Change is hard to accept when you can’t reconcile longstanding feelings with current reality. Trust me, I was just like most detractors when word first came out in October 2023 of Dragon Ball Daima’s impending release. It was a tough pill to swallow that, after waiting five and a half years since Dragon Ball Super’s epic Tournament of Power arc concluded, our reentry into weekly Dragon Ball anime episodes was going to be with Goku and the gang as children…again! However, after begrudgingly watching the first few episodes I quickly realized I was wrong, and so were all of you.
In 2025, the cool thing to do is shit on the Dragon Ball series, and for good reason. The fight animations aren’t as meticulously choreographed as they are in Attack on Titan or Jujutsu Kaisen, and the animators typically hide this fact by making it seem like they’re fighting too fast for us to even properly understand the action. A lot of Dragon Ball Super was centered on constantly shifting power dynamics among transformations that cheapened the suspense by simply introducing a random transformation (Super Saiyan Blue Evolved? WTF?). Goku’s an idiot, Gohan is annoyingly nerfed, and Vegeta just keeps losing at everything. This is why Daima is shutting all of that noise up.
In just 15 gorgeously animated episodes, the latest series has returned the Dragon Ball franchise to its roots. Goku’s Super Saiyan transformation used to be a goosebump-inducing rarity that conveyed the legendary status of its power. It’s not until the fifth episode of Daima that Goku briefly goes through the golden transformation to dispatch King Kadan’s soldiers, and he’s only returned to that form a handful of times over the 10 episodes that follow. Instead, the series has prioritized hand-to-hand combat (with a little Power Pole action thrown in) to ground the fantastical feats in some form of reality. The anime also blew everyone’s minds when Vegeta unveiled his Super Saiyan 3 transformation in episode 12 to win the Dragon Ball from Tamagami Number Two. Not only did that one moment completely rewrite a major flaw in the Dragon Ball series (Vegeta really let Kakarot and Gotenks go SSJ3 but not him?), but it let it be known that the Dragon Ball canon was open to revision in Daima.
The fight choreography is also some of the best the franchise has seen since the masterclass duel Broly had with Goku and Vegeta in the Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie from 2018. Goku dodging Tamagami Number Three’s ki blasts only to land destabilizing kicks to its legs, and backflipping in midair to avoid Tamagami’s Thor-like hammer from hitting him before breaking the handle with his Power Pole in one move brought literal tears to my eyes. The fights in Daima feel like they have real stakes and aren’t just throwaways in order to fill time and keep people entertained with dazzling ki blasts.
The story also does a great job of expanding on the Dragon Ball Z arcs we love without venturing into the polarizing Dragon Ball Super stories. Let the record show, Dragon Ball Super is wildly underrated, and the Tournament of Power is arguably the greatest story arc in the entire history of Dragon Ball. That being said, Super sometimes delved too deep into the gods controlling everything. The Fused Zamasu vs. Vegito Blue was too astounding for it to be resolved by the newly introduced Zeno, god of all, simply wiping the baddie from existence. Dragon Ball Daima starting right after the fan-favorite Buu saga and expanding upon that without negating what happened in it has been exceptionally done.
Sure, Goku’s still an idiot and not as stoic as he was when facing off against Cell or Frieza in Dragon Ball Z. Most of the episodes focus more on exploration than fighting. But with the introduction of compelling characters like Glorio, Dr. Arinsu, and Panzy, the trips around the newly explored Demon Worlds feel less like a chore and more like excavations into a Dragon Ball past that was right under our noses the entire time. We may only have one more month left of Daima before its season finale, so I implore all of you, lovers and haters alike, to have an honest watch of this fantastic series, and then take an honest look in the mirror, because it’s time to admit Daima is exactly what the Dragon Ball franchise needed and deserved.
