Approved by Akira Toriyama, revealed at New York Comic Con was Dragon Ball Daima, a new series that centers around the aftermath of Goku and all of the main characters on Universe 7’s Earth being turned into kids/de-aged by a demonic force.
God I wish someone would rein in Toriyama’s bad ideas like they did when the manga was still running.
Edit: Link to the trailer: https://youtu.be/CYcrmsdZuyw?si=VwyoWFNcN4BFiKj8
All that most people want right now are for the two manga-exclusive arcs to be animated.
Just so people know: Goku getting turned into a kid is a lot of why many people don’t like Dragon Ball GT, and now they’re doing it to the whole fucking cast.
GT had many fundamental issues, but Kid Goku wasn't one of them. The biggest issue with that was they did nothing with it to the point of it basically not mattering in the slightest.
Counter point: Dragon Ball was at its absolute best when Goku was still a kid doing stuff like fighting the Red Ribbon army and entering the world martial arts tournament.
I'd say it's biggest problem was that it was culturally Americanized and aimed at a slightly younger audience than DB/DBZ.
Step into the Grand Tour
Dragon Ball ended with Goku and Frieza killing each other in a climactic battle.
Change my mind.
Wasn't that the plot to GT?
I only watched a little of that, but it was too Saturday-morning cartoony, and wasn't like the Japanese DB. Also, the fashions were ghetto-trashy.
I mean, the end of Super left hardly anywhere to go, Goku already levelled up to meeting the God of the entire Multiverse. What more IS there?
The English dub of GT skipped the first like dozen or so episodes for a reason (then released them later as "Lost Episodes") just to jump to the action people were used to from Z, instead of the wacky original DB feel they were going for early on.
I enjoy them for what they were. Its not like Dragon Ball was any stranger to "random idea non-canon story" after like 14 movies of the same thing.
Ah.
Well, I watched it from the actual beginning (DB, then DBZ), and honestly, I preferred the original. I kind of liked it when it was just a monkey kid doing chop-sockey, but then it turned into Wizard Wars. Which was still fun, but damn that power creep!
Personally, I liked a good combo of both. Which is why I hate Kai. For every "padding" filler they removed, they also removed the entire filler episodes and stories. Which is where Z managed to sneak in its goofy and humorous bits, as well as giving other characters at least some screentime while Toriyama just forgot them.
DBZ is honestly a great example of how sometimes the original author isn't perfect and the soulless corporation understands his own series better than himself. Which is also why like half of the Original Movies are better than the series proper.
To the point where people outright ignore the canonization of Bardock Toriyama made in Minus, and just keep him as he was in the TV Movie even if its not "canon."
There’s the Moro Arc and Granolah Arc in the manga. Also remember that Super takes place in the 10 years between the end of the Buu Saga and the World Tournament where Uub shows up.
I kind of understand why he's doing it. I don't think he ever wanted to take his work in too serious of a direction but DBZ was such a running success that he kept going with it.
When you go through his sketches and illustrations you see a bit of the man's soul and he probably wants to make more opportunities to tap into those youthful JRPG vibes that extracted from him some of his most solid character designs.
That said, I expect this to be dogshit.
I mean, he has Dragon Quest. One of the biggest and most unquestioningly popular JRPGs to ever exist completely under his pen too.
Its not like he only has Dragon Ball to express himself and is forced to shove his passion into it to get them out. He straight up had a fit about Dragon Ball Evolution being shit (justified) and unretired the series himself just to take it in the direction it has been. Battle of Gods was his "this is what Dragon Ball should be" moment, and its been almost undeviated from that since.
Maybe not, but could it be that he wants to explore this with Dragon Ball? With enough smoke blown up his ass, maybe.
With the Granolah arc (among others) I recognize there is only so much you can do with current power scaling without it seeming contrived - and that maybe with this he wanted to put Goku into more interesting scenarios before moving forward. That's just my guess.
I mean, that's his problem right there. He only cares about giving Goku interesting scenarios, and everything must revolve around his power level at all times. Its completely stifled the series into nothing but infinite power creep and more outlandish madness just to keep giving him "relevant" fights.
Even he recognizes that, as the entire last movie's marketing was "Goku ain't here, its just Gohan (and surprise Piccolo)."