Dragon Ball Daima

• 1. Introduction

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  Dragon Ball Daima is a Japanese anime television series from Toei Animation, and it reached viewers just after the death of its creator, Akira Toriyama, on the 1st of March 2024. It is the sixth televised animated installment of the Dragon Ball franchise. It is also the second, and the last, for which Toriyama conceived the story directly for the screen.

  That timing raises a few questions. How much of the series was truly his, when it began as a project meant to run without him? What did he invent to send a long-running franchise somewhere unexpected? And how did audiences in Japan and abroad answer the story he left behind?

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• 2. Toriyama's Hand

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  On the 12th of October 2023, Toei Animation used a panel at New York Comic Con to announce a new anime called Dragon Ball Daima, due in the last quarter of 2024. The teaser trailer credited Toriyama with the original work, the story and the character designs. A press release added that he designed many of the vehicles, monsters and background characters. It also said he coined the title, and described him as "deeply involved beyond his usual capacity."

  Toriyama sent the panel a message explaining that DAIMA is a made-up term. Akio Iyoku, executive producer of the franchise, said the series had been in the works for five years. The title, however, was settled less than a month before the panel.

  The idea began while the staff were working on the 2022 film Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. They asked Toriyama to look at a possible new series, and according to Iyoku he grew so enthusiastic that he ended up "crafting the entire story." Iyoku described it as having a "strong sense of adventure and lots of action." The team worked so intensely that production of the anime began before the story was complete.

  In November 2023, the January 2024 issue of V Jump named the main staff. Yoshitaka Yashima, animation director of Dragon Ball Super, and Aya Komaki, director of One Piece, both directed. Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, who had worked on Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT, adapted Toriyama's character designs for animation. The same announcement confirmed that Masako Nozawa would return as Goku.

  A second trailer, focused on Goku, appeared on the 28th of January 2024 at the Dragon Ball Games Battle Hour event. A livestream there showed character illustrations Toriyama had made for the anime, including some new characters.

  A week after his death, the 2024 Tokyo Anime Awards Festival displayed the message he had sent to accept its Lifetime Achievement Award. In it he revealed that Daima was first planned as an original series without him. Then came the line that explains the whole project: "but as I gave advice here and there, I ended up getting deeply involved with the project without realizing it." The premise he settled on opens with a kidnapping.

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• 3. Small Again

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  One year after the defeat of Majin Buu and the death of Dabura in Dragon Ball Z, Gomah becomes the new Supreme King of the Demon Realm. He kidnaps Dende and uses the Dragon Balls from Earth to turn Son Goku and his friends into younger versions of themselves. His aim is simple: they should no longer be threats to his reign. The series is a side story, set after the Majin Buu Saga but before the 10-year timeskip that follows it.

  Goku, Shin, Vegeta, Piccolo and Bulma must find a way back. Demons help them, and later an elderly Namekian joins in. Together they travel through the three worlds of the Demon Realm, gathering its native Dragon Balls. Their goals are to undo Gomah's wish and rescue Dende.

  Iyoku had a particular audience in mind. He pictured people who watched Dragon Ball GT as children and had since become adults, and he wanted an anime they could watch with their own children. Like GT, Daima is an adventure. It feels different from Dragon Ball Super, where Goku is constantly striving to grow stronger. Looking back, Iyoku felt that Toriyama's unexpected decision to make everyone in the cast small helped the staff reach a wider audience.

  The change reached the voice booth too. Daima is the first production without Tōru Furuya as Yamcha, and Ryōta Suzuki was announced as his replacement on the 4th of October 2024. Then the second episode aired on the 18th of October with no advance notice, and it brought new voice actors for nearly all the major characters, now that they were children.

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• 4. Music and Tribute

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  Kosuke Yamashita composed the music for Dragon Ball Daima. Nippon Columbia released about 70 of his tracks as the original soundtrack album on the 19th of March 2025.

  The opening theme, "Jaka Jaan," is by the German record producer Zedd and a Japanese vocal duo. Zedd was offered the job of composing it because he is an open fan of Dragon Ball. Keen of C&K is credited with co-composing. Yukinojo Mori, who has written many songs for the franchise, wrote the lyrics. He admitted to some worry about writing for the series yet again. Then Toriyama gave him fresh excitement by changing the franchise's direction from "battle" to "adventure." The ending theme, "Nakama," is by Zedd featuring the Japanese-American singer Ai. Zedd composed it, and Ai wrote the lyrics.

  Both songs carry tributes to Toriyama. In the first half of "Jaka Jaan," certain syllables of the rōmaji lyrics spell out his name. The clearest case is the line "yume wa TORI dori, naYAMAnai, AKIRA menai." Two details suggest it is deliberate. The word "toridori" is uncommon, and one analyst had never heard a native speaker use it. The official rōmaji transliteration also capitalizes exactly those syllables.

  The visuals add a second tribute. Both the opening and ending animations show an ethereal white bird flying near Goku. It likely represents Toriyama's spirit, since his name contains the Japanese word for "bird" and his company is called Bird Studio.

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• 5. Release Route

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  Dragon Ball Daima had its world premiere at Tokyo Big Sight on the 6th of October 2024, during the Dragon Ball Daimatsuri event. The event commemorated the 40th anniversary of the original manga. The first episode was screened three times that day, and cast members attended the first two screenings.

  On the 2nd of September, Fuji Television had announced the broadcast details and confirmed that every episode was already finished. The series began airing on Fuji Television and its FNS affiliates on the 11th of October 2024. It ran on Fridays at 11:40 p.m., and the first episode was ten minutes longer than normal. The 20th episode closed the run on the 28th of February 2025. DVD and Blu-ray box sets followed on the 2nd of July 2025.

  Outside Japan, Crunchyroll began streaming the series on the 11th of October 2024 in most regions beyond East Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Hulu streamed it in the United States on the same day. Netflix started in Asia on the 14th of October and went global on the 18th.

  Toei Animation and Fathom Events screened the English dub of the first three episodes in United States theaters from the 10th to the 12th of November 2024. The full English dub then ran on Crunchyroll from the 10th of January to the 16th of May 2025. Adult Swim's Toonami block gave it a United States television premiere, airing it from the 15th of June to the 2nd of November 2025.

  Crunchyroll planned standard and limited Blu-ray editions for the 3rd of March 2026. On the 7th of February 2026, a press release revealed a delay to a later date.

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• 6. The Audience Numbers

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  For the week of the 21st to the 27th of October 2024, Daima was the second-most viewed non-English series on Netflix, with 3.2 million views. It reached the service's top 10 in 42 countries, ranking first in Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Malaysia and Vietnam. It was also the most-viewed kids show worldwide on Netflix.

  In Japan, fourteen of the twenty episodes ranked among the top 10 most-watched animated shows. The premiere reached 3.2% of households, and the finale reached 2.8%. Ratings rose after the reveal of Vegeta's Super Saiyan 3 transformation in episode 12. After a dip at episode 16, they surged again with episode 18, when the show reached the top three.

  The hype around that stretch was attributed to the battle with Gomah, to Goku's newly reintroduced Super Saiyan 4 transformation, and to the approaching finale. Several streaming services, including piracy websites, suffered server outages.

  The limited American theatrical run of the first three English-dubbed episodes grossed $661,204. The limited edition Blu-ray reached number 20 on Oricon's Weekly Blu-ray Rankings, which track home video sales.

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• 7. Critics and Fans

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  On Rotten Tomatoes, Dragon Ball Daima holds a 100% approval rating from five reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. Before it aired, however, reception was more mixed. Joshua Fox of Screen Rant described the mood as excitement mingled with trepidation, though he felt the series had disproved the doubters by episode 8. CBR reported that many fans had hoped for a return of the Dragon Ball Super anime, especially an adaptation of the manga-only Moro Saga. CBR itself sided with Daima as the thing the franchise needed.

  Mariló Delgado of Espinof reviewed it in Spanish, praising it as an exercise in nostalgia. She gave it 4/5 and warned viewers to be patient, since the story takes time to truly begin. Pacing divided fans, according to CBR, because it felt simultaneously leisurely and rushed.

  Fox called the eighth episode what anime fans had waited decades for. He ranked its choreography among the best in any Dragon Ball series and found the comedy equally notable.

  CBR's Daniel Kurland called the seventeenth episode "perfect" and its animation "mind-blowing." He praised the fight between Goku and Majin Duu as containing "some of the best visuals that have been in the franchise." The battle between Gomah and several other fighters struck him as "cinematic," as if the episode were showing off. The next episode earned a 10/10 and was "another perfect half hour of television."

  Kurland gave the nineteenth episode, "Betrayal," the same 10/10. He singled out Vegeta's fight with Gomah, the humor of Bulma reining in Vegeta so Goku could tag in, and the appearance of Super Saiyan 4 adult Goku. He called episodes eighteen and nineteen "the best one-two punches in Dragon Ball history." Episode nineteen, he wrote, was "the groundwork for greatness" that "gives fans everything they want." CBR then reported that "Betrayal" had broken the record for the best-rated anime episode of 2025. It passed the sixth episode of Solo Leveling's second season, and Daima's own eighteenth episode, which had equaled that record.

  The English dub was generally well received, though critics faulted its delayed streaming schedule. At the 5th Astra TV Awards, Daima won Best Anime Series, and Stephanie Nadolny was nominated for Best Lead Voice-Over Performance as Son Goku (Mini). The series was also nominated for Favorite Cartoon at the 2025 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.

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• 8. A Farewell by Accident

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  Coverage of Dragon Ball Daima kept returning to how accidental its finality was. The series was announced in October 2023, and no one involved had planned it as a goodbye. It still became Toriyama's swan song, and it leaned deliberately toward returning to the franchise's roots.

  Commentators praised Toriyama's brand of juvenile comedy as a distinct strength of the anime. They also kept noting the Easter eggs that point to his earlier works. Duu greets people the way Arale Norimaki does in Dr. Slump. Neva sings the opening theme of the original Dragon Ball anime.

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