And next February 28, the last episode of Dragon Ball Daima will air – the first and only posthumous anime of the franchise in which Akira Toriyama himself was involved. Unfortunately, the creator passed away on March 1, 2024, so we haven’t been able to enjoy this project with him.
However, even a year later, Toriyama has left us with great moments and the occasional anecdote. After all, his relationship with the anime goes beyond just putting his name on it – Toriyama-sensei intervened in the work and put a lot of himself into it.
Recently, we’ve been able to learn new details about the series’ history thanks to Ino, a member of Capsule Corporation Tokyo and executive producer of the Dragon Ball series. In an interview, he revealed several very interesting details.
The origin of Dragon Ball Daima
Everything started about six years ago when they were still working on Dragon Ball Super: Super Heroes. “We started talking about making a new series with a plot different from the movie,” Ino explained. He decided to talk to Akira to explain the idea, and as they advanced, Toriyama got very excited. It was different from the original plan, but after consulting, he ended up doing mostly everything.
Many ideas occurred to Toriyama, and he wondered what the demonic kingdom would be like, who the new characters could be, and more. “Daima’s worldview was consolidated with him,” Ino said. At the same time, the manager confirmed our suspicions: Dragon Ball Daima took Dragon Ball GT into account. This is something we’ve been seeing throughout the series, through different cameos, but one thing is to think about it, and another is to confirm it.
“I was thinking about the generation of people 30 years old or more who have already grown and have children. I wanted to make an anime that parents and children could see together,” Ino revealed. They are the generation that saw Dragon Ball GT when they were children. “I tried to create a new anime series with GT as a starting point,” he added.
Toriyama’s touch
Starting from this base, the team started working. Moreover, Ino said that anime production began before the story was completely finished. For him, it’s a sample of how hard they’ve worked, but personally, I think something different. Daima is having problems at the narrative level – there are sections with a rhythm that’s too slow, and some questionable decisions. That they worked in this way may have caused it to be this way.
Be that as it may, the anime continued, and Toriyama-sensei put a lot on his part. One of his concerns was that people who hadn’t seen Dragon Ball could be introduced to the franchise through Daima. This is why they decided to do it in such a way that everyone could understand it. “We did it so that even people who saw Dragon Ball for the first time could understand it. We also tried to show Goku’s growth and make it easy to understand that it has become smaller,” Ino commented. Here, of course, Akira had a lot of weight.
Similarly, he wanted to make some clarifications about the chronology of the anime, since there are many aspects that contradict themselves with the plot of Dragon Ball Super. Officially, it is located just after the Majin Buu arc, but it shows situations that don’t fit at all with DBS. On this subject and the connection with the original story, Akio said: “It is true that Sensei himself was in charge of the story, which is an adjoining series and that it is connected to the Majin Buu saga. That is the fact, and that is all.”
Akira’s magic is still alive in Dragon Ball Daima
Unfortunately, or that’s what we’ve inferred, Toriyama died before the series ended. “I’m sure you’re wondering where Daima fits in the Dragon Ball series, but I’m trying to show the various connections with Dragon Ball. I don’t know if we don’t know it, I think there are connections in the mind of the sensei, and I am not pointing to that, but I am trying to show it too,” Ino stated.
“The part that surprised me most was that ‘all those with pointed ears are residents of the great demon kingdom.’ I think it is a scenario that the sensei had vaguely had in his mind for a while, and I was surprised to discover that this is the case,” he added. “The sensei has a firm knowledge of the world of Dragon Ball, and changes the approach depending on the work. I do not force the scenarios. The turns and turns are important, and since the anime began without the original manga, I am very aware of having the type of ‘pull’ that is obtained in the manga,” he ended.
In summary, of the products derived from the original series, Dragon Ball Daima is the project in which Akira Toriyama has been most involved. This is what Akio let us know in his interview, revealing the great involvement of mangaka in the new anime. As he tells us, Toriyama conceived much of the story, dealt with the design of the characters, supervised their structure, was responsible for drawing vehicles and Warp-Sama, and constituted the division of the demonic kingdom into three parts. Therefore, Toriyama-sensei had a lot to do in almost all areas of the anime.
What we don’t know is how far he could come, because one thing is to write the skeleton of history, and another very different is to carry it out little by little. If anime production ended before his death, it’s something that is not entirely clear, but it doesn’t seem that it has. I have this concern because the rhythm and focus of the first part and the second part of Dragon Ball Daima change. At least that’s my feeling. I notice that the rhythm is different, and some decisions don’t fit me at all, but I don’t know if it’s the team or thus devised Toriyama.
In any case, there is one thing that has been very clear to us: Dragon Ball is pure Akira Toriyama, and its relationship with the project is almost total.