Thanks for tuning in! Nice to finally talk about the series to an extent, clarify some information, and put to bed a bunch of half-assed rumours. Excited to see Daima in full!
To summarise some tidbits I mentioned:
- The ep count is unknown, not even animators know the length
- The series does not feature flip-flopping multiple art styles, the shift from classic Z to modern Toriyama occurs when they are de-aged in ep 1
- Ep length is standard 24 mins
- While the concept of de-aging the characters sounds like GT on paper, it's not that at all. The series is very much in the vein of the JRPGs Toriyama has been involved in such as Dragon Quest and Blue Dragon
- The other two major characters weren't revealed interestingly
- It's correct that Nakatsuru is the character designer for the show, but unlike recent efforts where he only provided designs for a series, he will be contributing with corrections too.
- Aya Komaki is not the sole series director. Yoshitaka Yashima is the primary series director. He was a solo animator on DBS mainly, but provided a great deal of storyboards to the show which were solid. To the best of my knowledge, this is his debut in the role.
- Art Direction is from Takahashi Kurahashi who you will know as the art director on the 2008 Yo Son Goku OVA. You got a glimpse at some of the stunning backgrounds in the trailer.
- Colour Design is from Rumiko Nagai who also did the colour work on DBS Broly and Super Hero. We seem to be free of bad colour design in new projects - Nagai has been consistently great.
- Some of the chief animation supervisors include: Chikashi Kubota, Naohiro Shintani, Yuya Takahashi, Takeo Ide, and Miyako Tsuji. Pretty much an all-star line-up for a show that is heavily focused on art consistency.
- Production began at the tail-end of 2021, with Toei creating a pilot in early 2022 for Toriyama and Shueisha to approve. Full staff were recruited in April 2022 with animation starting properly in October that same year when DQ Dai ended.
- You can expect all the major players from Dragon Quest Dai to make an appearance as key animators. The emphasis is on hard-to-hard combat and traditional weapons rather than on ki blast spam. Don't hold your breath for DBS transformation stuff especially.
- While it's true that the series is aimed at a younger audience, there will still be dramatic moments. Production documents state Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer as sources of inspiration, though it's unclear in quite what sense.
- The scope of the series grew over during the production, with many people's time on it being extended beyond their initial agreements. Its release format isn't 100% anymore, and the mainline DBS TV series is on the backburner for now.
- They weren't kidding when they said this is the most Toriyama has been involved. He and Shueisha went as far as checking actual cuts of animation to ensure they best matched his vision. Not just scripts and design this time!
- The last minute name change they noted also was no joke! Dragon Ball Magic was on settei updated as recently as last week. It has always had "provisional" written on it though.
That's everything I can say for now! Having seen some other cuts not shown in the trailer, I can at least attest to the fact the visuals keep up pretty deep into the show. It is STUNNING. Can't wait!
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