Daima-Another Chapter From the “ What Could Have Been Great Book” from the history of Dragon Ball.

[Majin Man 101]

Dragon Ball Daima was solid. But we have here yet again another missed opportunity with the story. Daima suffers from a couple different issues.

First I will get the positives out of the way. The show was fun and did a great job of expanding The Dragon World. The lore dumps were fantastic!!!

I throughly enjoyed every episode and loved being back in this world. But here are the problems…

1. The story isn’t serious.
2. It suffers from the nostalgia bug that also infects Super.

Long gone are the days of being at the edge your seat waiting to see what happens to unfold on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z. There isn’t any melodrama here whatsoever. The show has absolutely no grit to it. Nobody dies, there is no tension and there is nothing at stake.

Remember when Toriyama was so masterful at writing that he could simultaneously write a serious story with gratuitous violence and destruction yet simultaneously have it be about a big pink silly monster that turns people into chocolate? Yeh there is none of this here.

The writing has been a problem since the end of the Majin Boo Arc. GT and Super missed the mark incredibly in their own way so I had hoped for a return to form in Daima but we just didn’t get that.

With Daima there is 0 tension, 0 stakes, and no effort whatsoever to keep us on our toes as the viewer. Now one could argue that this wasn’t the point of Daima. OK I get that……
But even early Dragon Ball in the Red Ribbon Army arc had the melodrama, stakes, tension, and excitement to keep you pumped for the next episode. Did anybody honestly feel that here? I of course was excited to watch the fights and how great they were going to look. But we should be excited about the story…

And then there comes the nostalgia and rehashes.

I think this comes with the territory of modern Dragon Ball and it’s been happening since Super. They keep wanting to give us Dragon Ball but without all the ingredients that made Dragon Ball great.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

Thankfully Ssj3 Vegeta makes up for all the show's shortcomings.

[ZombieVito]

People don't know what they want.

For years people complained that DB plays it safe but then when they gave us the incredible Zamasu arc with a great high stakes ending that is refreshing, what did people do? They complained.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

For years people complained that DB plays it safe but then when they gave us the incredible Zamasu arc with a great high stakes ending that is refreshing, what did people do? They complained.

People complained about that arc because it was terribly written, especially the so called "great" ending.

[Majin Man 101]

For years people complained that DB plays it safe but then when they gave us the incredible Zamasu arc with a great high stakes ending that is refreshing, what did people do? They complained.

People complained about that arc because it was terribly written, especially the so called "great" ending.

Yes. That arc has all the building blocks set in place to do something great but then they crapped the bed and it all came tumbling down in the worst ending I’ve ever seen in any anime ever.

[LightBing]

It's all down to writing. Daima had the elements to avoid the rightful criticisms presented in this thread (except the nostalgia since that was built in).

They provided reasons for tension and to weaken the main characters.

- Turning them into children was to weaken them, however it was so poorly presented that it had no effect. We didn't know by how much they were held back, how and if they were improving by fighting and getting used to their bodies. It was nebulous to say the least.

- Magic, this element was barely touched. It was an easy reason to give enemies techniques and advantages beyond raw power. The main villain is only a threat due to a magic artifact. There's pseudo senzu beans and potara earrings. Why couldn't the enemies make use of those and other elements?

Even if the story was easygoing, they gave us a dark World to venture. The Demon Realm is an autocratic regime, they show us the oppression. One of the main characters is introduced and saved going against this regime.
There's class division and racism with wide consequences, the main one being the Namekian exodus which shaped the whole story of Dragon Ball.

Goku and company end up freeing this World by accident. Which was a good conclusion since Dragon Ball isn't the type of media to dwell too much in such heavy topics.

However it was mostly ignored to it's detriment. Mainly how the characters should have been moved by these goals.
My favorite moment of Daima is Panzy being freed from her collar. Beats like this should have had more frequency, specially with characters like Nahare, Nevah and Piccolo all who connect to this narrative.

One of the conclusions of the story is Nevah hoping Namekians might return. Clearly the writers had these topics in mind but failed, largely, to satisfyingly write them in.

Daima is the a mass of squandered potential.

[ZombieVito]

Daima is the a mass of squandered potential.

Daima truly is GT 2.0 lol.

[Majin Man 101]

Daima is the a mass of squandered potential.

Daima truly is GT 2.0 lol.

I also think that Daima only being 20 episodes really impacted its narrative potential. Just with what they gave us there was at least 30 episodes worth of content here.