Dragon Ball Daima turns every hero on Earth into a child because the Earth Dragon Balls won’t kill anybody, and that’s the most Dragon Ball logic I’ve heard in years.
It’s time to start reviewing the brand new Dragon Ball anime, and if I’m talking anime I’ve got to bring my homeboy and co-host with me. We’ve been waiting on this one. I can’t tell you how many times he’s run up to me to show me something from that game he got me into. I’m all about it.
I’m about to show my age. The first time I ever watched Dragon Ball was on a VHS tape, and it was the American FUNimation version, the one with the different voice actors at the time. Then some rights things shifted, it went over to where it’s at now, and it’s been one thing after another ever since. I followed along. I’d watched it in pieces through all the years, and Dragon Ball Kai is when I finally got caught up.
GT Is Still His Favorite
I asked my co-host which of the series is his favorite. The last time we did a video on Dragon Ball it was about the Super Hero movie, and his choice hasn’t changed since. He likes the Future saga with Zamasu and all that, but GT has always been his favorite.
GT is awesome. I love some GT, just sitting there watching it and having a good time. And the story of GT is hilarious when you say it out loud: what if we use the Dragon Balls too much and they turn evil? He told me that’s exactly what it is.
Where Daima Sits in the Timeline
He watched the first episode through a friend of his. I saw it on Crunchyroll, and it wasn’t what I expected. I still like it.
Before we started, he asked me a really good question: when does this take place? What era, what arc? Everything I’ve read and everything I’ve seen, the show included, says it takes place directly after the Buu saga. But it’s well before the final, final moments, when he fights Uub and all them in the future, and it’s definitely before Super. It’ll be interesting to see how they work their way out of that.
His guess is that this goes the way it did when we originally started, with Bulma and Yamcha and all of them, except we get introduced to some of the demon race along the way. He’s hoping for a new transformation, or at least a different kind, because by now you’re starting to stockpile different types. And he’s hoping for what happened in Dragon Ball Heroes. Dabura gets mentioned in this episode, and he wondered whether that makes this non-canon. They say it is, but I think it might also be expanding on the canon. He asked whether we should expect to see Towa and Mira. Good question.
The Buu Saga, Reanimated
The short version is we start off in that era and they give you a brief rundown of where we’ve been, but you’re getting it through the eyes of a character named King Gomah. Gomah is next in line to be king of the demon realm, just like Dabura was. Dabura got taken over by Babidi back during the Majin saga, which later rolled into the Buu saga, and this guy is catching up on all of it.
What I love is that they got to reanimate the old stuff, so you see what it would look like if it was animated nowadays. It’s so good. Some guy online did a side by side and it was very cool to see some of those moments. They’re real faithful, but man, you can tell they took the opportunity to stylize it the way you would today. I was impressed.
The Namekian Who Made the Demon Dragon Balls
Gomah’s watching everything like it’s on a video, and that’s how he finds out about the Earth Dragon Balls. Apparently they have Dragon Balls in the demon realm too, but they’re super guarded and very difficult to get to. And apparently theirs don’t do three wishes like the Earth ones. They do the one. It always comes back to the Dragon Balls and the Nameks.
If you remember, Piccolo was originally the Demon Lord Piccolo, way back in Dragon Ball. Here we get to meet a Namekian who’s a Demon Lord type himself. He’s the one who made the demon Dragon Balls, and apparently he’s so old they need his help to work out how to use the Dragon Balls again.
My co-host asked what I thought about him literally putting his hand out and the Dragon Balls coming to him. I thought it was awesome. I thought it was like, whoa. But then you see Dende, and I’m like, bro, get to learning. Figure out how this guy does this crap and get to doing it.
We also see a character we haven’t seen in a while. Mr. Popo. I sat there and went, that’s a character. It was good seeing Popo and all those older guys again.
Make Them Children
In classic Dragon Ball style, the dude wants to make sure the people who defeated the last Demon Lord can’t defeat him. You can’t kill them, because the Earth Dragon Balls aren’t going to be evil or negative. They don’t do dark stuff. So he says, well then, we’ll make them children. Because that’s Dragon Ball logic. They’re clearly weaker when they’re kids.
I’m glad Shenron even asked the question: what about the ones who are already children? And the Demon King goes, make them babies. He’s done. What else do you expect? I love the fact that the dragon needed to make that distinction. Right on, man.
He makes the wish, it all happens, and that’s the episode. So all the pictures you’re seeing online are bull crap, and by that I mean somebody’s telling you they’re showing you this episode when it’s probably the critics who got something like four episodes ahead.
The Last Thing Toriyama Had His Hands On
I’m excited. It’s new Dragon Ball, and it’s great to know it’s the last thing Toriyama had his hands on. I’m here for it, I really am. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Super after this, but I’m definitely here for this right now.
My co-host filled me in on where things stand. Super’s over, for now, so whatever comes next would be something new. Going by what the manga has, there’s a new villain coming in, and then there’s Black Frieza, which I hadn’t heard of. We’ve had Ultra Instinct. There’s Ultra Ego, which is Vegeta’s form. We’re headed into a big stretch with Gohan and the Beast form, and Broly’s good now. All of that comes after. With Daima we’re not sure what’s going to happen, and he wants to know whether it’s going to pull anything from Heroes.
That’s a good question, and I don’t know. I don’t know that they thought too deep about it, at least not on that level. He thinks they should, and I’m with him. But at the same time I’m just enjoying the ride. I watched the original Dragon Ball series and it was wonderful, but it’s so dated today. So seeing those same style of characters again, Bulma as a young person, Krillin bald again with the six little dots on his forehead, I love that. I want to see them in that style. It looks so dope.
Kid Roshi
The Demon King said everybody, and everybody includes Master Roshi. My co-host wants to know how that’s going to go.
I actually have the picture of Roshi as a kid, and it looks pretty cool. It’s funny, because he’s still got the shades. He looks like Krillin but with a nose. No facial hair, totally clean, baby faced.
It’s going to be interesting to see how they play these characters now, especially because basically everybody has to do a kid version of their voice. It’s going to be squeakier.
Sub Now, Dub Later
It’s only out with English subtitles right now. From what my co-host has read, the dub is coming around December or next year, and he doesn’t think he can wait. He watched all of Dragon Ball in the English dub, and he says that messed him up, because once he hears a character in the dub he gets hooked on that voice. Then he hears it in Japanese and his brain goes, what’s that? That’s not normal.
For me it was the music. I came up watching the English version with their horrible rock music. And by the way, “Rock the Dragon” is still one of the greatest theme songs ever done. But the actual music itself I never liked. Then all of a sudden I got to watch the original Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, and their music had so much drama and so much style that now I’ve got to watch with that. Maybe when my cousin comes over we’ll watch the English dub when it comes out. Right now it’s subtitle it up, let’s go. I want to see the show.
Mr. Anime Know-It-All
I got his commitment to be on the show every week. This is our episode one, and we’ll shoot the next one right after we watch next week’s episode and keep going from there. He streams on Twitch as HellishDiablo if you want to follow him, and you’ll see him here on this channel while we watch the show.
I’m coming into this as somebody who hasn’t been watching anime for a long time. I took a break with the glut of stuff that was coming out in the 90s and 2000s. Then I heard the faint call of Dragon Ball coming back and I was like, what? I’ve got another friend who’s a massive One Piece fan and who also likes Pokemon, and he’s getting me into some of that. So I’m reconnecting with my roots. I may have to do some classic anime reviews of the older stuff too, just so you know where I come from.
He’s going to try to keep me after Dragon Ball, so we’re rolling this into its own thing. Dragon Ball is the first show we review. Once this series is done, we’ll line up whatever other shows he thinks I should watch, and I’ll line up some older ones he may not have seen.
Then he asked me whether that makes him an anime know-it-all. I think it totally does. Mr. Anime Know-It-All. Let’s do it.
Let me know how excited you are, either for anime in general or just for Dragon Ball. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
