Daima made Dragon Ball feel big by literally making it small

Last year, the Dragon Ball franchise turned 40. First begun by manga artist Akira Toriyama in the pages of Weekly Shōnen Jump, it’s grown into a pop culture empire of various TV series, video games, and virtually every other piece of merchandise that one can think of. Multiple generations of anime fans have recognized it as a household name. To celebrate the occasion, a new series was developed: Dragon Ball Daima, with Toriyama’s extensive involvement earning a special degree of interest. 

Sadly, the manga pioneer passed away in early 2024, before Daima even reached our screens. But when one considers Toriyama’s ideas of what Dragon Ball could be, Daima feels like a perfect animated send-off. It turns Goku small, rendering him akin to how Toriyama first envisioned him in the opening chapters of the manga. And by doing that, Daima has made the Dragon Ball world feel bigger than ever.

Even for a series that most non-fans discern as simply a bunch of men screaming at one another until they fire a laser, Daima has a simple hook: At the end of Dragon Ball Z, Goku defeated Buu, a superpowered baddie. From the Demon Realm, new Supreme Demon King Gomah witnesses this and becomes paranoid — if someone as powerful as Goku exists, what’s stopping him from just coming to the Demon Realm and kicking the crap out of Gomah? So Gomah arranges for Earth’s Dragon Balls to be collected and a wish to be made to turn Goku and his crew into defenseless children. In order to turn back (and rescue a pal), Daima has Team Goku travel to the Demon Realm to collect its set of Dragon Balls and wish themselves into adulthood.

If you think that this sounds fairly low-stakes in the grand scheme of Dragon Ball plots, you’re likely not alone. Dragon Ball Z’s climax came when everyone on Earth lent their energy to Goku so that he could deliver the final blow to Buu. The Dragon Ball Super anime’s climax (the manga it’s based on is on hiatus, as the story was mostly plotted by Toriyama until his passing) came at the end of a “Tournament of Power” fought by some of the strongest combatants in multiple universes. 

Even the portions of the manga not yet adapted into anime would move into “ultimate” battle territory, with a new foe who was now supposedly the strongest mortal in the universe taking on Goku and co. Battle-centric anime and manga are known for their accelerating, bombastic threats, but it is a far cry from Dragon Ball chapter 1, where Goku was a little orphan in the woods with nothing to do but catch fish and try to fight cars. 

The original section of the Dragon Ball manga and its corresponding anime series have never received the attention in North America that the later bits (which would be turned into the Toonami anime staple Dragon Ball Z) have. And it’s Z that’s mostly what the franchise’s international reputation has sprung from: a rollercoaster of escalating martial arts-influenced battles that see Goku continuing to beat the odds against various enemies, all of which at the time are considered to be the most powerful around. It is blatantly cyclical but also very inspiring, and it turned Goku himself into a worldwide symbol of willpower. Nobody in fiction doesn’t give up as consistently as Goku doesn’t give up. 

However, it’s a leap from the fantastical abandon that Dragon Ball began with. Sure, there was an increasing focus on martial arts (Toriyama’s love of kung fu films and the comic action of Jackie Chan flicks shine throughout the franchise), but Dragon Ball was that, along with being both a road trip/buddy comedy and a fantasy adventure. With a little, feral Goku in tow, not yet grown to the full, muscle-filled man we know today, it pretty much becomes a platform for whatever Toriyama was interested in at the time. Juvenile and pun-filled gag humor akin to Toriyama’s earlier work, Dr. Slump? Sure. Sci-fi-tinged alien takeover? Why not? Throw in a well-staged tournament from time to time filled with bizarre characters and even some horror elements and you have a manga that thrived on its quirky, exciting inventiveness. Its potential was limitless.

Dragon Ball Daima harnesses a lot of the same energy, and not just because Goku is knee-high for most of it. Traveling to the Demon Realm and discovering a whole new landscape and new creatures to pal around and tussle with reminds one of the exploratory nature of early Dragon Ball. It does give us some big fights (ones that harken back to Toriyama’s initial creativity when he’d have tiny Goku taking down much larger opponents in interesting ways), but it’s also unabashedly silly. If you want Goku to be a goofball that’s open about how much he needs to poop, Daima is definitely a return to form. 

And even though the series builds to that aforementioned adulthood transformation and the typical “final boss” battle between Goku and a powered-up Gomah, it doesn’t come off as a predictable event. Which would’ve likely been the easiest project for Dragon Ball’s 40th anniversary — create a big, mean guy and have Goku take him out. Kamehameha and everyone goes home happy. But instead, Daima insists that there’s more to this anniversary than Goku winning… again. Toriyama built a new world to play in, one that could attach itself to virtually any genre and any tone, and it would be a shame to not take advantage of that.

It also provides a stark contrast with the other anime that was essentially Honey, I Shrunk the Goku: Dragon Ball GT. Though there are a few specific references between the two outside of just a short Goku (including an emphasis on the Super Saiyan 4 upgrade, something invented for GT), GT had relatively scant involvement from Toriyama. Daima, on the other hand, saw Toriyama’s involvement only grow as it went along, becoming something that he had a noticeable hand in. 

As such, Dragon Ball Daima feels less like “the next epic Dragon Ball saga” and more like a tribute to the specific magic that Akira Toriyama brought to it when he first began it. Forty years is a long time for something to last, and it’s easy to become cynical about the patterns that develop along the way. And there’s no real telling what’s next for Dragon Ball — just that it won’t have Toriyama so mindfully at the helm. But in recapturing so much of the spirit of Toriyama’s early masterpiece, Daima shows us why the series blew up like it did. Goku may have been small, but a series like Daima makes his world infinite.