Dragon Ball Daima: Toriyama's Last Series — and It Turned Out Great

Dragon Ball Daima starts with a premise that sounds like a joke and turns into a tribute.

Akira Toriyama — the creator of Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump, and one of the visual fathers of Dragon Quest — passed away on March 1, 2024, at 68 (the official announcement came a week later, on March 8). Before he left, he had already finished the script, the design, and the creative direction for one last series: Dragon Ball Daima, which premiered in Japan on October 11, 2024.

“Daima” means “tiny” in Japanese. The premise: Goku, Vegeta, and other characters are turned into children by a conspiracy from the demon world. To reverse the spell, Goku sets off for the Demon Realm — a brand-new universe, unlike anything Dragon Ball had explored before — alongside two new characters: Glorio and Panzy.

The result surprises. Instead of another escalation of power levels, transformations, and ki battles, Daima brings back the adventurous energy of the original Dragon Ball — dragon balls, dirt roads, discovery. A tiny Goku exploring an unknown magical world, with the lightness that had been missing from the franchise’s more recent sagas.

The 20 episodes wrapped up on February 28, 2025. The series is available on Crunchyroll, with weekly episodes that also made their way to other streaming platforms in Brazil.

Dragon Ball Daima is canon, fits into the official timeline, and represents something hard to replicate: Toriyama’s final creative vision for the universe he spent his life building. It isn’t perfect — 20 episodes is short for everything the premise suggests. But it’s a gift. And maybe that’s exactly what a farewell should be: small, sincere, and full of the same joy that made the original Dragon Ball a legend.

Creator nostalgia today. Check out our X-Men ’97 review too — another animated series proving the classics still have plenty to say.