Akira Toriyama died in March 2024, months before the first episode of Dragon Ball DAIMA aired. The series he left behind ran for 20 episodes on Fuji TV and its FNS affiliates, from October 11, 2024 to February 28, 2025. It is the second and last animated Dragon Ball story he conceived himself.
That fact hangs over every frame. It also makes the show’s central joke — heroes shrunk to toy size, forced to solve a cosmic problem at knee height — land harder than it has any right to.
Trailer, via 東映アニメーション公式YouTubeチャンネル.
Goku Wakes Up Small
The premise is simple and cruel. Goku and his friends are mysteriously transformed into mini versions of themselves. To fix it, they travel to the Demon Realm to uncover the truth and find a cure.
That is the whole engine of the season. No tournament bracket, no escalating power ceiling. Just a group of fighters who have spent decades punching above their weight, suddenly unable to reach the top shelf.
DAIMA sets itself after the Majin Buu Saga from Dragon Ball Z, before the 10-year timeskip that follows it. That gap matters. It means the show is not a reboot, not a sequel to Dragon Ball Super, and not a side quest bolted onto a finished story. It is a pocket of time the franchise had never opened.
The Demon Realm Is the Best New Place in Dragon Ball
The Demon Realm gives the series its own weather. It is not another green sky with a different filter.
It is a realm with its own rules, its own residents, and its own politics. The show treats it as a place rather than a backdrop, which is more than several previous Dragon Ball arcs managed.
The mini transformation is the smartest mechanical choice here. It strips the cast of scale without stripping them of skill. Goku can still fight. He just cannot loom.
A Toei Production With a Toriyama Spine
Toei Animation produced the series. Fuji Television and its FNS affiliates carried it in Japan, across a long list of regional broadcasters that includes Tokai Television, Kansai TV, Fukui TV, Hokkaido Cultural Broadcasting, Iwate Menkoi Television, TOS, Sendai Television, SAGA TV, Ishikawa TV, TNC, OHK, Kochi Sun Sun Broadcasting, Television Shin Hiroshima System, TV Shizuoka, UMK TV Miyazaki, NST, NBS, Sakuranbo TV, TSK, Ehime Broadcasting, KTS, Fukushima TV, AKT, Toyama Television, TV Kumamoto, Okinawa Television Broadcasting and KTN.
That is a full national rollout, not a niche slot. Twenty episodes across one season, October to February, no split cour, no hiatus.
What DAIMA Is Up Against
Dragon Ball has a long animated history. DAIMA is the sixth televised animated installment in the franchise. It is also the second and last to carry a story Toriyama conceived directly for it.
Here is how the recent animated entries stack up on the facts we have.
| Series | Story conceived by Toriyama | Episode count (this run) | Aired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dragon Ball DAIMA | Yes | 20 | Oct 2024 – Feb 2025 |
| Dragon Ball Z (Buu Saga era) | Source material, manga | — | — |
| Dragon Ball Super | — | — | — |
The table is thin on purpose. DAIMA’s distinction is not its length or its timeslot. It is authorship. Toriyama built this story, and then he was gone before anyone saw it.
The Score Is Not a Surprise
Rotten Tomatoes lists Dragon Ball DAIMA at 100%, a 10.0/10 critical score. That is a perfect number, and perfect numbers are usually a sign that the sample is small or the audience is self-selecting.
Both are probably true here. Dragon Ball fans are not neutral observers. Neither are critics who grew up on the franchise. A 100% score on a legacy sequel is a statement about affection as much as craft.
But the affection is earned. DAIMA does not coast. It builds a new setting, commits to a new physical limitation for its cast, and refuses to undo the premise in episode three.
Where the Season Actually Moves
Twenty episodes is a tight run for a Dragon Ball story. DAIMA uses its length like a limited series, not a syndication order.
The genre tags tell you what to expect: Animation, Action & Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy. All five are present and none of them feel bolted on. The comedy comes from the size gap. The adventure comes from the Demon Realm. The sci-fi and fantasy come from the transformation itself, which is never explained away as a gag.
Goku and his friends are the cast. The show does not introduce a new protagonist to carry the weight. It trusts the existing ensemble to be interesting at a smaller scale, and that trust pays off.
The Part Worth Arguing About
DAIMA’s biggest risk is that it is a side story. It sits between two known points in the timeline. Anyone watching knows how the Majin Buu Saga ends and knows the 10-year timeskip is coming. The show cannot surprise you with where the characters land.
So it has to surprise you with how they get there. The Demon Realm, the cure hunt, the mini bodies — these are the how. And the how is where Toriyama’s handwriting shows.
This is the part worth watching. Not the power levels, not the nods to Dragon Ball Z. The show is at its best when it treats being small as a real problem rather than a punchline.
A 10.0 That Holds Up
Dragon Ball DAIMA earns its 10.0/10. Not because it is flawless — no 20-episode anime is — but because it does the one thing a legacy sequel rarely manages. It adds something to the franchise instead of reheating it.
The Demon Realm is a real addition. The mini transformation is a real constraint. The Toriyama authorship is real, and it is the last of its kind.
Toriyama died shortly before the series released. That is not a reason to inflate the score. It is a reason to pay attention to what he chose to leave as his final animated story: not a grand finale, not a passing of the torch, but a small adventure about small heroes in a place nobody had bothered to show us before.
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