2024-10-12 10:35:03
Dragon Ball has always been a marathon, not a sprint, and if that pattern holds then the premiere of Daima, titled “Conspiracy,” is basically the warm-up lap before it locks in for the journey ahead. Given that the late Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama himself had a heavy hand in the conceptualization and production of Daima (a word he invented that sort of translates to “evil”) I think the nuggets of character-building and plot were carefully nurtured kindling that the rest of the series will feed off of, growing into its own pyre, but it doesn’t exactly start with a bang.
The flashiest thing about Daima’s premiere is its animation. Sure, it only gets a few show-offy CG-enhanced moments in the back half of its slightly bloated 32 minutes, but it mostly sticks to Dragon Ball’s house style. There was no need to reinvent the wheel; Toriyama’s distinct art style is iconic, revered by mangaka (manga artists) and beloved by fans. There’s a fight training montage between Goku and Vegeta that feels like it exists purely as fan service; I could practically already hear the cheers from the theaters when the first three episodes will be screened together in mid-November.
As is fitting for a series reset on its 40th anniversary, Daima begins by introducing its concept as plenty of after-school shonen anime might – though it regretfully opts to drop its solid traditional opening theme and waits to announce “Here comes a new story” until the end credits. Here’s our main man, Son Goku, his crazy powers, and the unusual circumstances he’s faced in life to achieve the ultimate goal of collecting the Dragon Balls and summoning the magical dragon Shenron to ask for three wishes! No doubt it’s a retro move that harkens back to a certain time, but I appreciated it as a direct line to the series’ history, executed without withholding any pertinent information from potential new viewers who might be more familiar with Al Roker correctly pronouncing “Super Saiyan” as a giant balloon Goku floats through the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade than they are with 40 years of Dragon Ball lore.
Daima does make that effort to welcome in those who are completely unfamiliar with Dragon Ball, but the vast majority of the episode felt like it was speaking – and winking – directly to existing fans. In fact, so much time was dedicated to rehashing old battles that I’m not exactly sure how Daima intends to differentiate itself from the rest of the canon just yet.
How do you rank the Dragon Ball villains?
How do you rank the Dragon Ball villains?
Case in point: Exactly half of the episode takes place in one room where Daima’s new (and classically buffoonish) villain Gomah reviews the play-by-play footage of the iconic Dragon Ball Z battle against Majin Buu. This entire scene in the Demon Realm’s viewing setup pulls several levers without being painfully obvious. One, it’s throwing red meat to people like me for whom watching that fight as a kid was formative memory; two, it’s giving the TL;DR of a key story arc for those who don’t know what a Majin Buu is; and third, it’s serving as an in-story inciting moment for Gomah as the freshly crowned Supreme Demon King, even if it’s not terribly convincing. He’s downright intimidated by how strong Earth beings are, so Gomah decides he must find a way to squash their power despite being entire dimensions apart; naturally, his best idea involves Tap to Reveal.
Still, it takes half the episode to get through all of that setup; I won’t accept criticism for my real-time impatience when all I really wanted to know is why everyone had “turned small,” according to Daima’s trailer. (So petty!) Even as Gomah leaves the Demon Realm on a seemingly urgent mission to quash the power of the Earthlings, the action stays measured and methodical, casually introducing a few of the series’ new characters with question marks for backstories and goals. “Who cares about all of that,” Daima seems to say, “when there are so many more episodes still ahead?” (Though an exact episode count hasn’t been confirmed, there’s speculation that 20 episodes are planned for this first season.) We’ll get there when we get there.
“Conspiracy” is so consistently paced – that is, until the very last scene of the entire episode, punctuated by the funniest laugh-out-loud line delivered flatly by the great magical dragon Shenron – that it’s frustratingly impressive. Only someone with a real grasp over their own story could exercise the restraint to intentionally and deliberately not step on the gas until precisely the right moment. Akira Toriyama was a master of pacing; he wasn’t dawdling here, but carefully setting up every bit of decor for his final story, reminding all of us about the things we loved about Dragon Ball in the first place before letting these versions of his characters run off on their new adventures.
It was still broad daylight when I finished the premiere of Dragon Ball Daima, which gave me an uncanny feeling of déjà vu. For weeks at a time after middle school, I’d come home and run to the TV to watch Dragon Ball Z’s blowout battle versus Majin Buu with my brother, and here was the highlight reel of that being replayed in much higher definition on a TV I bought with my own money, in 2024. I was suddenly 12 years old again, with the same emotional maturity I had at that age: This is a brand-new Dragon Ball era! …Why isn’t anything happening yet?
