I really miss Akira Toriyama. His distinct art style, his crazy worlds. One day I should look into more of his non Dragonball works, see Dr Slump, play Dragonquest games one day… But today we look at something special, his last work.

Dragonball Daima was the last thing Toriyama worked on.

Watching it I would, and others have, compared it to DragonBall GT, the sequel series to the original DragonBall Z anime run that is now very much non canon to recent works. This comparison is very obvious as right away the cast of the series is turned into children, only this time other than just Goku, it’s everyone who was involved in the Majin Buu arc. However most of them won’t do much as the core cast is on to an adventure in the Demon World, off to rescue Dende who was kidnapped by the new leader of the Demon World Gomah.

So right away you get a fun very original Dragonball feeling storyline as Goku and the supreme Kai/Shin head off with new character Glorio through the Demon World and meeting up with the Princess of the Third World, Panzy. And for the first number of episodes it is just them, which gives the Shin the first time not feeling useless since his initial appearance in the Buu arc. As the show goes on Vegeta, Piccolo and Bulma join the cast, though by that point the Dragonball quest element of the plot has moved on as they move to the next part of the Demon World and more of the machinations of different groups start to be revealed.

We kept watching this guessing as to who the final boss was going to be, kept us on our toes and it was rather refreshing. The new characters introduced into the show were also very enjoyable but I can’t really say who they are as I want you to enjoy the show as more of the story is revealed.

My main issue, which is a more personal one, was my own mind trying to work out if the show was canon to Battle of Gods and Super. We know GT isn’t canon as modern shows stressed that clearly (that and events in that only relate to anime only continuity elements) but is this new show in the same continuity as super? I can’t say. At some points the episodes do things that make you go “ok they can’t be in the same continuity” but then it will make direct reference to designs and plot elements of Super so it makes me scratch my head. Fortunately that shouldn’t ruin your enjoyment of the show as it’s more my nerd brain going crazy trying to work out details.

Daima is very enjoyable, it has that crazy charm Toriyama’s works have and looking at the Demon World and its inhabitants it looks right out of one of the JRPGs he’s worked on. There are some fun fights but there’s nothing massively serious till the very end. Tonally this does feel more like a return to that Dragonball whimsy that often the west due to edits of Z miss out on.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐