Newly announced Dragon Ball Daima turns Goku into a kid. Again.
Its summary is very similar to the critically bashed Dragon Ball GT
It’s time to let go of Goku as the main character.
Seriously, there are other characters.
In October, Toei revealed their grand plan for the next entry in the Dragon Ball franchise following Dragon Ball Super, its two movies (Broly and Super Hero) and the spinoff Super Dragon Ball Heroes. And the trailer for the new series, called Dragon Ball Daima, was quite a head-scratcher:
Rethreading GT
As a part of its premise, Dragon Ball Daima plans to turn the entire main cast into kids. Which is something that was already officially confirmed as possible at the start of Super, with the Pilaf’s gang — and was a premise for another Dragon Ball story.
In Dragon Ball GT (1996-1997), Goku is turned back into a kid by a special, cosmic kind of Dragon Balls, and has to travel the Universe collecting them. This story is known to only be kinda-canon, as its creation barely included the series’ author Akira Toriyama in the process (past designing the characters), had a rather poor fan reception, and was largely ignored by the story of DBS, if you don’t count the multiverse crossover events in Super Dragon Ball Heroes.
Which is why it’s all the more flabbergasting to see a Dragon Ball anime featuring Toriyama as the lead writer to go into that same dubious territory.
Kid Goku AGAIN?!
Look, we know that the original Dragon Ball run was special. There were no super-high stakes, cascading power-ups and transformations, and the fights were just as much about ingenuity and martial arts prowess as they were about power. GT was a (misguided) attempt to return to that simpler time, and so is the freshly announced Daima — which has the very same major problem.
It can’t let go of Son Goku.
The story was supposed to move on from Goku to Gohan after the end of Cell Saga. Goku made his last big sacrifice there, and decided to stay in the afterlife so he could fight all those amazing fighters. That was great. Gohan’s story up to that point was leading up to the very moment he took over as the main character, with his fight against Cell serving as the culmination of his journey. And yet, we were robbed of that with Goku’s return in the Buu saga.
Then in Super, the story doesn’t even try to set up Goku’s possible successor. Instead, it keeps introducing higher stakes and weirder scenarios, as if the man is going to live and grow forever, without any regards even to the fact that his VA Masako Nozawa is already 87 years old, and doesn’t get any younger with each subsequent series.
You are partially right, Toriyama. It’s time to reset the board. If there has to be a new Dragon Ball series, let it feature a protagonist who is NOT Goku.
And they really shouldn’t.
Summary:
Newly announced Dragon Ball Daima turns Goku into a kid. Again.
Its summary is very similar to the critically bashed Dragon Ball GT
It’s time to let go of Goku as the main character.
Seriously, there are other characters.
In October, Toei revealed their grand plan for the next entry in the Dragon Ball franchise following Dragon Ball Super, its two movies (Broly and Super Hero) and the spinoff Super Dragon Ball Heroes. And the trailer for the new series, called Dragon Ball Daima, was quite a head-scratcher:
Rethreading GT
As a part of its premise, Dragon Ball Daima plans to turn the entire main cast into kids. Which is something that was already officially confirmed as possible at the start of Super, with the Pilaf’s gang — and was a premise for another Dragon Ball story.
In Dragon Ball GT (1996-1997), Goku is turned back into a kid by a special, cosmic kind of Dragon Balls, and has to travel the Universe collecting them. This story is known to only be kinda-canon, as its creation barely included the series’ author Akira Toriyama in the process (past designing the characters), had a rather poor fan reception, and was largely ignored by the story of DBS, if you don’t count the multiverse crossover events in Super Dragon Ball Heroes.
Which is why it’s all the more flabbergasting to see a Dragon Ball anime featuring Toriyama as the lead writer to go into that same dubious territory.
Kid Goku AGAIN?!
Look, we know that the original Dragon Ball run was special. There were no super-high stakes, cascading power-ups and transformations, and the fights were just as much about ingenuity and martial arts prowess as they were about power. GT was a (misguided) attempt to return to that simpler time, and so is the freshly announced Daima — which has the very same major problem.
It can’t let go of Son Goku.
The story was supposed to move on from Goku to Gohan after the end of Cell Saga. Goku made his last big sacrifice there, and decided to stay in the afterlife so he could fight all those amazing fighters. That was great. Gohan’s story up to that point was leading up to the very moment he took over as the main character, with his fight against Cell serving as the culmination of his journey. And yet, we were robbed of that with Goku’s return in the Buu saga.
Then in Super, the story doesn’t even try to set up Goku’s possible successor. Instead, it keeps introducing higher stakes and weirder scenarios, as if the man is going to live and grow forever, without any regards even to the fact that his VA Masako Nozawa is already 87 years old, and doesn’t get any younger with each subsequent series.
You are partially right, Toriyama. It’s time to reset the board. If there has to be a new Dragon Ball series, let it feature a protagonist who is NOT Goku.
