issues are that it's far too late in Goku's life to take these many backsteps, it feels like pandering done wrong, and most of the characters have no place in the story, merely being present for their iconicity.

My fix would be simple. Instead of Goku and Vegeta, Goten and Trunks would be the leads. They can just stumble into the demon realm for whatever reason along with Shin without the adults' knowledge, or you can keep the same premise of turning everyone into kids, only Goten and Trunks would be unaffected since they're already kids. And keeping true to the wish, everyone would be reverted to their battle powers as children, making them the strongest of the cast, barring maybe Boo (but he wasn't brought along anyway).

I'd keep the cast to Goten, Trunks, Shin, Glorio and Panzy. I thought Bulma would have some kind of rivalry with Panzy but seeing as how they became friends quickly, she's kinda pointless in the story, but I guess you could find a way to bring her along and it would probably be funny to see her scolding Trunks. Piccolo, Goku and Vegeta would be cut entirely.

I guess you can have Goku show up at the end to save the day if you really want to.

• Goten and Trunks are fooling around at God's lookout for some reason;
• Gomah shows up, turns everyone into kids and kidnaps Dende;
• Because Goten and Trunks are the only ones who witnessed the event and weren't able to stop Gomah, they ask Popo to keep it a secret so nobody finds out it's "their fault"; Popo asks Shin for help;
• Glorio still shows up and leaves with the three;
• Rest of Daima plays out the same, with the kids pulling out Gotenks to defeat Tamagami 2;
• Goku & co back on Earth are entirely oblivious about why they were turned into kids until the last few episodes, maybe Popo spills the beans or Kibito;
• Goku finds a way to go into the demon world to save the kids at the last second.

And this isn't about replacing Goku as the lead. This is about choosing the right characters for the right story. Goten and Trunks are perfectly suited for this lower stakes story - just see the Superhero prequel.

If you want Goku as the lead start to finish I think you'd need to rewrite the story entirely or just fit it much earlier in the timeline.

[AliTheZombie13]

I'd like to point out 3 little things here that would vastly improve Daima:

No exposition dumps / flashbacks
Every element in a story must be relevant and necessary. If it's not going to play a part, then it should be eliminated. (Chekhov's Gun)

If you really want to highlight the Demon Realm's rules and beauty, then have episodes seamlessly integrated into the story where the characters explore these locations and interact with the populace. Except from the very early episodes, there's been almost no interaction with the Demon Realm inhabitants or how their lifestyle is like.

Instead of Shin explaining who Rymus is, have an episode where they meet Rymus and he helps them on their journey. Instead of having Shin explain where he comes from, have them visit the Tree of Glinds or whatever and have him explore his past. It's telling that none of that information that has been vomited these past episodes has stuck with me, because they're completely irrelevant. Both to the story and to the characters. Instead of having that information rubbed and told in our faces, we could have been shown it.

Daima has no shortage of entire scenes or episodes that could well be eliminated and/or replaced with more interesting content. We really didn't need an entire episode about a Mr. Satan knockoff Minotaur with poop jokes.

Give the characters an arc
So far, 7/8 of the cast seems completely disinterested in anything really and has no reason to be there.

You could say they want to rescue Dendé and get their adult bodies back, but they don't act like they care all that much. Goku even has a scene where he tells the others to fuck off and go fight Gomah or whatever, he's just there to have fun or something. And that is a huge problem.

Pansy has shown she wants to be a hero and to liberate her people, make that a point of conflict, have her sneak behind her father's back to join the team, despite it being extremely dangerous, have Glorio keep insisting to kick her off the team, that she's a nuisance, but have her struggle and show her worth. Give Glorio more missions than just "speak to Arinsu on the phone and then look sad at the camera every episode." Let's say, Arinsu tells him to kill Neva, he's going to ruin her plans or something, but have Glorio form a bond with Neva and be unwilling to kill him.

Heck, have Vegeta be taken out and kidnapped to show off how dangerous the Demon Realm is and give Bulma a reason to dive into danger to save him. She's done it for Yamcha, why can't she do it for Vegeta? Have her be jealous of Pansy's mechanical expertise and have them fight each other and make things worse for the team, then solve their differences in a satisfying way. Have Piccolo be suspicious of Neva's intentions rather than just be his #1 fan. A show where everybody loves each other is boring as fuck, make them hate each other's guts out.

Nerf the characters for real / introduce stronger enemies
The fake tension has been another huge point of contention for me. So far, the gang has faced no opponent they couldn't effortlessly and easily defeat. So the show has to throw in this dumb time-stalling tactic of the characters pretending to get their asses beat, only to push the "get stronger" button and wipe out the enemy effortlessly.

Daima kiiiiiiinda tried to impose limitations at the beginning, like the characters struggling to adapt to their kids' bodies, the First Realm's bad air, etc. But all of them kinda go nowhere. The characters adapt pretty fast, the first realm's bad air really doesn't amount to anything except that the characters can't fly and it gets thrown out the window after the first batch of episodes.

Make it one step further, have this "bad air" incapacitate them, make them weaker, unable to transform, unable to teleport. They're not inhabitants of the Demon Realm, have it affect them in ways it doesn't affect their enemies, give them a disadvantage, a struggle to overcome. Make it so they hate their kids' bodies, because they can't fight properly in them the entire show, give them motivation to get their adult bodies back.

And, in the case you have to listen to a huge chunk of the fandom that hates seeing these characters get nerfed because power fantasy and would not stand watching an entire show without them going Legendary Super Whatever 500, then keep the characters the same way, but give them worthy opponents, give them enemies that will make them sweat in SSJ3 and seriously question whether they should keep going or go back and resign themselves to their child bodies, to make them question if it is worth it to save Dende (After all, he really isn't in any danger).

A show where the heroes can beat whatever is on their path without effort is boring as shit.

Of course, all of my suggestions would require the creative team behind Daima to be... You know... creative.
But Daima doesn't really seem all that interested in being creative either.

[Basaku]

Absolutely agree with @Yuji. Daima should've been a Goten & Trunks lil anniversary homage spinoff (add Marron to that too).

They're powerful but super inexperienced and prone to banal mistakes. They're kids so all the poop jokes would've worked far more with them. Villains could believeably try to dupe them more then adults. They're perfect homages to Goku, Bulma and Krillin already with their designs. They would get their 10-year gap big adventure (instead of getting a big fat nothing in Super) and personality developement and could still get believeably grounded after to explain why they don't participate again till they're teens. They're kids so they could forget some key lore dumps which works well as an excuse why the main cast would not know something in future

Yada yada. They were perfect for the idea od Daima. Big wasted oppurtunity.

[Jord]

I second that Goten/Trunks idea. They would also clash better with Kaioshin, who now really just feels like a lore character going along for the ride and telling lore.

[Cipher]

Cut seven episodes from the runtime.

Maybe cut down Vegeta, Piccolo, Bulma and Hybis' support to the end.

[Zephyr]

I think it's a bit too early to know how to fix the show, because it's still going. Until it actually ends, we don't know what payoffs there are, so we don't know what all will have amounted to meaningful set-up, so we don't know what all needs cutting and trimming and changing.

That said, I think this could have just been a movie, and all of the exciting and rich new expansions to the lore (that don't actually contribute to the story) could have been relegated to interviews and promotional pamphlets, like with Battle of Gods and Resurrection F.

Is there too much important stuff to fit into the runtime of a film? Well, again, we don't know yet. There is a non-0% amount of disposable fluff in Daima, to be sure, but it's as of yet unclear what that amount actually is.

[kemuri07]

I actually quite like the Goten and Trunks response, as I think it does fix a lot of the problems people have with the show. :

But unfortunately, Dragon Ball is an institution. And as good as an idea of having Goten and Trunks as the main characters, the amount of people howling over not getting Goku and Vegeta would be astronomical. It's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation.

[kemuri07]

I think it's a bit too early to know how to fix the show, because it's still going. Until it actually ends, we don't know what payoffs there are, so we don't know what all will have amounted to meaningful set-up, so we don't know what all needs cutting and trimming and changing.

That said, I think this could have just been a movie, and all of the exciting and rich new expansions to the lore (that don't actually contribute to the story) could have been relegated to interviews and promotional pamphlets, like with Battle of Gods and Resurrection F.

Is there too much important stuff to fit into the runtime of a film? Well, again, we don't know yet. There is a non-0% amount of disposable fluff in Daima, to be sure, but it's as of yet unclear what that amount actually is.

But that's not how world building works. It's not there only to have some effective cause on the main story, it's there to give context to the world its characters find themselves in. It's flavoring that's more about tone setting and characterization than it is about being a plot device.

[Yuji]

I actually quite like the Goten and Trunks response, as I think it does fix a lot of the problems people have with the show. :

But unfortunately, Dragon Ball is an institution. And as good as an idea of having Goten and Trunks as the main characters, the amount of people howling over not getting Goku and Vegeta would be astronomical. It's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation.

It worked with Superhero (Gohan), and the manga's Superhero prequel. I think if Daima was marketed as what it is (a fun, short celebration of Dragon Ball's comedy adventure origins), rather than what fans wanted it to be (the grand continuation of DBS), then this little tweak in protagonists would have served the story so much more, while retaining the comedic timing and irreverent tone Daima has. I don't think Daima at the end of the day is gonna be any different than Yo! Son Goku, a fun little self-contained side-story, and if that's the case, then the JSAT special is already a blueprint of how a Dragon Ball celebration can focus on Goten and Trunks.

But 5 episodes left, maybe the story will have major revelations and lead into future stories, in which case I'll stand corrected.

[kemuri07]

I actually quite like the Goten and Trunks response, as I think it does fix a lot of the problems people have with the show. :

But unfortunately, Dragon Ball is an institution. And as good as an idea of having Goten and Trunks as the main characters, the amount of people howling over not getting Goku and Vegeta would be astronomical. It's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation.

It worked with Superhero (Gohan), and the manga's Superhero prequel. I think if Daima was marketed as what it is (a fun, short celebration of Dragon Ball's comedy adventure origins), rather than what fans wanted it to be (the grand continuation of DBS), then this little tweak in protagonists would have served the story so much more, while retaining the comedic timing and irreverent tone Daima has. I don't think Daima at the end of the day is gonna be any different than Yo! Son Goku, a fun little self-contained side-story, and if that's the case, then the JSAT special is already a blueprint of how a Dragon Ball celebration can focus on Goten and Trunks.

But 5 episodes left, maybe the story will have major revelations and lead into future stories, in which case I'll stand corrected.

I mean, yeah, but I also remember the amount of bitching that happened because it wasn't another feature like Broly. Like people straight up wanting that movie to fail on this forum. It was kind of wild.

[Yuji]

I actually quite like the Goten and Trunks response, as I think it does fix a lot of the problems people have with the show. :

But unfortunately, Dragon Ball is an institution. And as good as an idea of having Goten and Trunks as the main characters, the amount of people howling over not getting Goku and Vegeta would be astronomical. It's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation.

It worked with Superhero (Gohan), and the manga's Superhero prequel. I think if Daima was marketed as what it is (a fun, short celebration of Dragon Ball's comedy adventure origins), rather than what fans wanted it to be (the grand continuation of DBS), then this little tweak in protagonists would have served the story so much more, while retaining the comedic timing and irreverent tone Daima has. I don't think Daima at the end of the day is gonna be any different than Yo! Son Goku, a fun little self-contained side-story, and if that's the case, then the JSAT special is already a blueprint of how a Dragon Ball celebration can focus on Goten and Trunks.

But 5 episodes left, maybe the story will have major revelations and lead into future stories, in which case I'll stand corrected.

I mean, yeah, but I also remember the amount of bitching that happened because it wasn't another feature like Broly. Like people straight up wanting that movie to fail on this forum. It was kind of wild.

I'm not sure that was because Gohan and Piccolo were leading the film. If I remember correctly, we were all under the impression Goku & Vegeta would have a way bigger role until the last few trailers dropped.

The majority of the backlash came from the CG animation, right from the first teaser. If it were hand-drawn, I'm sure the "where are Goku and Vegeta" crowd would also be loud, but I'm sure more people would have been open to the film.

Regardless, the film was well received and sold well. I think most reasonable people can accept, at least in theory, other characters leading their own story, especially if it's somewhat inconsequential in the grand scope of the Dragon World.

[Chuquita]

I think more instances of a wide variety of threatening magic-like powers by the bad guys would've improved things.

Like, my bar for this is some of the powers characters in Jojo have; Daima doesn't have to make that high bar and I didn't expect it to, but we had that ageing-machine seen once and then never again. Why introduce it and not use it on at least one of the cast? If you're leaning into Dragon Quest, use some status attacks like confusion or deep sleep from that? What about cursed items you can't remove without help?

[Zephyr]

But that's not how world building works. It's not there only to have some effective cause on the main story, it's there to give context to the world its characters find themselves in. It's flavoring that's more about tone setting and characterization than it is about being a plot device.

Sure. Now imagine if we actually learned in Battle of Gods that Beerus wiped out the dinosaurs, and that he made Kaio's planet small, and that he sealed the Elder Kaioshin in the Z Sword. That's how it would feel if a hypothetical movie-fied Daima retained all of the lore dumps. And that would be fine in and of itself, but if it turns out that there are actually too many essential plot beats for all the lore dumps to also fit, I'd be cutting from the latter first.

[Magnificent Ponta]

To put it simply,

• Make it shorter,
• Be more consistently mindful of where the climax points in the series are supposed to be and build towards them - and, to that end,
• Front-load the necessary expository material as swiftly as can be reasonably done.

Maybe Daima will throw up more out-and-out shortcomings, but at this point, anything more than that is more than just "fixing".

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

But that's not how world building works. It's not there only to have some effective cause on the main story, it's there to give context to the world its characters find themselves in. It's flavoring that's more about tone setting and characterization than it is about being a plot device.

Sure. Now imagine if we actually learned in Battle of Gods that Beerus wiped out the dinosaurs, and that he made Kaio's planet small, and that he sealed the Elder Kaioshin in the Z Sword. That's how it would feel if a hypothetical movie-fied Daima retained all of the lore dumps. And that would be fine in and of itself, but if it turns out that there are actually too many essential plot beats for all the lore dumps to also fit, I'd be cutting from the latter first.

I haven't seen the movie in awhile, but I'm pretty sure that they mentioned in the movie that Beerus destroyed the majority of Kaio's planet when he complains how small it is.

[Zephyr]

I haven't seen the movie in awhile, but I'm pretty sure that they mentioned in the movie that Beerus destroyed the majority of Kaio's planet when he complains how small it is.

Looking into it, we're kinda both right. It's mentioned in three different places (with different reasons given for him destroying it).

First was the Q&A from the Dragon Ball Full Color: Saiyan Arc Volume #03, released in February 2013 (before the film even came out).
Here, Beerus destroyed the planet because he lost at a video game.

Second was the extended version of the film, which aired in March 2014 (a year after the initial theatrical release).
Here, Beerus destroyed the planet because he lost at a game of hide-and-seek.

Third was the much beloved Dragon Ball Super episode 5, which aired in August 2015 (a year and a half after the extended version).
Here, Beerus destroyed the planet because he was served bad food.

[Yuji]

I haven't seen the movie in awhile, but I'm pretty sure that they mentioned in the movie that Beerus destroyed the majority of Kaio's planet when he complains how small it is.

Looking into it, we're kinda both right. It's mentioned in three different places (with different reasons given for him destroying it).

First was the Q&A from the Dragon Ball Full Color: Saiyan Arc Volume #03, released in February 2013 (before the film even came out).
Here, Beerus destroyed the planet because he lost at a video game.

Second was the extended version of the film, which aired in March 2014 (a year after the initial theatrical release).
Here, Beerus destroyed the planet because he lost at a game of hide-and-seek.

Third was the much beloved Dragon Ball Super episode 5, which aired in August 2015 (a year and a half after the extended version).
Here, Beerus destroyed the planet because he was served bad food.

He lost at a videogame version of hide and seek while being served bad food

[Zephyr]

He lost at a videogame version of hide and seek while being served bad food

Unfortunately it specifies that it was a "car racing" video game. Maybe it was a racing game with a Prop Hunt twist.

[TechExpert2021]

Third was the much beloved Dragon Ball Super episode 5, which aired in August 2015 (a year and a half after the extended version).
Here, Beerus destroyed the planet because he was served bad food.

Then comes Beerus fighting Goku on Kaio's planet with the terrible animation!