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duhragonball · 13 days ago

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Daima 1: Conspiracy

So I don't really want to liveblog this show while it's still ongoing, but I'm not sure how else to describe what I'm doing. What I want to do is delve into the show's characters and plot, and kind of get into what makes it tick. I just saw Episode 4 earlier today, and I just keep finding myself impressed with the way Daima keeps getting story beats so *right*. So maybe if I write about it enough, some of that talent will rub off on me.

To start us off, Episode 1, "Conspiracy", is 32 minutes long, and as far as I can tell, this is done to accommodate a ten minute segment that introduces the audience to the Dragon Ball concept. It's a lot like the opening sequence of Super Hero, but longer and more detailed.

If I hadn't seen it myself, I would be tempted to call this a mistake, because a ten-minute lore dump is pretty tiresome for an audience to sit through, but it turns out to be highly effective here. eight minutes of this is two of the main villains, Gomah and Degesu, watching a highlight reel of the Buu Saga and reacting to all the crazy stuff that happens. This works for the following reasons.

First and foremost, Dragon Ball Z kicks ass. Most movies and TV shows would benefit from having their characters just vegging out and watching about 65 episodes of DBZ in a row. And it's a visual feast, because Gomah has some magic dome with dozen of screens floating all around them, so they can see everything going on, and all of the footage is gorgeously re-animated for this episode. They could have gotten away with using clips from Dragon Ball Kai, but they went the extra mile and made it special.

Second, this is a great way to introduce the villains and demonstrate their relationships with the other characters. As they watch, it becomes clear that Gomah and Degesu know the bad guys. Dabura is their king, Babidi is their enemy who enslaved their king, and Majin Buu is a monster capable of conquering all of creation. They also know the Supreme Kai, because Degesu is his brother, and they don't seem to like him very much. They also recognize Piccolo and Dende as Namekians, as well as the Dragon Balls. Apparently they have that stuff in their own Demon Realm too, but they didn't know the Namekians had left the Demon Realm to settle in the outer universe.

On the other hand, Gomah and Degesu have no knowledge of the Saiyans who fought against Majin Buu. They don't know how Goku and Vegeta transform or shoot light from their hands, and they have no idea how they can be powerful enough to keep challenging Buu and holding their own. Degesu suggests that they might be Majins themselves, except they don't have pointed ears. Apparently Demon Realm races all have pointy ears. The exact distinction between Majins and Demons is still unclear to me, but we'll get into that later, I'm sure.

The point is that it makes sense for Gomah and Degesu to watch all this footage. They knew Dabura had left Demon Realm for a rare trip to the outer universe, but they didn't know why or what happened to him. Then they find out Babidi mind-controlled him into helping with this Majin Buu plan, which is a huge threat to their kingdom. Then Buu kills Dabura and Babidi, and then gets defeated himself by a band of warriors they know nothing about. Oh, and there's Dragon Balls on this one planet and they're easy to use and grant three wishes. Any one of those developments would be huge news in Demon Realm, but Gomah learns about all all four all at once.

That's the key, I think. If you opened "Empire Strikes Back" with eight minutes of the Emperor watching clips from "A New Hope", it would suck, because all he really needs to know is that Luke Skywalker used the Force to destroy the Death Star, and it doesn't take that long to get that information across. Also, his reaction would be pretty muted. At most he'd kind of look irritated or intrigued. Gomah pulls this off because he has a conniption every time something important happens. When Dabura dies he's horrified, then Degesu reminds him he's next in line for Dabura's throne, so he's overjoyed to be the new king, but then he starts panicking again because he knows Babidi will send Buu after him next. It's fun watching him squirm over this eight-minute scene, because he has so much invested in each new development.

To use an example from Dragon Ball, there's an episode of Z where Master Roshi explains the history of the Red Ribbon Army to Maron. It happens some time during the Goku vs. 19 fight, so we're already knee-deep into the Androids Saga. The flashback was probably worth doing just to bring newer viewers up to speed on why Dr. Gero hates Goku so much, but most of the characters in the show already know the story, so there's not really anyone else to tell it to except Maron, a filler character who doesn't care and vanishes from the show soon afterwards. That scene only happened because the anime needed to pad out another episode so the manga could "catch up" to their production schedule. I think fans at the time at least tolerated it as a clip show kind of thing, but it served no purpose aside from keeping the TV show from skipping a week. If they had done that kind of thing for multiple episodes in a row, I think they would have risked losing viewers.

Anyway, the next six minutes of "Conspiracy" show Gomah discussing this new post-Dabura world with Degesu and Degesu's sister, Dr. Arinsu. This sets up the plot. At first, Gomah is bewildered by the events of the Buu Saga, but Degesu assures him that with Buu's defeat, his reign as king is now secure. With Babidi, Buu, and Dabura out of the way, there's no one left to oppose him. But Dr. Arinsu reminds him of the warriors who defeated Buu, and what might happen if they decided to come after Gomah next.

So it looks like these three characters--King Gomah, Degesu, and Dr. Arinsu-- are the main villains of the series. The important lesson here is that they work because they have very different motives and goals. If they didn't, then there would be no need for three villains at all. It could just be one bad guy.

This was something that GT and Super both struggled with back in the day. Lots of fans point to Baby as a highlight of GT, but Baby constantly surrounds himself with Machine Mutants and Tuffellized slaves who basically agree with everything he says. The Super 17 saga featured Dr. Gero and Dr. Mu teaming up to control two versions of Android 17, and all four of them had a single motive to share between them: Kill Goku. The two 17's merged together, and Mu turned on Gero, but it hardly mattered because their agenda was so thin.

Meanwhile in *Super*, Goku Black and Zamasu were literally the same person. This was probably intended to be creepy and weird, and I suppose it did help illustrate Zamasu's narcissistic worldview, but it also limited the possibilities for the story. There was never going to be any dissension between the villains, so every time they talked to each other it was to congratulate themselves on how well they agreed. Then they merged together and it didn't matter, because they were so alike from the start.

The Super movies corrected this problem well. Frieza and Paragus had very different plans for Broly, and Magenta and Dr. Hedo had very different plans for Hedo's creations. There were also characters like Berryblue and Carmine who basically backed up their leaders, but they still had their own personalities. Berryblue liked to press Frieza's buttons a little, and Carmine was a lot less diplomatic than his boss.

In Daima, it goes like this: King Gomah wants to secure his new position as ruler of the Demon Realm. He's weak and he knows it, which is why he seems to receptive to the counsel of Degesu and Arinsu. Meanwhile, Dr. Arinsu depends on the research funding she was getting from King Dabura. Gomah isn't too keen on continuing that funding, so she suggests that he might be in danger from the Z-Fighters. And that convinces Gomah to go to Earth to defeat them first.

This is where the Dragon Balls really shine as a story engine. It sounds so simple that it feels weird to explain it, but you collect all seven balls and you get a wish, so there has to be a discussion about what the characters wish for. Gomah wants to use one wish to neutralize the Z-Fighters, but he'd get two more, which leads him to consider another desire: The Evil Third Eye. We don't find out much about this, except that it's really powerful, and the previous Demon Kings used to have it before it was lost. So it makes a lot of sense for Gomah to want it, since he's all about consolidating his power.

What about Degesu? Well, for the most part he sure seems like he's content to play the faithful advisor. Somehow he wound up working for Gomah, and now that Gomah is king, it seems like his career is really paying off. But while Gomah is considering his third wish, Degesu asks if *he* could get a wish for himself. Gomah says he'll think about it, and we never find out his answer, but it's enough that Degesu asked at all. He must want *something*, and that something must not fit into Gomah's plans, or else Degesu would simply talk Gomah into wishing for it himself.

And that's what makes this trio so interesting. Gomah's pretty much an open book. We know exactly what he wants and why. Degesu wants something, but he's playing a long game, and it might be a while before we find out what it is. And Dr. Arinsu... Well, she wants funding for her research, but I think it's also clear that she wants Gomah to go to Earth and set this story into motion. How does that get her funding approved? And why didn't she just go to Earth and try to use the Dragon Balls to make her own wishes? Very mysterious.

The funny thing is that these three could easily be described like they were some fan OC's. "Hey, here's my cool villain team. Their leader is Dabura's son maybe, and the other two are the Supreme Kai's brother and sister, so they're like Kai's, but they're *Dark Demon Kais* and they're evil." It just goes to show that every character is somebody's OC. What sets the good ones apart is the personality and motives you give them. Stop worrying about power scaling and what color their auras are, and start thinking about what they want and how their goals conflict with other characters' goals.

Once Gomah is ready for his trip, he brings along Neva, an ancient Namekian who is apparently the only one who didn't leave the Demon Realm to settle in the outside universe. Neva created the Demon Realm's set of Dragon Balls, but he also set up powerful guardians called Tamigami to protect them. So no one in the Demon Realm can actually use the Dragon Balls to get a wish. This vexes Gomah to no end, but he figures he can still make use of Neva's abilities to exploit the Earth's Dragon Balls.

As it turns out, Neva has the power to immediately locate Dragon Balls, even when they're stones. He can also summon them together instantly, and on top of that, he can force them to reactivate for an immediate wish. So he's a pretty impressive guy. Dende can't even stop them, because his only leverage here is that he knows the Dragon's name is Shenron, except Degesu took notes during their viewing of Buu Saga, so he already knows how to summon the Dragon.

And that sets up the big wish to make Goku and the others into children. Gomah reasons that the Earth's Dragon would never be able to grant a wish for murder, so he figures the next best thing is to make Goku and his friends small children instead. This way they'll be weaker and easier to deal with. And that's the part everyone knew going into this show. The first episode closes with that de-aging scene, which is pretty impressive to me. We all knew it would happen, so it seems like a weak cliffhanger, but it works because the beginning and middle of the episode sets it up so well. We now know how and why the gang got turned into children, and we also know that there's more to this than just making another wish to undo it.

The stakes aren't entirely clear yet. Gomah seems like he'd be content to reign over the Demon World unchallenged, but if he could defeat the guys who beat Majin Buu, if he could obtain the Evil Third Eye, then maybe he might consider picking up where Babidi left off. With no one to oppose him why can't he conquer the outside universe for himself? And there's still the question of what Dr. Arinsu is planning behind the scenes. Oh, and maybe Neva is more than the senile Namek that he appears to be. So there's a lot to unpack. Oh, and also some blue guy was spying on Gomah when he cooked up this whole plot, so we'll have to find out what his whole deal is.

There's other stuff to talk about in this episode, like the timeline placement, Kibitoshin getting unfused early, and that shot of mpreg Goku with his polycule, but like I said, I don't want to do a whole thing on this show while it's still airing. For now, I'm just basking in the glow of this unfolding plot.

#dragon ball #dragon ball daima #spoilers #king gomah #degesu #dr arinsu #neva #goku #vegeta #bulma #chi chi

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