Dragon Ball Daima

Episode 15

After seeing things slow down a little too much last week, I'm glad to see that Daima's back to its usual pace, and has given us one of its most action heavy episodes yet. Although when I say “action heavy” I mean more by classic Dragon Ball standards rather than what you'd expect out of Z or Super, as much of it involves Goku and friends fending off mooks in their attempt to storm King Gomah's capital. As such, it doesn't make for some of the most memorable action in Dragon Ball, and while it still largely manages to be fun, it also offers some stuff that I could imagine being a point of contention.

Before we get to that part, though, we do get another interesting lore reveal. As King Gomah throws all his forces at Goku and friends, he notices that one of them happens to be in possession of a powerful item called the Third Eye. This isn't the first time he's brought it up, but it's only now that we learn exactly why he wants it so badly. It used to be wielded by previous Supreme Demon Kings and granted them incredibly powerful magic, but it was lost when Dabura tried to steal it from his father, only for it to go missing during transport. While that still gave Dabura the opportunity to take out his dad and seize power, it came back to bite him later, as without the Third Eye, he was helpless against Majin Buu and ended up being one of his snacks. This is also how we learn that King Gomah was actually Dabura's Vice-Supreme Demon King and only got his current position because he was next in line when Dabura died. While that at least makes his takeover legitimate, it also explains why he's so desperate to deal with any perceived threats. His position is far from secure and we've already seen how dog-eat-dog a lot of the Demon Realm is, so it makes sense he's so deeply paranoid about someone coming after him. Heck, considering that most of his actions have been fairly tame compared to other Dragon Ball villains, I almost pity the guy, but considering how much he's already proven himself to be a tyrant, it's probably a safe bet that he doesn't need to get his hands on the kind of power the Third Eye could provide him.

So who among Goku's crew happens to be the one holding an object of such unfathomable power? Well, Hybis of course! More accurately, he happened to stumble upon it one day and thought it would make for a nice little accessory to put on his belt buckle while being blissfully unaware of what it really is. That's pretty hilarious on its own, but nowhere near as funny as what happens when King Gomah orders Degesu to swipe it from him. Degesu's brilliant idea is to put on a female disguise and offer him a kiss for it, which feels like a gag straight out of early Dragon Ball. Given what we've seen of his personality, I expected Hybis to fall for this immediately, but to my surprise, he was immune to Degesu's advances. Instead, Hybis offers up the eye in exchange for the goofy hat Degesu is wearing as part of the disguise and that's honestly a much funnier punchline. Curiously, though, Degesu doesn't offer up the Third Eye to King Gomah right away, and given that he's the title character for next week's episode, I'm wondering if we're gonna see Degesu pull a last minute backstab, and try using it for himself. Given that Degesu hasn't done much aside from being King Gomah's whipping boy, it would make for a fun twist, and while I can't imagine he'd succeed, I'm sure the attempt would be pretty hilarious.

That brings us back around to this week's big battle scene as it features Goku, Vegeta and Piccolo squaring off against…some goons with laser guns. Once again I'd like to set the record straight that while I've had fun poking at how much this show has scaled down the power levels compared to a lot of recent Dragon Ball media, I do find a lot of the high stakes stuff to be fun, and I get my brain neurons activated by new transformations or big energy beams as much as any other longtime fan of the franchise. Even so, I can't pretend there isn't something weirdly funny about seeing the likes of these three being genuinely threatened by nothing more than a bunch of soldiers with tanks and laser guns. Especially great was seeing Vegeta proudly boast that a Saiyan like him isn't afraid of ray guns, only to get shot down in short order. A little pathetic, sure, but considering a moment like that isn't all that unusual for him, it's hard to get actively upset here. Still, while the stuff we got with the giants a couple of episodes ago at least functioned as good worldbuilding, this does feel a lot closer to actually downplaying how strong these characters usually are. While all of the action here is solid enough, and it is kinda fun seeing them team up with King Kadan's crew to drive back Gomah's armies, I wouldn't blame anyone who wanted to call foul about how some of this played out. If nothing else, I suppose it's another good reminder not to take the power scale of this franchise too seriously, but even with that in mind I am at least kinda hoping that we'll see things dialed back up a bit for the finale so we can see things close out with a lot more of a bang.

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Dragon Ball Daima is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.