Dragon Ball Daima finally pays off plot points that we’ve been waiting 30 years for.

With the fall anime season starting, we recently took a look at the new Ranma 1/2 anime. Ranma isn’t the only familiar face this season, though, as a new Dragon Ball anime, Dragon Ball Daima, has just started too!

The first Dragon Ball anime to be released since the death of series creator Akira Toriyama, Daima tells a brand-new story, but with some interesting connections to plot points whose seeds were laid decades ago in Dragon Ball lore. So one episode in, is this an adventure worth going on? We’ll let our Japanese-language reporter and unabashed otaku Seiji Nakazawa handle the answer to that question. Take it away, Seiji!

Dragon Ball Daima premiered on October 11 on Amazon Prime. This is the newest installment in the Dragon Ball franchise, with story and character design by the late Akira Toriyama.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that I grew up with Dragon Ball, but I hadn’t been keeping up with the newest parts of the series for a while. There’s a reason why I’ve decided to watch Daima, though.

Before going any further, I should warn you that I’ll be getting into some minor spoilers. Only the first episode has been released so far, so there’s nothing that major that’s happened yet, but if you want to go into Dragon Ball Daima completely blind, please turn back now and come back after you’ve watched Episode 1.

▼ Preview for Dragon Ball Daima

OK, still here? Then let’s get to it.

Honestly, the reason I’ve decided to watch Daima doesn’t have much to do with it being a new Dragon Ball anime that Toriyama was involved with. After all, Toriyama also handled the story for Dragon Ball Super and the scripts for the most recent Dragon Ball anime movies.

The reason I’m excited about Daima is that its story starts from the end of the Majin Buu Arc. Yes, Daima begins as a continuation of the end of the story from the original Dragon Ball manga! Even for someone like me, who hasn’t been following Dragon Ball Super or the newest movie, Daima is very easy to get into.

So right from the first episode, Dabura is playing a key role. Seriously, Dabura! Do you remember him? When he showed up in the Buu Arc, it looked like he was going to be a really strong opponent, but we wound up being just some pink middle-aged underling of Babidi’s who was gone in no time, but he had a mysterious backstory where he was supposed to be the king of the Demon Realm.

What made it so mysterious was that prior to Dabura showing up, the manga doesn’t really mention much about there even being a Demon Realm. Generally Dragon Ball has a pretty concrete setting, in that the gods have houses that they live in. Even King Kai lives in a house together with humans, and the way to get to his planet is clearly defined. Even things that could have been left vague are depicted, down to distances and times between places, and reading the Dragon Ball manga as a kid, it felt like a realistically constructed world.

So it was really intriguing to think that in the world of Dragon Ball there could be that sort of ethereal, indistinct place like a Demon Realm that no one really knows how to get to. It would have been predictable for someplace like that to exist in, say, YuYu Hakusho, but in Dragon Ball, the Demon Realm felt like a major shakeup to the setting. But in the manga, we only heard the Demon Realm mentioned in dialogue, and then Dabura was gone. It felt like such an unresolved mystery that the characters could travel all the way to the planet of Namek, but they couldn’t go to the Demon Realm.

Part of the reason I remember Dabura is because he shows up in the Dragon Ball Z Super Butoden 3 fighting video game for the Super Famicom [Super NES], and he was one of the main characters I used. That’s how hungry I was for any scrap of information we could get about the Demon Realm. So I can’t tell you how happy I am that we’re finally getting to learn more about the Demon Realm in the new anime!

Dragon Ball Daima starts in the Demon Realm, with Dabura as king and a different perspective on the fight against Buu that really feels like something new and makes the situation a lot more complex and compelling. I can’t believe we’re getting a multi- perspective story like Boogiepop Phantom in Dragon Ball!

As an extra bonus, Episode 1 is centered on King Gomah, an ambitious demon monarch who wants to conquer the Demon Realm and reminds me a little of Pilaf, and his henchman Degusu makes me think of Shu. So while the setting and characters come from the end of Dragon Ball Z, so far Daima’s atmosphere feels a lot like the early parts of Dragon Ball, when Goku was still a little boy. It’s bringing back memories of being glued to the TV when I was a kid, feeling like I was going on adventures with Goku in a vast, unpredictable, and magical world.

Having watched Daima’s first episode, I think that’s by design. It’s filled with scene after scene that brings back that feeling from my childhood, and I honestly shed a few tears when the episode ended. “What’s going to happen next?” I kept asking myself, and it’s exactly the same sort of excitement I got watching Dragon Ball when I was growing up.

Daima gives you both the nostalgic warmth you expect from Dragon Ball but with modern detail and polish to the artwork. Just like Goku looking for the Dragon Balls when the franchise first started, watching it is like finding a sparkling treasure.

Related: Dragon Ball Daima official website
Images ©️Bird Studio/Shuisha・Toei Animation
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[ Read in Japanese ]