Dragon Ball Daima: Episode 20 - Official Discussion Thread

[Vegeta th3 4th]

Dragon Ball clearly has a "Canon" hinging on Toriyama's involvement:

Toriyama was involved in literally everything Dragon Ball related, be it manga, anime, games, etc... Toriyama wrote the Saiyan-Tsufurian was back story that was used in the Saiyan arc, then later for GT's Baby arc. Is that "canon" ?

The phrasing of BoG not being "a spin-off nor a side-story" is distinguishing it from a series like GT, which lacked the substantial amount of Toriyama's creative input to be considered "Canon" and he himself described as a "side-story"

Toriyama called Super a "casual continuation" of his original manga, which goes back to my original point that the original manga is on top, while everything else is equally below it.

[emperior]

The part of my brain that loves to neatly categorize things is displeased by this finale that leaves so many things unexplained.

But the much larger part of my brain that loves that it just ended so open-endedly is very pleased.

Daima was a good time. Definitely the best Dragonball has looked on a weekly format. Overall I'd say it's my second favorite Dragonball anime, surpassed only by Kai.

I’m curious, aside from maybe the fusion bugs, what would you say went unexplained but was important?

[JulieYBM]

I know for certainty that the "this is my strongest form" line comes from the manga. Toyotaro has no hand in Daima, so it doesn't really matter to me anyway. I would expect Toei to ignore Toyotaro's manga when giving input for Daima.

I can't recall if that line is ever said in the anime or movie, and I've heard conflicting reports on this.

Having literally rewatched Battle of Gods three hours ago, I can tell you that the line in the manga is taken straight from the movie: これが最強のスーパーサイヤ人３だ
Literally, "This is the strongest Super Saiyan 3!" Which is for some reason rendered as "the mighty Super Saiyan 3" in Simmons's translation, weakening the point a bit, but the use of 最強, in addition to Beerus previously telling him to "Come at me with your Full Power", is about as blatant a statement that "Super Saiyan 3 is the most powerful form Goku has access to at the time of Battle of Gods" as you can possibly get. And then Kaio's later statement that "Even in Super Saiyan 3, Goku was taken out with just two punches from Beerus" again makes it pretty blatant that Super Saiyan 3 is indeed considered the peak at that point.

The idea that Goku had access to Super Saiyan 4 pre-Beerus completely spits in the face of what is stated and shown both in Super and in GT. The show already seemed pretty fundamentally incompatible with both of them, but this finale didn't even try to smooth things over, instead opting to literally just solidify that point py saying that, yeah, Super Saiyan 4 is a form Goku discovered on his own through training. This both renders the repeated claims/inferences that Super Saiyan 3 is the peak of his power at the time he meets Beerus, and the method with which Super Saiyan 4 is unlocked in GT, nonsense.

I mean, it's Toriyama. If he didn't forget, then he probably just decided, "Well, I'm the original author, it's okay if I ignore certain things to do other things."

I think he'd probably just say something to the effect of, "Pretend he fought Beers as Super Saiyan 4" and then go build some model kits.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

Yeah there’s a canon.

Great; which one is it ? Super or Daima ? Both were written by Toriyama, and both were written as continuations of the Buu arc.

[Vegard Aune]

I mean, it's Toriyama. If he didn't forget, then he probably just decided, "Well, I'm the original author, it's okay if I ignore certain things to do other things."

Oh obviously. But I was responding to the claim that the "Super Saiyan 3 is Goku's strongest form" line came from the manga which it just... did not, and that Daima doesn't completely spit in the face of Super and GT with this reveal which it also blatantly does. Contradictions are indeed an extremely Toriyama thing, and I doubt he would care if he was still alive and this contradiction was brought to his attention... But it is a very blatant contradiction.

[fadeddreams5]

Yeah there’s a canon.

Great; which one is it ? Super or Daima ? Both were written by Toriyama, and both were written as continuations of the Buu arc.

To add to that, is the DBZ movie, Battle of Gods, the canon one, or the retelling in Super? And which Super is the canon one, the anime or manga, as things happen very differently in both?

[JulieYBM]

I mean, it's Toriyama. If he didn't forget, then he probably just decided, "Well, I'm the original author, it's okay if I ignore certain things to do other things."

Oh obviously. But I was responding to the claim that the "Super Saiyan 3 is Goku's strongest form" line came from the manga which it just... did not, and that Daima doesn't completely spit in the face of Super and GT with this reveal which it also blatantly does. Contradictions are indeed an extremely Toriyama thing, and I doubt he would care if he was still alive and this contradiction was brought to his attention... But it is a very blatant contradiction.

Yeah, sorry, I should have made it more clear that I wasn't speaking to whether that line was in the manga or not or whatever.

Just from a personal POV as a writer myself, yeah, I do wish that Toriyama was being told, "Hey, this is a contradiction" but it feels a lot like just about everyone is scared of ever talking back to the guy at this point. It's this really weird culture of just kowtowing to Toriyama—and I imagine perhaps Iyoku as the steward of the franchise—that I find honestly really distasteful. I wish Toriyama had gotten to better know the actual people involved with the anime side, because if he was going to be involved, then I think having an 'anime Toyo-tarou' that he could trust to just do whatever with the series is a lot better than a rotating number of series and film directors going, "Okay, we'll follow his notes to the letter."

I'm opining again, but god, I miss the days of Dragon Ball Super having leeway to do its own thing. Bring back that freedom, give the staff more freedom and more time and go crazy, y'all!

[The Monkey King]

You asked for:

An interview or video of an official person attached to Dragon Ball saying product A and B are canon, while product C and D are not.

And I provided it to you. An official source calling DBS Broly part of Dragon Ball's "official history" and in turn excluding the Toei movies from being part of that "official history"

Now you're just moving goalposts, why ask for something if you never intended to budge on your initial viewpoint in the first place?

Toriyama was involved in literally everything Dragon Ball related

Please read posts properly before responding to them, you'd see that I provided further clarification on what I meant:

distinguishing it from a series like GT, which lacked the substantial amount of Toriyama's creative input to be considered "Canon"

Substantial being the key word.

Toriyama called Super a "casual continuation" of his original manga, which goes back to my original point that the original manga is on top, while everything else is equally below it.

And yet he didn't describe GT as being any kind of continuation of his original manga, he called it a "side-story".

[Mr Baggins]

This "canon" argument is so meaningless. None of the creatives that have worked on Dragon Ball in Japan would read this thread and have any idea what the fuck people are talking about.

What's clear is that Toriyama took an extremely casual approach to any and every continuation of the original story until recently. He contributed a few designs to GT, but was otherwise content to let them do whatever they wanted. Dragon Ball Evolution was such an abysmal film it inspired him to start getting more involved again, but by the time 2015 rolled around, he certainly didn't seem all that enthusiastic about the Super pitch and let other writers take charge of his vague outlines (even with the manga, where his role with Toyotaro was more advisory), just writing movie scripts when asked. Only with the promotion of this subforum's namesake did he and others start to make it clear he ended up getting more involved in this project than anyone could have imagined.

Toriyama evidently cared more about Daima than any other serialization that wanted to tackle "what happens after Buu?" outside of the isolated film stories he wrote. As was mentioned a few posts ago, he probably just wanted to reboot the whole thing. If that's what people wish to dictate as canon, there you have it.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

Substantial being the key word.

Toriyama said he was more hands on with Daima than Super, so how are we suppose to take that in regards to this canon debate ? A recent interview revealed that Toriyama was in fact not that interested in Super to begin with, while the opposite is true for Daima, so again, how does that all work ?

[The Monkey King]

-snip-

No. Don't ask me anymore questions until you engage with the official source you asked for:

By the way, Gogeta doesn’t appear in the original Dragon Ball manga; like Broli, he’s a movie-only character!! In other words, original author Toriyama-sensei‘s rewriting is an attempt at adding Broli and Gogeta to the Dragon Ball official history!!

The phrase translated here is 正史 (seishi), literally meaning “authentic” or “official” or “true history”; this same phrasing was used in a 2012 Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods press release. We have gone with “official history” here to match said previous translation; alternatively, this could be and has been translated as “canon”.

https://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations ... ll-report/

Are you really so stubborn that you're going to ignore it because it doesn't suit your agenda?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Does it really matter anymore whether or not anything is "canon"? Toriyama is no longer with us to answer that question, and even when he was, to my knowledge he never addressed it. Dragon Ball is ultimately a Japanese property and the Japanese don't think about canon the same way western countries do.

I'm not a fan of Kibito and Shin being refused post-Daima not being explained, or not having a reason Goku didn't use Super Saiyan 4 in Super, but I also know Toriyama was just writing these stories for people to enjoy and use their imaginations.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

No. Don't ask me anymore questions until you engage with the official source you asked for:

Fine.

Are you really so stubborn that you're going to ignore it because it doesn't suit your agenda?

The sources you provided indeed point towards the introduction of Broly in Super potentially sparking a desire by certain officials to establish a canon of some sorts. However, whatever efforts that may have been taking place behind the scenes just got thrown out the window by Toriyama thanks to Daima contradicting Super.

[TKA]

I’m curious, aside from maybe the fusion bugs, what would you say went unexplained but was important?

Well, a few things.

What exactly is Super Saiyan 4? If Goku already knew how to do it, what did Neva actually do? If not, was he training to create some new form, but then Neva's intervention actually made it happen and before that he couldn't? How do Kibito and Nahare refuse? Why did nobody think to use any of these abilities during Battle of Gods? What happened to the fusion bugs?

All are ultimately trivial, I should state. I can also appreciate an ending that just leaves all this up in the air lol.

[MCDaveG]

Haha, I've said it in Ep. 19 topic.
Rushed ending with Goku along the lines of phew, let's go eat and Vegeta rambling about SSJ4.
The end

Now it ended and my opinion on the show is, what was the point?
Beside selling new toys and have some fresh from the pan filling for video games to sell.
It's basically glorified advertisement for merch.

It looked great, it had some cool lore and plot points, only to land on the classic mediocre trope writing and slowly throwing even that out of the window for uninspired jaw kicking, that many series and even recent DB Super movies did way better.
The final battle was boring AF as the story basically went out of the window, only for the fun characters returning for last few minutes, making Kuu the king, which I had no trouble with, quite the opposite. Gomah is the worst villain and even Guldo had more personality and was better written than this guy, who's supposed to be the big bad of the show.
With ending that pretty much leads nowhere, with still images over end credits...
If this was initial 20 episodes from bigger series, I am game and excited for what comes next, but overal, I feel like watching DB weekly for the sake of watching DB, while not getting much in the end. Again, having trouble grasping what was the point of the show from storytelling perspective, except just doing something with DB stamp on it and selling toys.
Even the Granolah arc felt more compelling storywise. Super Hero was more fun and masterpiece in comparison, with some clever fights and the overal theme of Gohan being dad and if he doesn't fight for the world, he might pull something for his beloved daughter. With awesome comedy and slice of life with Piccolo, that got power up. Sweet movie.

Daima on the other hand... well, I am not even interested in going into details. Strong start and ingrediences, but mishandled in my opinion.
I am pretty dissapointed with Daima and how it ended to be honest.
Even Vegeta's bargain sale joke can't save the asspull of SSJ 4 and it's quite sad that with so many problems on it's own, GT did it better.

And we didn't even got the bug fusion and Vegeta got shelved on SSJ4 as predicted... like Master Roshi touching someone's butt for 100th time, it's not fun or interesting anymore.
Super quite oversaturated the franchise, with countless of new forms and their bit lazy designs, but I have to admit, I enjoy even Super more than Daima.

Pains me to write all that with Toriyama in heavens and this being the last show that he worked on, but I am sorry, it wasn't really that great. It just was...

[Vegeta th3 4th]

Rushed ending with Goku along the lines of phew, let's go eat and Vegeta rambling about SSJ4. The end

I actually think they stuck the landing considering they only had 20 minutes to do so.

Now it ended and my opinion on the show was, what was the point?

To give us Ssj3 Vegeta.

I am pretty disappointment with Daima and how it ended to be honest.

You might change your opinion on a re-watch where you're not stuck waiting an entire week between episodes.

What exactly is Super Saiyan 4? If Goku already knew how to do it, what did Neva actually do?

My understanding based on Goku's conversation with Vegeta is that he figured out that there was indeed a power beyond Ssj3, but he hadn't figured out exactly how to bring said power into reality. Neva basically fast tracked what Goku would've eventually unlocked.

How do Kibito and Nahare refuse? Why did nobody think to use any of these abilities during Battle of Gods? What happened to the fusion bugs?

Toriyama clearly did not take Battle of Gods or any of its follow ups into account while writing this story, so Kibito and Nahara never refuse in the context of this story. As for the fusion bugs, I think they were used to throw people off Ssj4 appearing during the climax, as everyone just assumed it would be fusion that takes care of Gomah.

[Grimlock]

I'm sure Grimlock must be going crazy with so many people talking about canon these days.

That and as I have gone back to being a "lurker", it is extremely embarrassing to read all about it. From those who say that there is a canon and from those who say that there isn't (more from the former, of course), thus creating a very tiring discussion. Being an observer for these last couple of months really puts things into (an entirely new) perspective.

That being said, I'm also surprised that a few seemingly and finally detached themselves from this pathetic concept and realized that paying any attention to canonicity, especially in a franchise that factually does not have it, is a waste of effort and utterly pointless. Better late than never, I guess. I have to give a shoutout to one individual specifically who popped out and are saying the exact same things I say. May Dende give them strength to continue where I left.

Spoiler:

Taking the opportunity to say: since Dragon Ball Daima creates another continuity (if Toyotaro and Shueisha don't try to connect it with Dragon Ball Super later on), now we have:

• Goku and the others from the manga.
• Goku and the others from the movies/Dragon Ball GT/Time Patrollers.
• Goku and the others from Dragon Ball Super.
• Goku and the others from Dragon Ball Daima.

All to meet their counterparts. It would be awesomely interesting to see Daima Goku showing off his Super Saiyan 4 to GT/Xeno Goku and vice-versa and what they would say to each other.

Anyway, I guess I said a lot already. Retreading back to the shadows now, hopefully I didn't "frustrate others" with this post...

[MCDaveG]

Rushed ending with Goku along the lines of phew, let's go eat and Vegeta rambling about SSJ4. The end

I actually think they stuck the landing considering they only had 20 minutes to do so.

Now it ended and my opinion on the show was, what was the point?

To give us Ssj3 Vegeta.

I am pretty disappointment with Daima and how it ended to be honest.

You might change your opinion on a re-watch where you're not stuck waiting an entire week between episodes.

What exactly is Super Saiyan 4? If Goku already knew how to do it, what did Neva actually do?

My understanding based on Goku's conversation with Vegeta is that he figured out that there was indeed a power beyond Ssj3, but he hadn't figured out exactly how to bring said power into reality. Neva basically fast tracked what Goku would've eventually unlocked.

How do Kibito and Nahare refuse? Why did nobody think to use any of these abilities during Battle of Gods? What happened to the fusion bugs?

Toriyama clearly did not take Battle of Gods or any of its follow ups into account while writing this story, so Kibito and Nahara never refuse in the context of this story. As for the fusion bugs, I think they were used to throw people off Ssj4 appearing during the climax, as everyone just assumed it would be fusion that takes care of Gomah.

Only show that went higher on my ratings, but still being weaker than previous seasons for me was Mandalorian S3 after binge watching the whole season.
But it still had the flaws and weird choices that bugged me. Daima wouldn't improve for me, I am sorry, as the trouble I had with the show is beyond the weekly format, but the whole package.

Yeah, SSJ3 Vegeta, as I've stated countless times before, I am not the eye candy fan. Already got SSJ3 Vegeta in Raging Blast.
But to be honest, Vegeta's SSJ3 and his remark that he's SSJ3 because he basically can, was cool. And if that's Daima's saving grace, damn, it doesn't have much to offer. But still better than that SSJ4.

As I see it, Daima is another sequel to DBZ, not really connected to Super or anything else and with apologies to some of the early grumpy fans, it recycles GT for some reason.
I believe that Daima would work quite well even without the SSJ4 and it's inclusion feels pointless and stupid, as it's glaring fan service.
It's boring the same way, it is to see Millenium Falcon.

I was trying to be positive and fan at all times, heck, I've even defended Acolyte (which honestly isn't great show either) against the worst offenders, mostly because of mysogynistic, homophobic and racist remarks, but enough is enough.
I hate to say it, but yeah, Dragon Ball is creatively bankrupt in Daima.

The only thing I really enjoy about it is the production and some of the characters before they get axed.

And that rushed ending... it was basically the same ending we always get except for the final epic one in GT, which was kind of rectification on the anime's part, as the original manga has pretty good and conclusive ending, which is edited and cut in favor of GT as continuation of Z back in the day.

[nato25]

You can't keep writing off canon. It's clearly important to the fandom (and to maintaining good stories in general)

How cool is it when you see Arinsu in the background of the Buu saga taking a piece of Buu? Or when Vegeta gets Super Saiyan 3 (I know these aren't great examples but was struggling to think on the spot).

The Vegeta example actually works out well. We've had SSJ3 Vegeta for like 15 years now. No one really cared or talked about it much because it wasn't canon. Now look at the hype around it. Vegeta finally got the form he's been missing all this time. It's the reason that smirk Vegeta gave when trunks asked about in hit so hard.

All prior story events make the moments so much more meaningful. The worst part is it's not even that hard to maintain canon. One person reading over the script could point out a few minor flaws and get them corrected.

Just one of those photos in the end credits could have been supreme kai and kibito accidentally eating a fusion bug. Would have been funny and solved heaps of issues. A line like Goku saying he doesn't have UI anymore at the end of Super also would have gone a long way.

Canon does matter, it's the reason half these threads mention it. Sure 50% might be on each side, but 50% is a big amount.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

I believe that Daima would work quite well even without the SSJ4 and it's inclusion feels pointless and stupid, as it's glaring fan service.

I was never happy with Broly and Bardock being re-written for the modern material because I always believed that they were utilized to their full potential in Z's 8th movie and 1st TV special. Ssj4 is by far one of the coolest designs to come out of this franchise, yet it didn't get a single memorable fight in GT. Whenever the conversation about "what should be canonized next" comes up, I always say to leave the past behind and do something new. Ssj4 is the one exception I'll make for the simple fact that it never got to truly shine in GT. Daima has finally given it not one, but two really well choreographed and animated fights that show just how amazing the form really is.

You can't keep writing off canon. It's clearly important to the fandom (and to maintaining good stories in general).

The problem with an established canon is that it prioritizes certain material over others, which in turn can end up costing the rights holders $$$. If they were to come out and say that Daima is the new canon moving forward, then chances are they'll lose money on Super's products due to fans no longer being interested in something that "doesn't count". Every part of the franchise brings in a lot of money for the companies involved with it, be it GT, the old movies, Super, etc..., so it would be counterproductive to come out and say "this and this count, while that and the other don't".