Dragon Ball DAIMA Starts Delivering on Early Promises

Key Takeaways

• Improved episode with actual progress finally made in plot development, delivering on earlier promises.
• Humorous moments include Goku needing to use the bathroom, typical of Toriyama’s writing style.
• New antagonist, Glorio, is revealed to potentially have unclear motivations, hinting at potential conflicts and challenges ahead.

The following contains spoilers for Dragon Ball DAIMA episode 6, “Lightning” available to stream on Crunchyroll and Netflix.Dragon Ball DAIMA has been a huge disappointment for fans of the Dragon Ball franchise thus far. From episodes that wander aimlessly, to a lack of the classic characters being around, to an antagonist who has largely been off-screen since first being introduced, the series has been more of a chore to watch than it has been fun.

It has been said that this series has been repeating the worst mistakes of Dragon Ball GT, and that has largely been true, resulting in a series that is in serious danger of becoming another black stain on the Dragon Ball franchise. We now arrive on episode 6 of the show (a little more than a third through the rumored 20-episode series). Is this the one where things turn around? Is this where the series starts to get better?

Previously On…

With Goku and friends having saved their new companion Panzy, she decided that she wanted to help them and introduced everyone to her father. While he was thankful to them for saving his daughter (even suggesting that Goku would make a good husband for her), he was shocked to learn that they were planning to gather the three Dragon Balls that were being guarded by the planet’s legendary warriors, as no one had ever managed to do that before.

Goku feels confident though: if there were only three people to beat up, then doing so should be easy. After showing off his strength in a trial fight (where he finally masters Super Saiyan in his child form), the king gives the group a ship and Panzy officially joins them (this time with welcome arms by everyone involved).

No One Pays Attention to Flight Regulations

Would it be appropriate to sigh and complain that the first conflict the group has after getting a new ship is to have said ship break down because they packed too much stuff for it to fly safely? Granted, that means that this is an easy problem to fix, as all they have to do is unweight the plane a bit and then have Panzy recalibrate the engine, but we just spent more than half the show trying to get this thing. Is the group being grounded due to engine problems really exciting enough that we have to spend more time on the ground complaining about the lack of travel options?

Goku Needs to Go…BAD!

In typical Toriyama fashion though, this grounding is a good excuse to make jokes about one of the late author’s favorite topics: poop. Goku suddenly needs to go to the bathroom and (after being scolded for not going while they were at the castle) has a roll of toilet paper thrown in his face so that he can go do his business (this will lighten the load in a couple of ways). Goku has always been a child at heart, and him being back in his child body does make jokes like these a bit easier to “digest”.

As far as I know, [Goku is] the strongest in the universe.

Security Guards Show Up to Ruin the Fun…AGAIN

While Goku is out doing what we can only assume is a Super Saiyan-number two, the rest of the group have been discovered by roaming a roaming Gendarmerie plane. The group has been discovered by what essentially amounts to roaming security guards. The men inside ask the group if they’ve seen a “kid with spiky black hair.” When all three feign ignorance, the men tell them that if they have information on Goku it is worth ten gold coins and leave. Goku reemerges from his business a second after they leave, where we find out that his hair is too resilient to tie into a ponytail (and worse: the savior of the world doesn’t care too much about proper hygiene).

Are We Having Fun Yet…?

Alright, so most of that probably sounds pretty darn boring, but there is good news: this is EASILY the best episode of the show that has been released to date! No joke, this episode finally starts delivering on some of the promises that the first couple episodes teased at. After the group takes off again, we find out about the birth of Kaioshin and how his species work, showing that Toriyama was serious when he said that he had a backstory for every character in this franchise.

We also find out that Glorio – the mysterious traveling companion whose motives have thus far been unknown – IS there for a reason (and his motivations are likely not pure or noble)! We also get a sense of his power as he and Goku fight to figure out who’s going to fight a giant cow who wants to eat them for breakfast (the cow starts to feel like he is being ignored in all of this). And yes, there is finally some real progress on more of the Z Fighters coming to join the journey after being teased in the intro and outro for several episodes now.

Degesu is very ambitious and didn’t get along with other Glinds.

Technically speaking, there is still much we as an audience don’t know, but it was nice to watch an episode that had some substance and movement as opposed to one where it seemed like the trio was just loafing around with pointless subplots. Hopefully the next episode won’t waste the momentum this one established, as Dragon Ball DAIMA has not exactly been great so far, and it would be nice for the show to finally make good on the promising start a couple of months ago.