Dragon Ball DAIMA is a 2024 shonen anime in the storied Dragon Ball franchise. Series creator Akira Toriyama, in his final Dragon Ball work, was heavily involved in the production of the series, from story to the settings to the character designs. The series will premiere in autumn 2024.
Story details are very sparse, but the plot will involve Goku, Vegeta, and the rest of the Z warriors and their allies de-aged back to children thanks to a wish on the Dragon Balls by an unknown enemy. The group is forced to embark on a new adventure to a new world to restore themselves to adulthood. The series will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the franchise.
Previews: Announcement
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- Beam-O-War: The trailer naturally features Goku and Vegeta in combat against one another, firing energy beams at one another, and those same beams colliding.
- Call-Back: The de-aged Ox-King is seen wearing a similar helmet and cape that he wore back in Dragon Ball.
- Fountain of Youth: In the trailer, Goku, Vegeta, and all their friends and family are magically de-aged into children by an unknown wish, and the wish also turns Trunks, Goten and Marron (who were kids) into babies.
- Mythology Gag: In Dragon Ball GT, the plot is kicked off when Goku is wished back in into his childhood by the Pilaf Gang. The trailer shows this happening again, this time not only does Goku get de-aged back to a kid, everyone he knows are de-aged as well by an unknown enemy.
- Revisiting the Roots: As a celebration of the franchises 40th anniversary, the series takes a lot more cues from the original Dragon Ball. Not only is everyone aged down, but Goku has his power pole again.
- You Don't Look Like You: In the trailer, a lot of the main characters get redesigned to kids due to a wish that de-ages the entire cast back to kids, however with noticeable differences from their original kid appearances:
- Vegeta has his iconic Villainous Widow's Peak hairstyle in this as a kid, where as in the flashbacks in Z, kid Vegeta's hairstyle actually had bangs. This is actually consistent in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Super: Broly where child Vegeta is depicted without bangs, rather than the Z flashbacks which were Toei-original.
- Subverted with Roshi, as he remains bald as a kid. While he is not seen as a child, Roshi isn't seen with hair as a young man in flashbacks to his youth as Mutaito's pupil and he admits that he is naturally bald and does not shave his head in Dragon Ball.
- Krillin is slightly taller and skinnier as a kid compared to his original look in Dragon Ball where he was shorter and chubbier looking (being even shorter than Marron, his own daughter).
- Similarly, Yamcha retains his scars when he became de-aged, something he does not receive until the three-year period offscreen between the defeat of King Piccolo and the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament.
- Chi-Chi still has her current modern look rather than her infamous Fanservice look from the original Dragon Ball, this is due to the wish's effect to de-age everyone as they were.
- Marron has her bobcat hairstyle from Super rather than her pigtails look from Z.
- Piccolo appears as a smaller version of his adult self compared to Dragon Ball where his kid self looked closer to Dende.
