Dragon Ball Daima: Episode 18 - Official Discussion Thread

[JulieYBM]

All the internet is raving about this episode and predictably this forum is miserable and negative as usual, i don’t even know what’s the point of having a forum from a franchise you clearly don’t like anymore and outgrew it, it’s just like Star Wars fans, a bunch of miserable people circlejerking each other about who is more miserable than the other, pretty pathetic and sad !

Really, a Star Wars comparison?

The franchise that just got a series canceled after the first season due to low viewership?

I mean, this is also the same series where a concentrated hate campaign from bigots and grifters controlled the online narrative of the series' supposed quality from start to finish. Far be it for me to defend a Star Wars project—speaking as someone who grew up on the franchise and doesn't really care for it—but the situation and the factors at play are a lot different compared to smaller shit like Dragon Ball.

[nato25]

I love this forum. Sure it might be miserable, but it's typically more critical than 'omg SSJ4 super hype cooool' or even worse 'Gomah is just Jiren again'. The views shared here are often more than just surface level observations.

There are long time fans here with opinions that stem from long time fandom and viewing. If the overall opinion of the forum seems miserable, it's largely because the series isn't living up to the expectations that were formed when we fell in love with the series.

[AliTheZombie13]

Maybe it's time to accept we've grown up, we've already seen most of the things Modern DB is doing and done better, either in Dragon Ball itself, or in other shows. It's extremely hard for a long-running series to be creative and innovative when it's exhausted all of its good ideas, so things like "Here's exactly what came before, nothing new attached to it" is inevitably going to bore and frustrate the fuck out of us.

[JulieYBM]

Expectations grow and change. That's a natural part of growing and changing as a person. Nobody is the same person they were when they first joined this forum, let alone when they first became fans.

I think describing genuine criticism of art as 'miserable' is a really melodramatic way of saying a whole lot about unspecified pieces of criticism, which honestly kind of just defeats the purpose. I understand not wanting to single out any one person to avoid conflict, but we're essentially not adding anything to the discussion when we do that.

[Izanagi]

All the internet is raving about this episode and predictably this forum is miserable and negative as usual

Initial hype means jackshit. Just because something is popular in the moment doesn’t mean it's actually good. Dragon Ball thrives on hype-driven, reactionary fandom. People lose their minds over a new transformation, a major fight, or a returning fan-favorite character, talk about them for a few weeks, then move on until the next one.

Just because the loudest voices are praising something doesn’t mean those who see the flaws are wrong. You're is basically saying, "Everyone else is excited, so why aren't you?" which is just peer pressure disguised as an argument.

i don’t even know what’s the point of having a forum from a franchise you clearly don’t like anymore and outgrew it

This is the laziest response possible to criticism. Instead of engaging with actual points, you're just saying, "If you don’t like it, leave." ...But that’s not how fandom works, real fans criticize because they actually give a fuck.

Blindly praising everything doesn’t make you a fan, it makes you a consumer. And you don't get to decide who loves this franchise or not. Loving something doesn't mean blindly accepting everything it throws at you. Criticism isn't "hate", it's wanting something you care about to improve. What you're doing right now is a classic no true Scotsman fallacy.

Telling someone to leave a franchise just because they’re disappointed with its direction is a weak defense. This is the same cop-out excuse Star Wars fans use: "If you don’t like the sequels, why are you even here?" No, dude. Fans are allowed to be critical, especially when they see a series they love going downhill.

it’s just like Star Wars fans, a bunch of miserable people circlejerking each other about who is more miserable than the other, pretty pathetic and sad !

You seem to be confusing legitimate criticism with negativity.

Being critical = analyzing flaws and wanting better.

Being negative = hating something just to hate it.

Most users ITT is not some edgy hater, a lot of them are former DB diehards who sees through the nostalgia baiting. And some still are DB diehards who sees through the nostalgia baiting. If someone just wants an echo chamber where everything is praised, they’re not a real fan, they’re a brand loyalist.

Lastly, when someone ends an argument with personal insults, it means they have no real counterpoints. You're just lashing out because you can't handle the fact that not everyone blindly loves modern Dragon Ball. Instead of proving why Daima is actually good, you're just calling people "miserable."

[IntangibleFancy]

All the internet is raving about this episode and predictably this forum is miserable and negative as usual, i don’t even know what’s the point of having a forum from a franchise you clearly don’t like anymore and outgrew it, it’s just like Star Wars fans, a bunch of miserable people circlejerking each other about who is more miserable than the other, pretty pathetic and sad !

It’s really hard for me to take the internet seriously when it comes to Daima. From the series’ reveal up until before the 14th, all I saw were strawman arguments about how anyone that had a problem with it were meatheads obsessed with fighting and how not every episode needs to have “transformations and battles”, but… the fanbase only goes crazy during these big transformations and battles. This energy was present last week during the first part of the fight, but not the week before, or the week before that.

I think the only time I’ve seen a spike in excitement from something that wasn’t a battle in this show was during Rymus’ reveal, but not only was it relatively small compared to this and the last episodes, but that was the peak of the show’s lore-building and we never got any big story reveals like that again.

[Cybersai]

I mean if you look at the last few review threads before this final fight, people were complaining Daima was "slow" because of that giant planet filler, then the two after where they were just fighting generic henchmen/mooks that nobody cared about.

All the big fights in Daima have been well received both animation wise and writing wise. It's easy a case where a lot of people prefer different things. I think Daima was fine when they were exploring the demon realm, you know, the whole point of the series.

[shadowfox87]

Hope to see some 3-way fusion. The Duu brothers would be nice but then we can't have Goku and Vegeta also.

[Cursed Lemon]

I mean, this is also the same series where a concentrated hate campaign from bigots and grifters controlled the online narrative of the series' supposed quality from start to finish. Far be it for me to defend a Star Wars project—speaking as someone who grew up on the franchise and doesn't really care for it—but the situation and the factors at play are a lot different compared to smaller shit like Dragon Ball.

The Star Wars franchise has legitimately bad installations though. For example, The Last Jedi - completely divorced from whatever the asshole grifter morons were saying about it - is a bad movie. Terrible editing, terrible handling of characters, terrible pacing.

So too with DB.

[mecha3000]

I'm late on this, but I've seen a good amount of praise and criticism to Daima's SSJ4 form. I saw MasakoX's video where he titled it "Super Saiyan 4, but better" and blindly praised everything about Daima and its SSJ4. And I disagree with him completely. Don't get me wrong. I actually like Daima SSJ4, but GT SSJ4 was definitely handled so much better. I feel like Masako has a bias against GT that has shown itself much more since Daima's started, but in some ways, Daima is worse than GT in my opinion.

As for the elitists hating on the form, I ask you one thing: Do you even know Dragon Ball? A big part of Dragon Ball is concepts like transformations and fusions. So, why are you so opposed to Daima introducing those concepts? And judging by how Ultra Instinct and SSJ4 both broke the Internet and Crunchyroll, it seems like those transformations are exactly the type of thing most fans want from Dragon Ball. Like others have said, I do feel like a lot of you guys are either too old for DB at this point or just too elitist. Dragon Ball is not high art. And don't get mad me because Toriyama would probably be the first one to tell you that. He'd also probably say to not take it so serious and just enjoy the ride. I feel like a lot of you aren't capable of that.

And lastly, as far as my full opinion on SSJ4 being introduced, I have no problem with it. I've been a staunch supporter of GT for years so even though I'm biased, I've always loved SSJ4 the most of all the SSJ forms. It ties Goku back to Oozaru and the Sun Wukong myth. So, it's nice to see GT has regained its relevance after all these years. And for fans saying, "Haha, GT doesn't matter anymore because of Daima", well, it mattered enough for Toriyama to take from it and put his own spin on it. Just like with Broly. So, that argument is immature and stupid.

Also, a lot of things that fans have been clamoring for all these years has been paid off by Toriyama, Toyotaro, Toei and Akio such as:

1. Future Trunks coming back in Super
2. Evil Goku with Goku Black in Super
3. Vegito and "canon" Gogeta coming back in Super
4. Android 17 coming back in Super
5. Female Super Saiyans in Super
6. Broly coming back in Super
7. Freeza and Cell coming back as Cell Max in Super
8. Gohan getting a new form with Beast in Super
9. Vegeta getting a "canon" SSJ3 in Daima
10. Goku getting a "canon" SSJ4 in Daima

I'm really grateful Toriyama was at least alive long enough to oversee and give us these events in Dragon Ball. And while a lot of these events are just retreads, I still enjoyed seeing Toriyama's new spin on them. That's something I'll always cherish. I also love Akio confirming Daima is GT 2.0 to shut up all the GT haters. And for people always holding classic adventure Dragon Ball to a high standard above later action Dragon Ball, the action stuff has proved superior than the adventure stuff, at least when when it comes to Daima. I think we all saw that this week and last week in the fandom.

[SupremeKai25]

I am once again reminded of the beauty and grandeur of the art direction in Super and Daima. This imagery and art direction is just brilliant. So grand, so overwhelming. The colours are so pretty, and the world feels so vast and magical.

I'm so happy that Modern Dragon Ball (Super and Daima) is not like dusty old Dragon Ball which just reused the same ugly brown desert and plain-looking techniques over and over again.

With each passing minute Gomah becomes more and more endeared to me in terms of both personality and design. Sure, he might have a similar outfit to Jiren, but so what? Freeza and Vegeta also had the same armour and yet no one ever complained. Also, that headpiece with the two "horns" (I don't know what you would call them) and the third oculus in the middle really convey the idea that Gomah is a powerful magician/sorcerer. Now that he's got the Third Oculus, Gomah has become a real menace.

Spoiler:

[Vegeta th3 4th]

Daima is such an unbelievably confused show.

You make them kids - the implicit goal is that you want to focus on adventure and possibly not so much combat, but then you practice surface-level world building and present us with the ugliest and most unappealing environments the DB franchise has probably ever seen. Then you decide to actually have somewhat regular combat, but you completely forget to add stakes and you reintroduce old strong forms and completely cancel out the entire exercise of making the characters kids in the first place. And to top it all off, your antagonists have no personality whatsoever.

What is the actual motivation to watch this show

This is an issue both GT and Super had as well; the producers behind the franchise never knew exactly what they wanted to do with it following the conclusion of the original manga back int he day.

If the overall opinion of the forum seems miserable, it's largely because the series isn't living up to the expectations that were formed when we fell in love with the series.

This so much. We're not being critical because we hate Dragon Ball, but rather because we love it so much and expect great things from it. Also, is it just me or is there an increase in fans trying to shut others up for having a different opinion than theirs ? It seems like ever since Super started a decade ago, certain fans don't want to hear anything but blind love for the franchise. Anything else is considered "hate".

[sangofe]

Hope to see some 3-way fusion. The Duu brothers would be nice but then we can't have Goku and Vegeta also.

I predict duu and kuu eat the fusion bug by accident and Glorio wishes everyone back to adults.

Daima is such an unbelievably confused show.

You make them kids - the implicit goal is that you want to focus on adventure and possibly not so much combat, but then you practice surface-level world building and present us with the ugliest and most unappealing environments the DB franchise has probably ever seen. Then you decide to actually have somewhat regular combat, but you completely forget to add stakes and you reintroduce old strong forms and completely cancel out the entire exercise of making the characters kids in the first place. And to top it all off, your antagonists have no personality whatsoever.

What is the actual motivation to watch this show

This is an issue both GT and Super had as well; the producers behind the franchise never knew exactly what they wanted to do with it following the conclusion of the original manga back int he day.

If the overall opinion of the forum seems miserable, it's largely because the series isn't living up to the expectations that were formed when we fell in love with the series.

This so much. We're not being critical because we hate Dragon Ball, but rather because we love it so much and expect great things from it. Also, is it just me or is there an increase in fans trying to shut others up for having a different opinion than theirs ? It seems like ever since Super started a decade ago, certain fans don't want to hear anything but blind love for the franchise. Anything else is considered "hate".

Maybe it's time to accept we've grown up, we've already seen most of the things Modern DB is doing and done better, either in Dragon Ball itself, or in other shows. It's extremely hard for a long-running series to be creative and innovative when it's exhausted all of its good ideas, so things like "Here's exactly what came before, nothing new attached to it" is inevitably going to bore and frustrate the fuck out of us.

I'm so happy I can tap into kid mode and enjoy things without my adult critical brain. Daima hasn't been perfect but damn has it made me feel laugh, exited and amazed overall. I enjoy both the comedy and action. I don't agree with the comment that Daima brings nothing new, though. But I do wish they could take more risks in the future with brining in creative fans. However with Iyoku having taken over I doubt that will happen. And unless it gets really bad and doesn't feel like Dragon Ball I will continue to read and watch Dragon Ball in the future.

[Izanagi]

Serious question: Who is Daima supposed to appeal to? Besides the unfortunately high amount of Dragon Ball fans that’ll watch anything official.

It’s supposed to be a return to Dragon Ball’s adventure aspect, but there’s no actual worldbuilding and the adventures are boring. They fly, they stall for time or lose their ship in a completely avoidable way and then they lore dump like a Wiki page while they walk around until a beast or some thugs or those fodder soldiers show up. That wasn’t what the original Dragon Ball was like at all.

It can’t be appealing to new fans either who just watch this show for the fights. Outside of E8, Daima has no engaging fight scenes like that. They’ve all just been on-model with middling to slightly above average choreography.

The Demon Realm also isn’t interesting at all. 3 was just a desert with a couple of villages, the only thing 2 had was a giant and a really annoying kraken and 1 is literally a castle and that’s it. I would not want to see it again in any other series or movie. I don’t even want the areas as maps in the video games.

I think the only thing I can give it is that the new cast of characters they’ve introduced isn’t completely terrible. But apart from Anrisu and her Buu’s, I don’t think I want to see anyone else ever again. They aren’t engaging, apart from Hyubis they aren’t that funny, and there’s no good writing to them. They’re just there.

That’s how I can sum up the entire show. It’s not bad to the point where I never want to see it again, it’s just… there and I wouldn’t be sad if it ended right now becuase I’ve stopped expecting it to get good.

I think the only thing I can give it is that the new cast of characters they’ve introduced isn’t completely terrible. But apart from Arinsu and her Buu’s, I don’t think I want to see anyone else ever again. They aren’t engaging, apart from Hyubis they aren’t that funny, and there’s no good writing to them. They’re just there.

[AliTheZombie13]

Serious question: Who is Daima supposed to appeal to? Besides the unfortunately high amount of Dragon Ball fans that’ll watch anything official.

Supposedly, according to the producers, GT fans and their children.

I'm so happy I can tap into kid mode and enjoy things without my adult critical brain. Daima hasn't been perfect but damn has it made me feel laugh, exited and amazed overall. I enjoy both the comedy and action. I don't agree with the comment that Daima brings nothing new, though. But I do wish they could take more risks in the future with brining in creative fans. However with Iyoku having taken over I doubt that will happen. And unless it gets really bad and doesn't feel like Dragon Ball I will continue to read and watch Dragon Ball in the future.

Your mileage might vary, of course. Daima brought me Koo, Doo, maybe Arinsu, but other than that, throughout this entire show, I found nothing that screamed to me personally, "I'm glad this exists."

Happy you're enjoying it, though.

[dbs fanboy]

Maybe it's time to accept we've grown up, we've already seen most of the things Modern DB is doing and done better, either in Dragon Ball itself, or in other shows. It's extremely hard for a long-running series to be creative and innovative when it's exhausted all of its good ideas, so things like "Here's exactly what came before, nothing new attached to it" is inevitably going to bore and frustrate the fuck out of us.

To play devil's advocate, to us really. While it's true we've grown up and sometimes in this forum things are taken too seriously.

It is also true that Modern Dragon Ball does waste most of this potential we are not in the GT era anymore when it felt the everything that could be explored I'm DB was done.

Between multiple universes, timelines and the Demon Realm Dragon Ball actually has enough interesting characters and content to actually creat a good fun story. But instead of using it's own added material (like idk a visit to planet Salad maybe?) it chooses the safest option.

And that is the actual issue, modern db while entertaining it's too safe, but funny enough it rehashes old ideas in an interesting way sometimes, like Freeza's return so it's not as if the writers cannot make creative stories either.

Something something corporations don't get art and Dragon Ball is really profitable when remaining in this safe territory.

[The Monkey King]

All the internet is raving about this episode and predictably this forum is miserable and negative as usual, i don’t even know what’s the point of having a forum from a franchise you clearly don’t like anymore and outgrew it, it’s just like Star Wars fans, a bunch of miserable people circlejerking each other about who is more miserable than the other, pretty pathetic and sad !

Go back to r/DragonBallDaima if you want an echo chamber hugbox. You can all enjoy the latest content slop there

[Majin Buu]

On people not liking the show:

Some are just succinctly giving their honest criticisms while others are so hyperbolic with their dislike that it feels performative.

It's the difference between simply being critical vs. being performatively negative about it.

The former provides useful insight while the latter is just obnoxious, contributes to making the discourse actively unpleasant, and undercuts any actual criticism being presented.

To name names for the sake of clarity: Folks like Julie, Zephyr, and Gaffer are doing the former, folks like AliTheZombie are doing the latter.

[Zekken]

10/10 quite easily, Neva is doing so much for me. Truly a legendary type character you would expect from something like One Piece and its great to see Toriyama's spin on it.

And yeah coming in to Daima I was all in with the SS4 crowd, its the sort of form that dont need any explanation or build up like that in a technical sense of why it exists. The form is just intuitive and congruent to the Saiyan biology and nature that has been presented since early dragon ball. And him doing more monkey like movements is a welcome addition, big forearms tho ehhh, all i say is i hope they keep the normal arms if he does this as an adult. I will admit that from storytelling perspective it is not good, with Neva just gifting it to him without him himself growing from sort of experience physically and mentally like in GT.

On to Glorio, it has been a little perplexing (in a negative way) how the traitor plot has not been dealt with before now and how it sems there is not enough time to give a satisfying conclusion to it. But I will majorly stock that up to me not knowing what story they want to tell with it, this would be a better criticism saved for when the show is finished.

Another part with Glorio tho is I really liked his scene in the middle with him struggling to get up and pushing himself alongside Piccolo, really great stuff.

Oh and the 3rd eye is so hype, the way it seems to not have any limits (minus the Porunga bit) and that eerie close up of it, hopefully we get more of it lore-wise and else in the future.

[BernardoCairo]

I'm really grateful Toriyama was at least alive long enough to oversee and give us these events in Dragon Ball. And while a lot of these events are just retreads, I still enjoyed seeing Toriyama's new spin on them.

I agree. Even though he had to put elements that would please the "fans" in the story, you can feel that Toriyama did a lot of what he wanted too. He could have done something along the lines of Dragon Ball Super, but he chose to explore different elements. That makes me happy, considering it was one of his last projects. It took him 4 to 5 years to prepare the story, according to Akio Iyoku...