Dragon Ball Daima Gave New Life to DBZ’s Most Underrated Form

Dragon Ball Daima was Akira Toriyama’s final project, which launched its lauded run last year, a few months after his death. The story is set six months after the Buu Saga, when Goku and his friends defeated Majin Buu, the biggest threat the Earth had faced so far. Unfortunately, Gomah, the new king of the Demon Realm, after Dabura’s death, saw their powers and concluded they would be a threat to him. Out of fear, he traveled to Earth and used the Dragon Balls to turn them into children before taking Dende with him. Goku and the others soon follow suit and go to the Demon Realm.

Not only are they weakened in their child form, but they have to explore an unknown world in hopes of getting back to normal and saving Dende. The 20-episode series follows their adventure as they fight enemies during their search for the Demon Realm’s Dragon Balls. Amid those fights, Goku and Vegeta reveal their Super Saiyan 3 forms, that was introduced in Dragon Ball Z over 30 years ago. Although Chapter 474, “The Limit!! Super Saiyan 3,” was released in 1994 in Japan, it made its global appearance in 2006 in Weekly Shonen Jump. Unlike the first time we saw this form, Dragon Ball Daima gave it new life.

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Super Saiyan 3 Was Underwhelming in Dragon Ball Z Unlike in Daima

The only time Goku used SSJ3 in Dragon Ball Z was when he had to stall Majin Buu in the Buu Saga. Considering Toei’s pacing, it took several minutes for Goku to power up, and even then, he couldn’t fight for long. Considering Buu’s childish nature, Goku believed that it would be a good trick to distract the villain, and it worked. Unfortunately, Toriyama didn’t have the opportunity to develop this transformation further. Even Vegeta, who is usually one step behind Goku, didn’t achieve this transformation since the story ended shortly after that.

By the time Dragon Ball Super was released, SSJ3 was more or less forgotten or just rarely mentioned. Fans were focused on Super Saiyan God and Ultra Instinct, which introduced new and exciting forms that took over the internet. Fans slowly phased out SSJ3, and it became one of the least discussed transformations in the show, especially since it featured among some of the worse-animated moments, on top of other forms rendering it obsolete.

Compared to that, Dragon Ball Daima was able to adapt this old form with clean new animation to give it the proper amount of gravitas unlike in Z, which mostly focused on a lot of the form’s drawbacks. It easily drained Goku’s energy, and he couldn’t even maintain that form for long. Compared to that, Daima showed him fighting in SSJ3 without highlighting those drawbacks. Not only that, but the show even featured Vegeta in that form, which fans have been waiting for years to see. Whether future Dragon Ball projects will give similarly great glimpses at SSJ3 is too hard to say, but at the very least, Daima gave fans what they were craving with this form, if only for a short while.