The Dragon Ball franchise will always have a place in my heart. When DBZ was airing on YTV during my high school days, I watched it religiously everyday. I’ll always regret not being able to finish the series because I moved to university and no longer had access to my own TV. More recently, I caught up with Dragon Ball Super during the pandemic lockdown. It didn’t leave much of an impression, to be honest, but I think I needed some comfort viewing during those anxious times.

And now, there’s a new series called Daima. Unlike the previous shows, which went on forever (some would say, dragged on forever), this one is a limited series with only 20 episodes. In the show, Goku and friends are transformed into children, and must adventure through the “demon realm” to restore their normal bodies and defeat the demon king.

I don’t really have much to say about it… it’s mostly mindless action. It seems that the animation quality is more consistent than I remember of the other shows, probably because it’s a limited run. I’m not a huge fan of having the characters be children, though… it feels like a way to increase the cuteness quotient of the whole thing, but doesn’t serve any story purpose.

Anyway, I’ll always get a kick out of it whenever one of our heroes powers up and shows off a new fighting technique or a transformation. A silly but fun nostalgia trip.

I admired the visuals and animation of this film by Mamoru Hosoda. The design of “U”—a metaverse-like world with billions of users—is suitably grandiose and chaotic. I personally would never want to spend time in a virtual environment like that… I’m sure I would vomit from motion sickness within minutes. But that’s just me.

Unfortunately, the story fell flat for me. For most of the runtime, the plot happening inside U—featuring the mysterious Beast character—felt disconnected from the plot happening in the real world, which mostly involved the teenage romance angst that I see a lot of in anime. And the climax really stretches believability, requiring two characters to find each other at the exact same time at the exact same place in the middle of Tokyo.

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