Daima is the perfect way to get back into Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball Daima is in a unique position: It’s a brand new Dragon Ball anime for the first time since the debut of Dragon Ball Super in 2015. It’s a sequel to Dragon Ball Z, but a prequel to Super, setting Daima in one of the rare places in the canon where we don’t actually have much information about what Goku and friends were up to. And if you haven’t kept up with Dragon Ball since Z ended in 2003, then the idea of a new series might seem more daunting than exciting. Thankfully Daima’s first couple of episodes are here to help.

The pilot for the new anime debuted last week, and it turns out it’s the perfect jumping on point for lapsed fans of the series. Without delving too far into spoilers if you haven’t checked the show out yet, Daima starts with a thorough recap of the final arc of Dragon Ball Z, including everything about Goku’s fight against Majin Buu, and a pretty good explanation of where Babidi and Dabura fit into the universe of the series. While a recap episode may sound a little boring on its face, Daima adds a proper fun, fresh, and villainous perspective to the events that makes it worthwhile even for devoted DBZ fans.

[Ed. note: The rest of this story contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Dragon Ball Daima.]

Daima’s first episode eschews our regular main characters in favor of focusing on Gomah and Degesu, who seem to be the villains of the new series. Gomah is second-in-line to be king of the Demon Realm, while Degesu is the younger brother of Shin, the Supreme Kai. The pair spend most of the episode watching a recap of the Majin Buu saga of Dragon Ball Z, which they took interest in as soon as they saw that Babidi had somehow taken over the mind of Dabura the Demon King. As they view the events of Dragon Ball Z that fans are surely familiar with, they frequently pepper in comments on things like the power of the characters, cracking jokes every once and awhile. It serves a useful purpose — to both remind the audience of where things stand in the Dragon Ball timeline, and introduce us to this pair of important characters — but it also just feels fun.

Dragon Ball is a universe where a lot has happened over the course of a handful of shows, manga, and universes. At a certain point, it all makes so much sense that it became easy to tune it out. But Daima’s opening puts everything, from Dragon Ball Z power ups to color commentary, back into the text. And introducing this new story by having two new characters watch back some of the iconic events of the show feels both very silly, and like a perfect fit for the Dragon Ball universe.

Once Debura dies, Degesu reminds Gomah that he’s the new king of the Demon Realm, and suggests the pair should do something about Goku and Vegeta before they decide to invade the Demon Realm to prevent it from threatening Earth in the future. Which is where Daima’s real story begins: With our pair of villains already terrified of the Z fighters, thanks to them beating Dabura and Buu, they attempt to reduce their foes’ power a little bit by using the dragon balls to turn them into children.

Episode 2 keeps all this going, showing us how all the main characters react to being turned into children, and sending Goku on a few errands so we can see some of our favorite Dragon Ball characters as adorable children — it even reunites Goku with his nyoibo! But alongside this little bit of fan service, the episode also gives us a much clearer picture of what this plot’s going to be: Goku and Supreme Kai are heading to the Demon Realm to take on Gomah, while the rest of the Z fighters prepare to join him later in the ship that Bulma’s repairing.

All of this is presented as relatively silly and goofy, which seems like the perfect set up for Daima. With all the Z fighters getting turned into young kids, the new series is going for a tone that fits a little closer to the original Dragon Ball than it does to the more serious fights that fans might be used to from Dragon Ball Super. In fact, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama has always been a master of balance silliness with action-packed moments, and since this was the final Dragon Ball project he worked on before his death. And Daima already seems like it’s off to a great start.

New episodes of Dragon Ball: Daima drop on Crunchyroll every Friday at 1 p.m. ET.