Dragon Ball Daima Began Production Much Earlier Than You’d Expect

Dragon Ball Daima might not have made its premiere until last year, but it turns out that production on the new anime started many years before fans might expect. Dragon Ball Daima was released as a special celebration of Dragon Ball’s 40th anniversary, and the producer behind it all has been opening up about the new anime series ahead of its big finale. In a recent interview with Mantan Web in Japan, Dragon Ball producer Akio Iyoku opened up about the new anime’s production revealing that it planning actually started many years before you’d expect. In fact, the idea was sparked during the production of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.

As Iyoku explained in the interview (as spotted by @Venixys on X), the original concept for Dragon Ball Daima came when the team was hoping to look into a new series that was separate from the movies. In fact, Iyoku even stated that the team had only originally planned for late series creator Akira Toriyama to only have a little involvement with the new series’ story. But he got so excited about the ideas in the anime that he ended up handling the new story entirely.

Dragon Ball Daima Started Production Years Ago

“It all began about six years ago when we were working on Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero,” Iyoku began. “We wanted to create a new series separate from the movies, so we asked Toriyama what he thought. At first, we only intended for him to be involved lightly, but he became so invested in the project that he ended up handling almost everything.” As Iyoku continued, he believed that Toriyama found creating a new series entirely from scratch was excited as they had more time and flexibility to develop its new story. It even got started before the new story was totally complete.

“This was the first time we created a TV series from scratch, and I think Toriyama found it exciting,” Iyoku continued. Unlike a movie, which has time constraints, here we had more flexibility in developing the story, exchanging ideas multiple times. In fact, we started producing the anime before the story was fully completed. It was similar to a weekly manga serialization, keeping that sense of excitement alive.” As the anime continued its production, the scope and narrative continued to take a more familiar shape as it ended up being directly inspired by Dragon Ball GT.

What’s Next for Dragon Ball?

“We primarily targeted viewers in their early 30s who grew up watching Dragon Ball GT and now have children of their own…The idea was to create a new series with the same spirit as GT,” Iyoku explained. Dragon Ball Daima was approached as a brand new project that would be approachable to audiences that didn’t even know much about Dragon Ball itself. And even if they did, it would have something brand new for experienced fans to enjoy as it further spread out the lore in the universe that was already present.

“We’re not forcing new ideas into the story; we’re uncovering elements that were already present in Dragon Ball’s world,” Iyoku explained about the story. “We don’t want to deviate too far from the franchise’s core, but at the same time, we need to innovate to keep things exciting. Finding that balance is the challenge.” But as Dragon Ball Daima comes to an end, fans are looking ahead to the future. Iyoku teased that the franchise would continue but it’s yet to be revealed exactly what is on deck for the series moving forward as of the time of this publication.

How are you liking Dragon Ball Daima? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments!

via Mantan Web [HT – @Venixys on X]