Dragon Ball Daima: Episode 18 - Official Discussion Thread

[LoganForkHands73]

The intensity of the feelings that I felt watching this can't be described. Is it creatively bankrupt? Sure. Is it cheap writing? Sure. It's whatever you want, but all of that isn't why I watch dragonball. This episode made me feel like I was a kid again, and I think that's exactly the feeling daima is trying to capture, so in my opinion, it succeeded.

Advice for everyone, looking at this through the eyes of a cynical grown up won't do you any good, it's like trying to listen to a piece of music with your nose and not your ears, you're using the wrong sense. Dragonball is to be experienced with your heart, not your brain

Probably the wisest comment on this forum (and apologies for my long-winded diatribe below diluting your succinct point).

I like to analyse Dragon Ball as much as the next guy here, but I've stopped trying so hard to intellectualise it. I'd go so far as to say that if you're using words longer than 13 letters when discussing it, you're overdoing it (joking, partially). Anything "intellectual" you'll find in Dragon Ball is mere trivial information (which, admittedly, Daima does have a lot of). Useless in reality, as was intended by the original author and editor.

At its heart, Dragon Ball is an emotionally-driven story, whether it's trying to be funny, dramatic, or just getting you hyped up like a kid in a candy shop.

Case in point, while watching this episode, I too was thinking (I know, ew) in the back of my mind about this whole turn of events being kind of a cheap asspull, very little build-up, etc.

But all those lovely good chemicals - the dopamine, the adrenaline - overrode any of that lame intellectual posturing from the left side of my brain. Once you stop resisting and embrace that feeling, you'll have a better time. I'm shameless in saying that I experience Dragon Ball through a purposefully dumbed-down lens, because on some level, that's how it's supposed to be viewed, IMO. I had a great time with this episode overall. I like this new take on Super Saiyan 4. I love Duu and Tamagami #1 teaming up with the heroes. The cliffhanger was pretty good, too.

We've also gotta be honest with ourselves, almost none of us fall within the target audience of this show. I'm aware that one of the producers said that the show was a tribute to GT fans, which is all the more obvious in this episode, but it's meant to be something that those older viewers can watch with their kids, who are the real target audience.

I may not always agree with everything the likes of Baggins, Zephyr and Majin Buu say. Hell, I've prodded them a couple time when I've had those disagreements. But I'll say with total bluntness that their contributions are a thousand times more valuable than all the performative whinging I see by people who openly despise the show and don't want to honestly engage with it (or make better use of their time by doing literally anything more enjoyable to them).

This forum sadly never seems to change on that front, and I'm embarrassed to say I've contributed to a negative, unwelcoming atmosphere in the past. Yeah, cynical adult working life sucks and you sometimes need to get shit out of your system, but as Julie said, hating a cartoon isn't a substitute for a personality. For the sake of your own spiritual wellbeing, find other shit that makes you happier.

[Chuquita]

Mini, magenta-haired, red-irised ssj4?!
It looks like if you did a mash-up of ssjg and ssj4 and I’m totally good with that as ssjg Goku is one of my favorites.
Wow.

What a weird, pleasant surprise.

You know with all the seemingly ancillary lore-drops, it’d be pretty funny if we don’t get any explanation for what Neva did to Goku at all. Neva’s in the Dr. Slump camp of “character who can look over the fourth wall and go ‘hey you like GT? Here’s a shoutout to that!’.”

Disappointed the tail vanished once Gomah started energy-draining Goku, but I guess it can’t stay without making a plot hole, so…?


Kuu & Duu were funny. I liked Duu’s imitation ssj3 hair and the whole shtick with the giant chocolate chip cookie.

Here’s hoping the wish gives everyone their adult bodies back; though part of me’s wondering if the wish doesn’t just undo the whole thing and we’re suddenly back at Trunks’ birthday party like nothing ever happened and no one remembers any of it.

Edit: forgot to mention I liked the bit where not!ssj4 Goku bluffs Gomah into thinking he's been KO'd, but then spins around and pulls out a kamehameha.

[ZeroNeonix]

There's no rush in restoring everyone to adult size. Afterall, we've seen that Neva can just...reactivate Dragon Balls whenever he wants to. So Glorio could make another wish (maybe for the third eye to be his) and Goku and company could use the balls again after everything is over.

[Cybersai]

It's a shame the SSJ4 transformation overshadowed SSJ3 Goku's debut in this episode. SSJ3 looked cool as hell, especially delivering notable damage to Gomah before Goku inevitably started losing. I'm surprised people aren't talking about SSJ3 much anymore, since this is the first time we saw it this series on Goku.

[Cold Skin]

The theory that Glorio wished for them to be adults again - as opposed to just extending their strength or giving them their full health back for example - sure seems to fit the fact that the next episode preview took good care of not showing any of the "childified" characters.

If it was something that doesn't concern their appearances, they could have showed them, for example being shocked or beaten up to keep giving the impression that they want to give to Glorio's wish that he did obey Arinsu.

But the fact that not a single shot showed a single of the children... Yeah, it could fit with wanting to keep everyone being back to adults for the last two episodes as a surprise.

And on another topic, the new transformation does look much better than the original Super Saiyan 4, it looks appealing this time with the inspiration from the Super Saiyan God colors!

[JulieYBM]

I felt like it went without saying, but for the benefit of the record, I do think that it's bad that Super Saiyan 4 wasn't given any real arc to it. I'm not surprised from this series, but the writer and viewer in me is still like, "Really?"

[Koitsukai]

I don't even know how to feel. The action was amazing, damn, and the salt this episode has spread, cant' say it didn't make me laugh. Sorry.

Duu and Kuu are fantastic, the Majin SS3 was great. I love that they have departed from Arinsu and now have agency of their own and Goku stans, and jump to help him. I like how T-1 is also like that. Hands down, with Hybys and Gomah, the brothers are the best Daima has come up with.

But Chibi SS4 is just not for me. The fur not going past the forearms, the red hair (although, it makes PERFECT sense to have red fur and red hair instead of what GT came up with... and also no magic pants even in the daimakai), it was too SDBH for my taste.
And if you throw in that it probably was the least deserved and meaningful transformation, with as much explanation as SSRage, then I don't even know what to say.
I can accept yesterday's forms being given away as if they are Xmas leftovers, it's not like SS3 Vegeta or SS Goten were going to be saving the day... but if there's going to be a new form, and without said form everybody would've been killed, then at least I want to know what it was about, but apparently not even the cast cared about that.
I can't say I didn't enjoy Goku getting beaten up as a SS4... you didn't earn that power up, comrade. That beating was yours to take.
I'm disappointed, to be fair, not with how it looks nor how it performed, but how it came to be. Can't believe what I'm saying but GT did it better.

Gomah's Third Eye is great. It's like Gas' wish, it just won't let him lose. And man, I loved Gomah rushing towards the Red Porunga, reminded me of Freeza on Namek.
Minor nitpick about it, but to have had several instances of loredump about it, and still not knowing what the fuck this is or where it came from, and then seeing it's so fucking haxed... well it makes me want to know why. Is it related to Rymus? to the Daimao that ordered the multiverse? is it just an eye? never part of a socket? Sure, I can live with it being a mystery, but in that case then I'd rather just get as little info as possible, not pure exposition like a few episodes ago.

I loved the Red Dragon, it's so GT and so Porunga. And how casually he finger flicked Gomah. That's when I wonder more about the Eye. It can't be something as old as Rymus nor as "divine" if it can't get past a creature created by a namekian some time ago.

Kudos to the whole Glorio-Arinsu deal, it seemed like that ball had been dropped, but if their deal was to shut the fuck up and only communicate through that device, then it works.
But, something I still can't get over is how flawed her plan was. Seriously, a Glind that believes is part of the chosen people and looks down on every other species decides to trust some majin, and instead of learning herself the language that will get her the thing she wants the most (while being a fucking genius, it's not like she is your run of the mill boxer), she appoints that task to this shady guy???? what? how dumb is she? she set herself up.
She went through all that trouble just to let some not-glind person take the penalty?
If she kidnapped Glorio's family and has that over him... shit, not even that would force Glorio's hand when he is MAKING A WISH TO A MAGIC DRAGON.
I don't know, it feels like the type of story I would tell myself to fall sleep, filled with errors and things that weren't given much thought because I will fall sleep soon enough.

And Degesu could've been an email.

[Extreme_kai]

So many haters lol.

Daima is goated, thankyou Toriyama!

So I must praise every product Toriyama ever created even if I think it's below average shlock? Is Dragonball a cult now?

[Kaboom]

Sorry, but I'm not going to be feeling any warm nostalgic fuzzies from seeing something I love get trotted out in a worse-designed, less-interesting, more ham-fisted, and overall inferior way. I'm especially not going to act like that happening is somehow doing me a favor.

I've said this a couple times already, but this feels just like a repeat of how Minus screwed up Bardock. That same confused and disgusted feeling of "why did they think that fans of this character/thing would actually like this?"

[AliTheZombie13]

I've said this a couple times already, but this feels just like a repeat of how Minus screwed up Bardock. That same confused and disgusted feeling of "why did they think that fans of this character/thing would actually like this?"

Scroll up just one post and you'll see the answer: Because Toriyama.

[ZeroNeonix]

I actually think I like this redesign of Super Saiyan 4 better than the original. I liked SS4 before, but I always thought it was kind of a mishmash of things that don't quite fit together. It was just a bit...weird. I also preferred Vegeta's red fur over Goku's pink.



This is part of the reason I always liked SS4 Gogeta's design best. While it doesn't make sense that he'd have red hair, while Goku and Vegeta have black, it made the transformation look more congruous.



Daima's version of SS4 is similar to Gogeta's, or the Limit Breaker version from Super Dragon Ball Heroes. It even has an outline, like Limit Breaker. The biggest difference is that he has red eyes instead of yellow. While, at first, I thought I preferred the contrast of the yellow, I actually like the red eyes. I feel like it should be too much red, but when I look at it, it just works, IMO. I also like that they took away that red outline around his eyes, that made them look like someone punched them and gave them two black eyes. Instead, the black outline around his eyes are thicker, making him look he's about to strangle someone. He looks like a wild and dangerous monkey man.

[dbs fanboy]

if you ask me, Red Porunga gained aura after he fingerflicked Gomah like a bug

About that, how strong are the dragons supposed to be? A relatively weak (by today's standards) Piccolo Daimaoh could easily destroy Shenron, while this Porunga wasn't bothered at all by an extremely powerful Gomah. More and more nonsense, they'll probably just say "Porunga is strong because Neva is legendary". Actually, scratch that, they're not going to say anything at all.

Actually, I'm starting to believe only Shenron is weak.

Porunga would literally wear him like a scarf, Red Shenron is massive and calling him destroys the planet, red Porunga farmed Aura this episode and Super Shenron is bigger than Galaxies.

Boi regular Shenron should maybe hit the gym? Even the two dragon Balls Dragon managed to grant a wish that made someone the strongest in the universe.

[JulieYBM]

Episodes like this really make you reflect back on yourself in seeing how other people react to it. They really draw out that feeling of, "Is this how I want to present myself?" I wish I didn't have such bad ADHD, I'd loved to take some sort of course on how to analyze fandom response to minor events like this.

Anyway, I can't wait for the Super Saiyan 4 Gokuu (Adult) and Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta (Adult) fan art. There's bound to be some really cute character interaction art coming out of this.

[dbs fanboy]

Best episode at all.

Goku SSJ4 doesn't have any explanation but the fight was insane...
And the best part was Porunga kicking Gomah's ass with a single blow haha. Thanks god now we have a God Dragon that acts like a real powerful entity.

For next episode I hope:
Glorio will ask for all of then to be adults again.
And Dra Arinsu will be fighting too
I do think Panzy will die and after daima her soul will be Pan.
And the fusion... I bet it will be Piccolo + Vegeta

Omega Shenron and the Black Star Dragons say hi.

To be fair most of the Shadow Dragons were jobbers, only Nouva Shenron and Omega Shenron were actually intimidating.

[IntangibleFancy]

>what if we brought back Freeza (RoF)?
>what if Trunks came back for another time travel story?
>what if we brought back the Pilaf Gang?
>what if we paired Mai with Trunks (because making a new character is too much trouble)?
>what if we brought back Freeza again (ToP)?
>what if we made another Broly but as a girl (Kale)?
>what if we made Broly again?
>what if we made another Bardock flashback?
>what if we made another Cell (Cell Max)?
>what if we made another Cell (Moro) again?
>what if we made another Great Saiyaman (Goten and Trunks)?
>what if we made another SS2 Gohan (Beast)?
>what if we made GT again (Daima)?
>what if we made another Buu (Kuu, Duu)?
>what if we brought back SS4?
This franchise is so creatively bankrupt, holy shit.

I don’t mind the fact that they’re rehashing everything. I’d rather it be brought back and revamped than stuck in video game hell (and some characters don’t even get THAT outside of Dokkan). What I want is for it to be interesting. I like some of the stuff they brought back and hated the others, loved The Great Saiyaman stuff (hate that it’s taking up the manga) but hated Cell Max. Loved Future Trunks coming back but hated Frieza coming back (twice)

I am 100% willing to roll the dice on Janemba and Cooler. It may be incredibly cool or lame and forced, but I want to take the chance because I don’t want them stuck as material for the games with the same old attacks and interactions.

[Ronin]

Duu turning "Super Saiyan 3" reminds me of Neko Majin turning "Super Saiyan". This was actually the highlight of the episode for me. If this was the major transformation we got, I would've been fine with it.

I would have preferred no new transformations at all for the old characters and instead would rather have gotten one for one of the new characters instead. But as far as what it turned out to be, I'm actually pretty indifferent to it. Super Saiyan 4 was a good design and I like the changes made to it as well, I guess. Not sure what's going on with his hands and arms and apparently Super Saiyan 4 also changes your pants yellow? I noticed they changed back to orange when he went back to base form which is kinda funny. If they wanted Goku to transform so bad, I still would have preferred something entirely new that included pointy ears (let's call it Demon Goku), but whatever. And yeah, Neva is a total deus ex machina. If he's gonna have all these abilities, there needs to be some type of consequence introduced.

I'm also glad to see that Arinsu decided to take the dragon balls after all. I knew that opening to take them from last episode was too good not to take. As far as what the wish is gonna turn out to be; I think it's pretty obvious. Maybe they'll throw us a curveball and make it something else, but I can't think of anything else that would be good enough. I am hoping that it turns out to be something else that does work out, though.

[fadeddreams5]

I am 100% willing to roll the dice on Janemba and Cooler. It may be incredibly cool or lame and forced, but I want to take the chance because I don’t want them stuck as material for the games with the same old attacks and interactions.

Man, Cooler would have been so incredibly easy to implement. Frost... that's it. He should have been Cooler, with the final form being Cooler's movie form, and the idiotic twist of him being evil scrapped. Cooler, a morally gray character who built an empire and dictatorship to preserve peace in the universe. Also, scrap Hit, and give Cooler's final/base form the time skip, as well as Hit's calm disposition. Bam. Best "new" character ever.

[Chuquita]

I would love some fun ssj4 adult Goku and ssj4 adult Vegeta interactions, but I'm not getting my hopes up. We had that short argument over who goes first, Vegeta boasting how refined of a prince he is now, and that one jump-scare Goku accidentally inflicted on him at the end of the hamster episode, but overall their conversations since the B Team joined up have been few and far between, imo.

Or maybe Super spoiled me in terms of Goku and Vegeta dynamics so this just feels less to me? Who knows.

[ssj3kakarot]

So is this supposed to be "what if Goku got his potential unlocked?"

EIther way, how are they going to tie this back into the series?

[dbs fanboy]

>what if we brought back Freeza (RoF)?
>what if Trunks came back for another time travel story?
>what if we brought back the Pilaf Gang?
>what if we paired Mai with Trunks (because making a new character is too much trouble)?
>what if we brought back Freeza again (ToP)?
>what if we made another Broly but as a girl (Kale)?
>what if we made Broly again?
>what if we made another Bardock flashback?
>what if we made another Cell (Cell Max)?
>what if we made another Cell (Moro) again?
>what if we made another Great Saiyaman (Goten and Trunks)?
>what if we made another SS2 Gohan (Beast)?
>what if we made GT again (Daima)?
>what if we made another Buu (Kuu, Duu)?
>what if we brought back SS4?
This franchise is so creatively bankrupt, holy shit.

I don’t mind the fact that they’re rehashing everything. I’d rather it be brought back and revamped than stuck in video game hell (and some characters don’t even get THAT outside of Dokkan). What I want is for it to be interesting. I like some of the stuff they brought back and hated the others, loved The Great Saiyaman stuff (hate that it’s taking up the manga) but hated Cell Max. Loved Future Trunks coming back but hated Frieza coming back (twice)

I am 100% willing to roll the dice on Janemba and Cooler. It may be incredibly cool or lame and forced, but I want to take the chance because I don’t want them stuck as material for the games with the same old attacks and interactions.

Truth be told while rehashes are lame, if you can do something interesting with it you can salvage it easily.

I hated when Freeza came back for the ToP at first but then they actually ended up making him a wild card and quite a compelling character to the point that I would say Modern Freeza is actually quite interesting as a villain.

Kale is a bit lame, but paired up with Caulifla made for some interesting interactions, unexpected representation and a highlight in the franchise.

Super Broly is a good boi, (and I've seen you guys slandering him, so I will smack you).

Cell Max is just a dumb brute and Beast Gohan exists for pandering. But Super Hero is actually a fun movie that puts Piccolo on the front for the first time and it doesn't take itself too seriously so it works.

Now I'm not going to pretend that Db rehashes do not disappoint me.

We live on a timeline with multiple universes, multiple timelines, lots of new lore addition and we're still stuck on nostalgia references. Fanfics like Db Kakumei may be incredibly edgy but dang, it really should not be hard to use the huge universe that Dragon Ball has turned into.

And there are multiple other modern gripes that I could talk about within the franchise.

However, like always, I feel peeps take things too seriously sometimes, most gripes are understandable, you cannot hide flaws all the time under the veil of "it made me feel like a kid again"

But at the same time, you really cannot expect the "casual sequel" as Toriyama described most of modern dragon ball to be something incredibly deep or something.

Some of you, simply have grown up and there's nothing wrong with that.

Balance is key I guess. Anyway, why the hell does Goku lose his tail when de powered? Damn it, just let the Monkey Boy stay a Monkey Boy!