Hogan Reviews

My review of the first 12 episodes can be found by clicking HERE.

Quick dive back into currently-airing anime but sticking with Dragon Ball, the latter half (ish) of Dragon Ball DAIMA has now aired and its time to look at how the series ended. It’s a very odd one honestly and it sets up something of a new continuity going forward rather than sliding in between Z and Super. It also has some extremely lazy writing and some very odd plot thread drops that makes me think that maybe Toriyama didn’t finish his draft for the finale before he passed… Well, either way, let’s take a deeper look.

Kicking things off was an episode that felt straight out of the old filler days as Goku and co. end up crashing on an island that’s full of giants and had to avoid getting stepped on or eaten by an equally large dog-like creature before flying off again. It was a bit of harmless fun, but at only 20 episodes maybe could’ve done without it. Meanwhile Gomah and Degesu recruit the Demon World version of the Ginyu Force called the “Gendarmerie Force” to guard the fortress while also disabling the Warp Lords that are seemingly the only access between the different worlds, but luckily Neva, the old Namekian who has joined our heroes for their journey, disables the magic seals blocking pathways between the three worlds instead, revealing he created  them in the first place to try and keep his fellow Namekians safe. This leads to a full-on assault against Gomah and his army, one that eventually works despite a few laser blasts and tank shells, all the while its (unsurprisingly) revealed that the weird eye on Hybris’ belt is indeed the powerful Third Eye artefact mentioned at the start of the series, complete with flashback of Abura, the father of Dabura, having the eye stolen from him by his son in his bid to become Demon King, only for it to go missing until Hybris found it some time later.

Everyone makes a mad dash away from generic soldiers with stun rods and guns… the Mini form really must be a drain on power…

Vegeta effortlessly defeats the Gendarmerie Force, so that whole introduction was just a set up for this gag I guess, leading to everyone assaulting the fortress and cornering Degesu, who had been scheming to get the Third Eye for himself and had taken the baby Dende as a hostage. Thanks to the efforts of Panzy and Glorio Dende is saved and Degesu is knocked out and captured, so… there that goes I guess! While this is happening the woman who Degesu hired to get the Third Eye successfully swapped it with Hybris for her weird hat but instead of finding Degesu she finds Gomah, who then swaps it for a large amount of cash and puts it on his forehead, growing massively in size and power. Arinsu meanwhile makes an appearance in front of the heroes with her Dragon Ball and purposes a duel between her Majin and the intruders, winners take all three Balls, but just as the fight gets going Gomah appears, recreates the land as a weird floating prison arena… thing, and challenges everyone to a fight.

This is where any plot threads or story beats are now just dropped as we end the series with four episodes of pretty much non-stop fighting against Gomah. After a while Goku turns Super Saiyan 3 but is beaten back, that is until Neva appears, fires some sort of blue magic into his body and suddenly Goku transforms into Super Saiyan 4, or rather a new Toriyama-designed version of Super Saiyan 4. It’s um, a bit out of nowhere, almost like Neva was an avatar for Toriyama himself and he just went “I can’t think of how you get out of this, so here: have a new powerful form.” Either way, Goku dominates Gomah but the Third Eye keeps him alive and full of stamina so it still doesn’t go well. As this is happening Arinsu gathers the Dragon Balls and gets Glorio, her undercover agent who speaks Namekian, to wish for her to become all-powerful…

Majin Duu imitates Super Saiyan 3 in one of his few moments to shine in the final battle.

I will say this as an addition to the story breakdown: the animation is beautiful: fluid, colourful and detailed with great chorography, so you won’t hear me complaining on that front. I will say though that seeing so many interesting things just dropped was a bit annoying. The three-way antagonist dynamic of Gomah, Degesu and Arinsu, the latter creating new Majin as soldiers, and you know the “Fusion Bugs” that were specifically zoomed in on and made note of that Goku had collected? Never used or even mentioned again. It really does feel like something else was planned for the ending but they just dropped everything in favour of just one long flashy fight sequence after another.

Overall Thoughts:

Toriyama’s Super Saiyan 4 involves the same reddy-pink colour for all the hair of the form and bigger forearms. Oh and no magically appearing genie pants, which is a definite improvement at least!

Dragon Ball DAIMA was a fun exercise in Toriyama flexing his more child-like adventurous side that he always preferred, but as we got closer to the end that melted away and all the fun plot-threads along with in, descending into an admittedly well animated fight-fest. Sort of a fitting tribute for the show’s 40th anniversary, given that’s what happened to the original manga as well! Given this is now not compatible with Super I guess with have three core anime timelines now, so it should be interesting to see if the next series is DAIMA 2 or a continuation of the Super continuity. Either way, it will be without Toriyama’s guidance, which is always a worry…

As you’d probably guess Glorio didn’t wish for Arinsu to gain power and instead wishes to undo the wish on Earth that turned everyone “Mini”, leading to adult Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta to beat up on Gomah for a while, then adult Super Saiyan 4 Goku to equally pound on him, both getting some fun transformation scenes and fighting moments. Eventually Majin Kuu reads in a book that to get the Eye out of Gomah you need to strike him on the back of the head three times, but their plan involving Piccolo doing just that fails and things look grim as Gomah gets even larger and more powerful… then Kuu appears and bashes Gomah on the back on the head with the book he was reading three times and the Eye pops out, Gomah shrinks back down to his small size and Glorio steps on and crushes the Eye. Problem solved!

The adult version of Toriyama’s Super Saiyan 4 wonders why his fur doesn’t teach his wrists.

In the aftermath Degesu and Gomah are sealed in a jar using a technique very similar to the Mafuba Wave, Majin Kuu is declared the new Demon King as he was the one who defeated the previous King and he selects Arinsu as his “Vice Demon King” as well as Majin Duu and Glorio as “Ministers”, and everyone heads to the ship to get out of the realm. Goku reveals that actually Super Saiyan 4 is something he achieved by “training a lot since Buu’s defeat” which is somehow even more confusing than when it was Neva magically giving the form to him, and on the way back Goku looks to grab some Revive Bugs as they’re always running out of Senzu Beans and while shopping they find a jar with two more Third Eyes in it, the shopkeeper claiming she’s only ever sold one before as they rare and expensive…