Dragon Ball Daima: Episode 1 - Official Discussion Thread

[tinlunlau]

Just finished watching episode 1 thru Viu TV. There was a lot of commercial breaks. At least 4 from my initial viewing. But it's free so I can't complain.

Goku and company don't really show up until 20 minutes into the episode and it feels like such a huge tease by how the episode ends. Like an abrupt stop. Next episode preview doesn't show much. No "Ossu! Ora Goku..."

[Luso Saiyan]

So...um...are we ignoring some events of Super? Because nobody seems to reference Super or its events in any capacity. It might be that they haven't gotten around to it yet, but it's a strange possibility. We're at least ignoring Super Hero right?

This series chronologically predates Super.

[JulieYBM]

You know, with Namekians being originally Demons (presumably, they became mortals over time due to successive generations living in the mortal universes) with one of the key points being their pointy ears...... what does that make Mr. Popo?

Is he also a demon?

Also, as an aside, Dr. Arinsu was quite, uhhhh...... "showy".

Yeah, Dr. Arinsu has some really well drawn boobs in this episode. I hope they keep it up and continue to draw her boobs nice! The way that Yamamuro drew bodies always look so off to me.



I wish Broli was in this series. His muscles looked so good in Movie #20 lol

[FortuneSSJ]

Good first episode. This how Super should've been. Not only in quality, but also in worldwide distribution

- Animation, art and color scheme are top notch.
- Loved the intro and Buu arc recap. Kubota is amazing
- Theme Song is fire, but the rest of music didn't impress me. Still don't know who is the composer.
- The idea of Kibitoshin using Buu to diffuse is a good idea. Didn't see that coming. I was expecting the wish to be the reason.
- Not worried about retcons anymore. It's Dragon Ball. And yeah it takes place before Super. More retcons will happen.

Wonder if the theme song will always play in last seconds of the episode. Loved how Hunter x Hunter 2011 did that.

[Grimlock]

All Kais are siblings. They all come from the same tree.

If it's just in that sense, then okay.

Anyway, when Dende asked if he was a Kaioshin, and he just said "not exactly", I was hoping to hear "Makaioshin". Maybe some other time.

Also, I think I saw red-tinted Dragon Balls in the Demon Realm. If that's the case, it's the same in Dragon Ball Heroes too. I'm beginning to wonder if Toriyama provided more designs for the game other than the Freeza race avatars.

[AliTheZombie13]

Oh, right. The sibling thing. They have siblings... I mean, Shin did say at the beginning there were like 5 of them.
And now there's another one. Is his life force also connected to Beerus, or some other GOD we don't know about, is this really the Super timeline?

[jjgp1112]

I have returned from my grave just to post my opinions about this thing:

- "No, no, no. Piccolo being retconned into an alien is not a retcon or an inconsistency or means he's suddenly an entire difference race, because you see, there's this entire cultural difference and meaning of the word "Demon" in Japan and surely Toriyama was thinking about that deeper meaning when conceptualizing Piccolo's new race and-" - "Uh, by the way guys, did you know Namekians are actually ancestors from the Demon Realm? "

I like it better that the Namekians are demons instead of Aliens, it gives more weight to the title of "Great Demon King Piccolo".

Yeah, it made complete sense and was a somewhat "Eureka" moment for me. Perfectly bridges the Piccolo and Demon Clan connection, which was always kind of weird, vague and nebulous. Maybe the Namekian backstory was similar to the Super Saiyan God story...which would ironically be very similar to the nonsensical rewrite Funi did on Lord Slug's backstory where there was a race of evil Super Namekians who were banished, and Slug was the survivor of that. Maybe a certain level of evil in a Namekian's heart just makes them "demonic?"

[Jord]

It looks gorgeous, like many others have noticed. This is what I hoped Super would look like. This is perhaps as good animation as the Battle of Gods movie.

But the episode itself....was kinda a slog to get through. Not good news for a first episode. We start with other people watching Dragon Ball, alongside exposition dump. It even takes 17 minutes to get to the main cast and we only see them for a few minutes. For all the comparisons to GT the show got, it doesn't fare as well in the pacing department. This could and should have been handled way better.

This was really, really underwhelming.

One positive note is how the new VA for Yamcha did sound spot on.

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

So this Demon Realm is seemly isolated from any Universe? Did Toriyama changed his mind about Makai's location ?

[Draconic]

So this Demon Realm is seemly isolated from any Universe? Did Toriyama changed his mind about Makai's location ?

Seems like it. There are also 3 Demon Realms mentioned, so we'll have to wait to learn more.

Also looks like the Demon Realm is outside the 12 Universes as a whole, since Gomah had to pick which one he wanted to travel to.

Certainly interesting stuff.

[nato25]

So this Demon Realm is seemly isolated from any Universe? Did Toriyama changed his mind about Makai's location ?

I don't think we have enough evidence to make that true. Maybe it's just possible to travel to any universe from any demon realm.

[CodeOfMe]

I'm not sure I can offer a full long-winded review after only one episode, so for now, I'll just post some miscellaneous thoughts I had while watching.

- I guess I shouldn't be surprised they're doing a tiny explanation of the series's plot at the beginning. It does seem like the production companies behind this show want it to be a sort of gateway series for a lot of people.

- These subtitles are very stiff. I guess that makes sense for in-house Toei subs.

- This animation and art is spectacular, as I expected. The storyboard is also pretty good too.

- Completely silent title cards? That's weird.

- I wonder who the composer is... Hopefully it was in the credits that the subtitles didn't bother translating past the first one.

- Some of this Boo Saga animation looks like they just traced over Kai, but some is completely new. It's a bit weird.

- They're using 'Namek' instead of 'Namekian'? Why? Seriously, this change makes no sense. Did they also do this for the Super subs?

- So they know about the Namekians (who can fly), but are shocked when the people on their screen fly. Are the Namekians not also part of the 'outsiders'?

- Some parts of Shenlong are definitely CGI, if not the whole thing. I wonder if they just took the Shenlong model from Super Hero and decided to save time by just reusing it instead of animating him in 2D.

- They're going through the events of the arc fast. Didn't the Boo Saga take place over two days? I guess these guys aren't watching it as it happened or something.

- Degesu actually says "King Gomah" out loud instead of something like "Gomah-sama". That's odd.

- A 'black wish'? Is that metaphorical or an actual thing.

- 'Evil Third Eye'? They're certainly introducing a lot of concepts very quickly.

- Dabura's father was just named 'Abura'? At first, I thought that was just a lazy name, but apparently it's the name of a tree, which kinda fits with the flower motif.

- So there are three demon worlds, huh.

- Oh, they straight up have a Namekian with them.

- No eyecatcher?

- Maybe the subs are using 'Namek' because the characters are saying 'Namekkujin' instead of 'Namekkuseijin'? I'm not sure yet.

- They actually revealed Trunks's age at this birthday? I suppose that gives a pretty clear timeline for when this takes place.

- "Saiyans get a growth spurt at around 15." I just knew they were going to offer this handwavey explanation the moment Kuririn started talking about Trunks's height.

- 'Supreme Kai-sama' is always going to be weird. Why even bother using honorifics if you're going this far to placate dub fans.

- Kaioshin and Kibito are already split? Boo actually does have bad 'fusion-splitting' air inside him? This just makes the Potara's time limit come off even weirder.

- Nozawa actually sounds pretty good here. All that fretting over her sounding worse seems to have been for nothing. I still think Daima would've been a nice place for a recast, but it's fine that it didn't happen.

- Mr. Popo's Japanese voice and his way of talking are still terrible (in taste), I'd rather he just stop speaking altogether at this point.

- The Namekians are originally from the Demon Realm? Piccolo is finally proven right after all this time!

- The environments the Dragon Balls were in look really beautiful. The artists sure did a good job for this show.

- So Neva can just summon the Dragon Balls to him *and* revitalize them from their stone form? Yeah, he's getting killed off soon, he's too powerful to remain alive.

- It doesn't feel like much has happened in this episode so far. I guess it was just mostly setup though.

- This song is pretty nice. I don't think I like it more than the openings of the previous shows (DB, DBZ, DBGT, DB Kai, DBS), but it's neat.

Well, that was a pretty nice episode. I'm not sure I'd be hooked if I wasn't already planning to watch this whole show all the way through, but it was decently entertaining. This will also be my first time actually following a Dragon Ball show weekly, so that should be fun.

[Tian]

Except for the CGI, I find the art direction of this series amazing.

The backgrounds, the designs, the outlines, the pallettes. They are as visually beautiful as the ones from DBS Broly.

Can't say much about the story because it's mostly a recap of what we've seen before but the new characters seem likeable.

[TechExpert2021]

The backgrounds and character designs look visually gorgeous and the animation looks stunning! And the new soundtrack, especially the opening, sounds great and unique! The pacing for the first episode is kinda bit slow, though.

But there's one thing that annoys me...

Spoiler:

Funimation dub names in English subs!!

https://imgur.com/a/hZRHP5W






I knew it this whole time! A repeat of Toei's official simulcast English subs of Dragon Ball Super!

[CodeOfMe]

I'm not sure anyone really cares about this information, but apparently sound effects for this episode were provided/created by Kentaro Washio, not Hidenori Arai, though Washio is Arai's assistant. I haven't really been a fan of Arai's current output on stuff like One Piece, so hopefully Washio's sound design for Daima turns out pretty good. I liked what I heard in this episode, so I hope he keep this up.

[Rory]

Does anyone else feel like we just turned the clock back? Like, a decade of baggage, gone. No God Ki, no Beerus, no ultra instinct, no Freeza hanging around nothing. It's like you could finish volume 42, then fire up episode 1 of Daima.
It's a really small thing, but when Kaioshin explained how he got split back into a single person, that right there felt like a statement. Almost like - Don't worry about any of that 'Super' stuff. The rules we set up in the original? Yeah they're still the rules.
I cannot emphasize how positive my feelings are. I feel like I can be a Dragon Ball fan again. I turned this episode on, cautiously optimistic, and the further into the episode I got, I felt my smile getting bigger and bigger.
It's so cool that it's a direct continuation from the end of Boo, like how Freeza was a direct continuation from the Saiyans, and Cell followed Freeza, it feels like it works as a part of that story completely.
The new villains excite me, the presentation was astonishingly good (downright cinematic), it even got a few Toriyama belly-laughs from me.
I'm looking forward to posting on Kanzenshuu again, as an actual fan of this series.

[GhostEmperorX]

Rando comes out of nowhere, has no actual reason to worry about those he witnessed ever doing anything in his realm, then goes to theirs and pulls a Pilaf just like that.

The backfiring will be legendary.

Oh, and Yamashita was definitely a good choice, though this surely isn't all there is, especially for a setup episode like this. Will probably buy the soundtrack CD when it releases.

Not going to delve into any of the other plot thread stuff though, feels like the time has passed for me to do that.

Spoiler:

Never noticed this before, but why does that image say "Maikai"?

- Theme Song is fire, but the rest of music didn't impress me. Still don't know who is the composer.

- I wonder who the composer is... Hopefully it was in the credits that the subtitles didn't bother translating past the first one.

That info was practically hidden until today (wonder why), but it's Kousuke Yamashita, as mentioned in the thread a few posts prior.

[Jord]

One thing I noticed was that we didn't get to see Z Bardock but rather the Jaco/Super-Bardock. That seemed to be the only reference to the "newer" stuff.

[Majin Buu]

Time to gush:

I loved it.

First, didn't mind the first half of the episode being a recap of the Buu arc because of how gorgeously animated it was (as a fan of the Buu arc, it was pure joy to see). In fact, the animation as a whole looks great, all the wacky effects on display when everyone is turned into kids makes me hope we'll see great and crazy stuff like that all the way through. Music is great too, the track that plays when Shenron is summoned was amazing.

Second, this might be the most lore heavy a Toriyama involved Dragon Ball project has ever been. Forget about getting our first non-Heroes glimpse of the Demon Realm and its other inhabitants- I wasn't expecting the show to confirm that lore bit about Namekians actually being from the Demon Realm, but I love that. I agree with M16U3L2015, I like them better as demons than aliens and I agree that it provides context for Piccolo Daimao being a great demon king. It's the kind of recon that naturally fits with established lore instead of feeling awkward and shorehorned in.

Speaking of recon- The seeming recon of the Potara retcon: YES! That stupid recon was never necessary, they had a loophole in Fat Buu the entire time. The fact that they didn't just use Fat Buu to unfuse Vegetto in the Future arc has always annoyed me so thank you Dragon Ball Daima for finally acknowledging you can do that.

I like the new characters. They're intriguing in Degesu and Arinsu's case and charming in Gomah's case (Julie nailed it with comparing him to Pilaf- He's Pilaf 2.0, but it does work). The episode is appropriately named because it does feel like there's a conspiracy going on with Degesu and Arinsu, and it seems like they're each playing their own game. Interested to see where that goes.

Lastly- Poor Dende. Dude just had a bunch of weirdos show up on his doorstep from out of nowhere and dump all this crap onto his lap, then he gets beaten up to boot. But it's nice to see Mr. Popo back.

I'm excited to see where this goes. This feels like a breath of fresh air just like Super Hero did- At least so far.

[Gaffer Tape]

There's a lot I like regarding the new characters, the art style, the focus on the villains at the beginning. But I admit most of what I came away thinking in regard to this episode was how poorly paced it was. I just could not believe this episode had to be a staggering 32 minutes (and without any traditional opening sequence, traditional recap, preview, etc. to eat into that time) but still have so little real content. I get needing to refresh audiences and get them up to speed, but that does not justify a full third of the episode being us watching villains watching The Boo Arc. As good as it looks, that's insane. So much of this is just Wiki editor lore dumps: this trinket, this character's father, this set of Dragon Balls, this revelation about this species, this detail about Saiyan biology. The Dragon Team is barely in this, which would be fine given that the villains seem to be interesting enough to carry this. But when we finally see them (20 minutes in), they contribute absolutely nothing except for more lore factoids: Trunks is 9, add that to the Wiki! Saiyans get a growth spurt when they're 15, add that to the Wiki! Boo's bad air is back, baby, so add that to the Wiki!

Because of all that padding, it takes a full 32 minutes to actually *start* to get the characters de-aged. I mean, say what you will about Dragon Ball GT, but that show has Goku back to being a kid before the act break, leaving half the episode to play with the concept! Actually, this reminds me of DBZ episode 1 and how padded it is, and how FUNimation (correctly) cut out most of it. This could have been cut down to 15 minutes easily, and it would have been a lot better for it.

Still, there's just enough intrigue there to keep me going. I think the ideas are all there for a good, fun, interesting series. It just boggles my mind why they would pace this episode so poorly.