I get the impression that Super Saiyan 4 wasn't Toriyama's first call, and I wouldn't be surprised if somebody else did the redesign. When it comes to the overtly fanservicey elements, you can almost guarantee that it's because some editor or executive pushed for its inclusion.funrush wrote: Mon Sep 08, 2025 2:57 am But surely Toriyama did the design for Daima SS4 right? I don't think I've seen any concept art of it but I would be pretty surprised if that was some sort of last minute invention by the staff. Especially since Daima had been in the making for at least a few years so surely the broad strokes of the story if not the scripts themselves would have been finalized by the time Toriyama died. Although I acknowledge I'm doing some assuming here.
On a script level, notice that SS4 isn't directly discussed or referred to much in Daima. It exists for the climactic action sequence, and we know that Toriyama doesn't provide much detail in the screenplays for these scenes (as Julie explained). Goku and Vegeta's chat in the epilogue sounds like Toriyama dialogue but it could have easily been tacked on at the last minute. I think the implication was always meant to be that Goku had trained to a point that he theoretically could achieve another Super Saiyan evolution, but he needed one last catalyst to get there. Enter Neva's magic. But the presentation is admittedly confusing. The DNA imagery from the first transformation scene definitely implies that Neva was unlocking something primal and atavistic within Goku, which would explain why SS4 looks so different to everything that came before. The animation staff were really doing all the heavy lifting with that.
As an aside, the redesign is very similar to some fan art I saw around the time that Shintani's style was really hot. I always wanted to see Super Saiyan 4 in the orange gi, even though red and orange aren't a conventional colour combo. I still think the design could have used some more colour contrast, or at least shown off in a battlefield that wasn't also bright crimson.
More to the point of this thread, it also occurred to me that Toriyama reused a few ideas for the last handful of projects. With so many going on at once, he was probably struggling for unique ideas. Both Gomah and Cell Max could only be defeated with attacks to the skull. Neva and Monaito have almost the same design and role as elderly Namekians protecting unique sets of Dragon Balls on other worlds.
