Dragon Ball Daima Is Already Avoiding Dragon Ball GT’s Worst Mistakes

Dragon Ball DAIMA won’t be released until 2024, but it’s already avoiding Dragon Ball GT’s worst mistakes. As soon as DAIMA was announced, people noted its obvious overlap with GT due to it being another Dragon Ball story that has Goku being turned back into a child. Very little is known about the overall story, but that basic comparison has already served to make DAIMA divisive among people.

The overlap between Dragon Ball DAIMA and Dragon Ball GT is impossible to ignore, but right off the bat, DAIMA is already avoiding the worst mistakes of GT. In addition to using the premise of Goku being a kid again in a much more effective way, the overall story and production of the series provide far more to look forward to than anything given by GT.

With that in mind, DAIMA is all but guaranteed to not run into the same issues as GT, and if it keeps to that upon its release, it will be remembered as a far more worthwhile entry into the Dragon Ball franchise.

Dragon Ball DAIMA Makes GT’s Gimmick Actually Relevant

The first big way that Dragon Ball DAIMA is avoiding Dragon Ball GT’s mistakes is by making the gimmick of Goku being turned into a child truly relevant and impactful for the story. Even though Goku being turned into a child was the main premise of GT, it never factored into the story, and aside from the first time he used Super Saiyan 3, his strength was never impacted by the transformation. With DAIMA, however, not only does the story explicitly revolve around Goku trying to get back to normal, but he’s explicitly weaker as a child (as proven by the fact he has to use his staff again), so unlike GT, there are genuine stakes and consequences of Goku being a kid again.

Adding onto that is how Goku isn’t the only one to be turned into a child in Dragon Ball DAIMA. All of Goku’s friends and family have been turned into children, so that adds a genuine sense of urgency to the story as Goku, no longer the only one turned into a child, doesn’t have the luxury of just ignoring it as he did in Dragon Ball GT. With all of that taken into account, it’s clear that DAIMA has far more planned for GT’s gimmick beyond tapping into nostalgia for the original Dragon Ball, and that should add a lot to its overall story.

Dragon Ball DAIMA Can Fix Dragon Ball GT’s Villain Problem

Continuing with the idea of better stakes, another advantage Dragon Ball DAIMA will have over Dragon Ball GT is making its villains feel like credible threats. While the first main villain of GT, Baby, was challenging and intimidating in his own right, the villains fought before him were rarely ever a challenge. The same could be said with the Shadow Dragons, as only the final three posed a real threat to Goku, so it was always hard for GT to sell the seriousness of each arc until the very end. The trailer of DAIMA, however, already shows a villain who is in league with a Supreme Kai, and is probably responsible for turning the heroes into kids as part of a grander scheme. Thus, DAIMA can sell the seriousness of its story far sooner than GT could and be far more engaging from the start.

Dragon Ball DAIMA Has Akira Toriyama’s Full Involvement

Another way in which Dragon Ball DAIMA will avoid Dragon Ball GT’s mistakes is by having Akira Toriyama fully involved. One of the biggest points of contention about GT stems from how Toriyama had little involvement with it, beyond providing the design of some characters, and even then, he wasn’t even the one behind the iconic Super Saiyan 4 transformation. By comparison, Toriyama himself announced that he is heavily involved in the production of DAIMA. He came up with the story and setting, so not only can people expect a story with better quality control than GT, but they can also expect something that’s far more consistent with Dragon Ball’s overall style.

The idea of Akira Toriyama’s involvement being a boon on production, of course, has a decade’s worth of precedent. Ever since Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, Toriyama has been directly involved in the production of every major installment of the franchise, and while they haven’t been without their problems, they’ve all exhibited a greater level of consistency and overall quality than Dragon Ball GT and other projects Toriyama didn’t work on. Dragon Ball DAIMA can be expected to have that same level of dedication to its production, and that can serve to give it a big advantage over Dragon Ball GT.

Dragon Ball DAIMA Has Less Pressure To Succeed Than Dragon Ball GT

The final way Dragon Ball DAIMA avoids Dragon Ball GT’s mistakes is by having far less pressure on it to succeed. Another problem with GT was that, before Dragon Ball Super was even conceived, GT was the grand finale to Dragon Ball. Fans of Dragon Ball were of course sad when it ended, so they looked at GT with great hope. This meant that Toei’s anime not only had to deliver a finale that was better than Toriyama’s own, but it also had to close one of the most popular franchises in the world. Considering how controversial Dragon Ball GT‘s finale was, the idea that Dragon Ball was meant to end with a show that failed to live up to expectations caused GT’s criticisms to be further intensified.

However, from what little has been revealed, it seems that DAIMA is taking place after the battle with Kid Buu and before the start of Dragon Ball Super, which is still running and continuing the “main” story of the franchise. This means that Dragon Ball DAIMA is likely meant to be viewed as a lighthearted, self-contained story while the main story continues in other avenues. As such, if people don’t like DAIMA, then that won’t have a major effect on how people perceive it and the wider franchise like Dragon Ball GT did for so many years, so unlike GT, DAIMA is essentially free to do whatever it wants with its story.

With how big of a franchise Dragon Ball is, any new entry is bound to be held under scrutiny from the moment it’s announced, so it’s no wonder that Dragon Ball DAIMA has already had to deal with that. Even so, with the way its story and production are being handled, at the very least, the new series is starting in a far better place than Dragon Ball GT did, so it’s unlikely to be anywhere near as contentious a series. That’s probably the most basic element any Dragon Ball fan could hope for, and even just that leaves a lot to look forward to with Dragon Ball DAIMA’s release in 2024.