Akira Toriyama’s final work, Dragon Ball Daima, was released last year to commemorate the franchise’s 40th anniversary. The 20-episode series begins a new adventure as Goku and his friends venture into the Demon Realm to collect their Dragon Balls. After Majin Buu’s defeat, peace was restored shortly on Earth, but Gomah, the new king of the Demon Realm, already deemed Goku and his friends a threat after watching their terrifying powers. The first episode commences with a brief recap of the previous events as Gomah and his advisor, Degesu, watch the fight against Babidi, Dabura, and Majin Buu unfold.
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Gomah is content with taking over the throne after Dabura’s death, but he believes he must eliminate any potential threats if he wants to stay in power. However, he can’t use the Dragon Balls in the Demon Realm since they are being guarded by powerful entities known as Tamagami. Hence, they set out to Earth with a horrible conspiracy in mind, but the episode ends on a confusing cliffhanger. Since the anime released weekly episodes, fans had to wait a while before finding out what was truly happening. However, according to a recent commentary by the staff, the first episode’s ending was intentional.
Dragon Ball Daima’s First Episode Was Intentionally Confusing
While fans already knew that the series would follow Goku and the others after they had been turned into children, the debut episode ends on a strange note after Gomah summoned Shenron. The transitions between the characters’ yelling did not give us a clear picture of what was going on, which left many viewers confused. In the Blu-ray box set of the anime, staff members, including Akio Iyoku, Aya Komaki, and Yoshitaka Yashima, share behind-the-scenes commentary about the series’ production. @Venixys on X shared a translated version of the commentary for the first episode.
The translation reveals that the staff spent a long time trying to figure out how to end the debut episode. In fact, when the broadcast was over, they also received reports about fans being confused. However, the cryptic ending was intentionally confusing since it did not reveal the child form of all the characters. Dragon Ball Daima continues after the shocking turn of events, and the journey to the Demon Realm was well-loved among fans with its fair share of plot twists and surprise cliffhangers.
The commentary revealed a lot of interesting information about the series’ production stages, including the fact that the first draft of the script they received from Akira Toriyama was incomplete since he did not know how to conclude the story at the time. The team was also worried about the viewers’ initial reaction since the first episode mostly included recaps and the conspiracy of Gomah and Degesu, the younger brother of Supreme Kai. The episode even introduced Degesu’s genius sister, Dr. Arinsu, but paid very little attention to the main characters. Dragon Ball Daima’s finale leaves room for the story to grow, and according to the commentary, there is more to expect from Toei in the future.
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Image courtesy of Focus Features.
