The next mainline installment of Dragon Ball has been announced. Come Fall 2024, a new series titled Dragon Ball Daima will be available to a worldwide audience. Fans are excited about the first new series in over five years and can't wait to see what it offers – high-quality animation, new aspects of the Dragon Ball lore, direction by Akira Toriyama, etc. This could be a brilliant way to celebrate Dragon Ball's 40 years as a successful, groundbreaking franchise. However, there is one aspect of this upcoming anime that has fans slightly concerned.
One of the key concepts of this anime will be turning everyone in the main cast into children. The effort to revert Goku into a child was made through Dragon Ball GT, and the decision was poorly met. One might think Toei Animation would want to stay away from this creative choice and everything else that led GT to underperform. For this choice to be attempted again and reinforced with the whole cast, someone must have been confident there was a way to make it work. There might be one, but it would require an understanding of why it didn't work in GT and what needs to be changed.
What Is Wrong With Turning Dragon Balls Characters Into Children?
Many fans dislike how making the Dragon Ball characters kids again defangs them. This series thrives on making its characters continuously grow stronger and battling increasingly powerful opponents to test their limits. There is a problem with constantly raising stakes, but what matters is seeing these fighters reap the benefits of their hard work.
Turning the characters into children invalidates their progress. It forces them to surrender a considerable amount of progress they made as adults. GT emphasized this when Goku had trouble using Instant Transmission and Super Saiyan 3.
This weakness forces the kids into situations they have no business dealing with. For example, they have to deal with jokes of opponents they would ordinarily have no trouble with, like the Para Brothers. It's especially frustrating because most Dragon Ball antagonists are unapologetic trash-talkers, which makes their defeat at the hands of the Z-Fighters' overwhelming strength so satisfying. The kids have to prove their worth when they've already established themselves as the best fighters in their universe.
Depowering the fighters also reduces the intensity of their battles. If Goku had remained an adult in GT, he might have gotten into more spectacular battles like the one with Uub in the first episode. Instead, he's battling goofball opponents with a fraction of his full potential. The brief clip of Goku and Vegeta fighting as adults in Daima could be setting up for a similar disappointment.
Making the cast children also makes the series feel more like it's catering to a younger audience. Technically, Dragon Ball was always marketed toward a young male audience, like most shonen series, but its widespread appeal comes from its ability to be enjoyed by older audiences, too. Beyond GT, this childish silliness can be felt whenever Dragon Ball Z focuses on Goten and Trunks, especially in the movies. Turning everyone into children could magnify this issue significantly.
Can Making Everyone Kids Work to Dragon Ball's Benefit?
Of course, lowering everyone's power levels doesn't have to be wrong. A lower strength tier also means a broader variety of techniques can be used. For example, the Z-Fighters, at their peak, are so strong that tools and weapons can neither harm nor benefit them; this is why they abandoned things like the Power Pole, the Flying Nimbus, and the Scouter. There is little evidence that these tools and weapons can do what can't be done with their bodies.
The Daima trailer suggests now that Goku is a kid again, he can return to using his Power Pole. Of course, this could be another fakeout, like the image of Goku from the initial posters for Dragon Ball Super: Broly. GT Goku has also been featured with the Power Pole, but he never fought with it in the anime. There's no way of knowing whether Goku will use the Power Pole in Daima until more information is revealed. That said, the idea of weaker but more unique techniques becoming viable over brute force and energy attacks again is an intriguing prospect.
The aim to appeal to a younger audience isn't the issue it was for GT. The Dragon Ball franchise has been steadily making things less violent and more conformative to foreign standards for years. This can be seen in the lack of blood or serious injuries in Dragon Ball Super. Now that Dragon Ball is a hard PG, a show where everyone is a kid isn't as much of a downgrade.
Lowering the stakes like this opens the story to more adventure elements. The action aspect of Dragon Ball generated a need to find ways to make everyone stronger. Turning the Dragon Team into kids reverses that course and allows them to explore more parts of their universe without fear of one-shotting everything. Daima suggests it will open the world up to a more demonic part of their universe.
Will Dragon Ball Daima Be Good?
Beyond potential concerns regarding turning the cast into children, fans expect Daima to turn out well. Everything else about the trailer suggests exciting prospects for this new installment to the franchise. The art and animation on display look to be of movie-level quality. This series could turn out like post-Wano One Piece and present this degree of quality every week throughout the year.
Fans are also relieved to hear of Akira Toriyama's involvement in this project. It's assumed that GT failed partly due to Toriyama's lack of writing or creative involvement. Without him, the series couldn't recreate the source material's charm. His place at the helm for Daima should produce more optimal results and bring the project closer to the original series' greatness in ways GT never could.
While making Goku a child didn't work in the past, the willingness to try it again implies a plan for making it work. Toei Animation must have the utmost confidence that the plan this time around will succeed and garner the Dragon Ball franchise as much success as its predecessors, bar GT. This is to say little of this project marking 40 years of success for the franchise. Whatever comes of this series, it promises to be something new and exciting.
