Episode Information

Episode Summary

Prologue

When seven magic Dragon Balls are collected and the password is recited, a dragon named Shenlong appears to grant the summoner any wish.

Son Goku is an incredible warrior who lived in the mountains as a child, searched for the Dragon Balls while going on many adventures, and grew into adulthood with his new friends.

One day a vicious battle race called the Saiyans arrived on Earth — it seems that Goku was himself a Saiyan that had been sent to Earth as an infant. Saiyans maintain a youthful body for much of their lives.

Throughout his life, Goku continued to face terrifying enemies and overcome these challenges to protect Earth. Now the Earth faces a new threat…

Part A

Within a dark, red-hued, winding setting lies a castle brimming with technology. Inside, two beings — a short one with a staff and one that looks suspiciously like the Eastern Kaiōshin — watch recordings of the battle with Majin Boo on Earth. The duo is in disbelief that Bobbidi actually took over King Dabra and controlled him with magic. The short one asks the other — Degesu — if that isn’t his older brother they see there (referring to Kaiōshin). Degesu scoffs, saying his brother is a nosy upstart as always and thinks of himself too highly as Kaiōshin. Degesu is in disbelief that his brother is helping the mortals.

The two fast-forward and skip around their video recording, next landing on Vegeta — having gained the “Majin” power-up — and lose their minds over such powerful people in the outside world, wondering if they are “Majin”; this cannot be, however, since their ears are round.

The little one is upset that Boo is now seemingly back; Degesu remarks that Bobbidi seems to want to rule “the outside world” plus the Demon Realm and everything beyond! The two are absolutely shocked to see that Dabra was defeated so easily… but this means the small one is now king of the Demon Realm!

They can’t celebrate, though, since obviously Bobbidi’s next target would be them. The two continue to watch, and are surprised to see a Namekian (Piccolo) enter the scene. Next they see Boo seemingly get defeated by Vegeta’s explosion, but Boo quickly regenerates. As they skip around some more, they see the sky goes dark, and then there are Dragon Balls and a dragon! They are surprised to see seven Dragon Balls, specifically. This also doesn’t look like the Porunga they’ve read about. They rewind a little bit, and see Yamcha summoning Shenlong with the standard phrase (“Come out, Shenlong!”), that they’re calling it “Shenlong” instead of “Porunga”, and that the Dragon Balls themselves appear to be easy to gather. What really gets their attention, however, is the fact that Shenlong can grant three wishes! They wonder what happened with Boo, and skip around the recording some more. Yet another shock comes as they watch Boo kill Bobbidi. This is actually a good turn of events for them! As they continue to watch, they see another Namekian (Dende) — this group appears to have escaped to the outside world.

Boo has changed, and they watch Gotenks and Gohan face off against this version of the Majin. The two watch more as Goku uses his Genki-Dama against Boo (now in yet another, smaller form). Boo has actually been completely defeated — this means anyone in their way is gone! The recording is whisked away as Degesu now bows before the new Demon Realm King: King Gomah.

Another character enters the scene: Degesu’s sister, Dr. Arinsu, who is surprised to see Degesu here. Gomah wonders how her research is going; quite splendidly, apparently. She congratulates Gomah on his new position, having been watching in on things herself. She notes that it’s unlike Dabra to go to the outside world, and so it piqued her curiosity. It seems Dabra may have given Dr. Arinsu all the research funding she wanted, but that may no longer be the reality of the situation with him out of the picture. She notes Gomah may want to be careful, considering these people apparently defeated the legendary Majin Boo. If these people were to invade the Demon Realm… Degesu thinks there is no reason for them to come to the Demon Realm, and Dr. Arinsu makes her departure.

Gomah wonders if they’ll truly be all right, though, with these kinds of beings out there. Degesu says Gomah shouldn’t listen to the ramblings of his sister, though — even if they come to the Demon Realm for some reason, they’ll never reach the palace.

Gomah has a plan: they should use the Dragon Balls! Degesu is confused, since three powerful Tamagami guard them. Gomah doesn’t mean the Dragon Balls here in the Demon Realm, though; he means those small ones there on Earth. Degesu asks what Gomah will wish for: since these beings’ power seems based in white magic, a black wish like eliminating them probably won’t take. Gomah’s plan, however, is to make them young! Dr. Arinsu pops in from above to say that this is an ingenious plan, and it would be nice if they made her young as well. By turning them into children, they’ll be harmless. As for a second wish, Gomah wants to get the Evil Third Eye. This was lost during the reign of Dabra’s father, the Demon King Abra. Gomah explains that placing it on the forehead is said to grant unbelievable power, and it was passed down among the Demon Kings. As for a third wish, Degesu wonders if he might get a stab at one. Gomah will consider this request. In the meantime, Gomah tells Degesu to prepare their ship, and that he should bring the Namekian Neva along with him — he’s a little senile, but no-one else knows more about Dragon Balls. As Degesu leaves, what seems to be a small child watches from the shadows…

Part B

As Gomah and Degesu wait at a space ship, an elderly Namekian slowly walks toward them from a distance. Gomah wishes they could use the Dragon Balls right in front of them, but they have the Tamagami guarding them. The Namekian, Neva, thanks the Tamagami for their hard work; one turns and bows. The three of them cram into a ship, but the Namekian smells horrible; he apparently took a shower years ago when he fell in the mud, but that’s it. The ship takes off with Gomah now at the helm as Degesu explains to Neva that they are heading to the outside world, and even though they are not supposed to, he’s handled all the necessary preparations. Gomah says they’re off to see a young Namekian, which seems to pique Neva’s interest.

The ship comes up against what seems to be a giant spaceship fish, which asks them to identify themselves. Gomah introduces himself as the new King Gomah. The fish ship is unimpressed. Degesu speaks aloud the requested PIN of 0493; the giant ship spins around and ultimately relents. The little ship travels into the big ship, and passes through a winding, open space, reappearing alongside a smaller version of the fish-esque ship from before. This new ship confirms they are traveling to the outside world, and asks which universe they are going to specifically; Degesu notes they are departing for Universe 7. The other ship wants a more specific number, and lands on “3” which seems to be closest to Earth. This number seems to be popular lately, as Dr. Arinsu also traveled there earlier. Another doorway through space opens, and the trio are off.

Down on Earth, our heroes celebrate Trunks’ birthday, as well as the Earth returning! Everyone is here at the party. Kuririn asks how old Trunks is; he’s nine, but seems to be a little short still. Goku notes that Saiyans get a growth spurt around 15, which happened with him… but apparently Vegeta didn’t grow so big.

Even Kaiōshin is here at the party! Confusingly, it’s both Kaiōshin and Kibito, separate from each other; they should still be fused from the Potara earrings, shouldn’t they?! It turns out that since the fusion of Goku and Vegeta was seemingly undone after their absorption by Majin Boo, they asked for the same thing. Boo inhaled and spit them out, and they were separated! It seems Boo produces some kind of mysterious gas that can reverse a Potara fusion.

Gohan doesn’t seem to be here; Goku says he’s been distant and studying lately.

Goku wraps up his meal, and asks Vegeta if he wants to train. The two fly away from Capsule Corporation and start going at it.

Up above, Mr. Popo and Dende watch the festivities from the palace. All of a sudden, the spaceship with Gomah, Degesu, and Neva appear above them and land! Dende asks who they are, and Neva is delighted to see a Namekian — he hasn’t seen a fellow Namekian in tens of thousands of years. Dende notices Degesu next and asks if he is one of the Kaiōshin. Degesu denies this, and says they are from the Demon Realm — just like Dende, since his ears are pointy.

Gomah saunters up and demands that the Dragon Balls be brought to him. Dende says he cannot do this, so Gomah tells Neva to do his thing: he’ll extend his life 1,000 years after all if he gathers the Dragon Balls! Gomah says the Demon Realm has its own Dragon Balls, and that Neva is the one who made them long ago. However, he also made terrifying beings called Tamagami that protect the Dragon Balls, so no-one has made a wish for a long time. They heard that Earth had Dragon Balls, which is why they’re here now.

Neva flexes his eyes and begins to glow, extending his hand out over the palace area. His eyes flash; he can tell that a wish has recently been made and that the Dragon Balls have turned to stone. Neva then creates a light blue ball in one hand, which engulfs his whole body before spreading out into seven distinct blasts that shoot off in different directions. Each one finds a stone Dragon Ball and lifts it back up to the palace. Furthermore, it seems Neva can even restore the Dragon Balls to normal ahead of their scheduled time! He waves a hand over the stones, and they turn back to active Dragon Balls. Dende says he will die before sharing the password to use them, but Degesu has a video recording of how it’s done. Dende tries to rush in to stop him, but Degesu lands a chop to the small Namekian; even Mr. Popo is unable (or rather, unwilling) to fight back.

Degesu summons Shenlong! Down at Capsule Corporation, everyone is confused by the sky going dark. The Dragon Balls should still be stones, after all. Kibito and Kaiōshin sense a presence…

Gomah wishes for the ones who fought Majin Boo, and all their friends, be turned into children! Shenlong pauses a moment, and asks for clarification on exactly how young of children. Gomah suggests about first graders, but Shenlong wonders back what about those that are already children…? Gomah thinks that turning them into babies would be fine.

The wish is made! Everyone at the party begins to fall over and writhe in pain… including Goku and Vegeta…!

Episode Notes

• This marks the first TV episode of the Dragon Ball franchise to not feature an opening animation sequence. In addition, the credited opening theme song is not utilized until the end when the episode credits are shown.
• Following the prologue, the episode’s title card appears. Unlike episodes of previous series, the title is not read aloud by a narrator, nor is there any title card music played.
• The episode’s title is taken from the Japanese word for “conspiracy” (陰謀; inbō), which is simply written in katakana in the title as インボウ. The idea of a “conspiracy” (or “plot” or “scheme”) had been used frequently in early promotional material for this series. In contrast to episode titles of previous series, which were typically lengthy and descriptive, Dragon Ball Daima appears to be following a more Western approach of utilizing single-word (or at least just very short) episode titles.
• The flashback of Vegeta’s destruction at the 25th Tenka’ichi Budōkai shows him unleashing a ki blast at Goku, who blocks the attack; the deflected blast then blows up what appears to be an empty wall.
          

  This scene adapts material from original manga chapter 456 and Dragon Ball Z episode 228, where this scene largely happens in the same way, except that the blast hits a portion of the stands with audience members, as shown below.

          

  This of course conveniently ignores the subsequent iconic scene where Vegeta very specifically aims at, blows up, and kills a portion of the actual tournament audience in the stands all of his own accord…

• As “Part A” of the episode concludes and prepares to cut to the commercial break, the Dragon Ball Daima series logo appears in the lower left corner. This is the first instance of the series logo appearing in the episode. When the episode returns from commercial break, the logo remains visible before fading away. No eyecatch animation sequences or musical jingles are used to indicate the commercial break, as has been done in all prior TV episodes for the Dragon Ball franchise. This is perhaps due to the widely speculated understanding that the series was originally developed as a streaming series, where TV commercials would not necessarily be included.
• No ending animation sequence, including an ending theme song, is featured at the end of the episode. Instead, similar to a traditional theatrical film, the episode credits scroll over a solid black background while the opening theme song plays, providing the transition from the end of the episode into the credits.
• Although an ending theme song, entitled “NAKAMA”, had been announced prior to this episode’s initial airing, it was not utilized or credited within the episode.

Timeline

• In chapter 335 of the original series, Trunks says he will be born “about two and a half years from now”, while also noting that the Artificial Humans will attack in three years, on May 12th. With approximately six months between Trunks’ birth and May 12th of the next year, his birthday must be fairly late in the year; likely November. In chapter 433, Trunks is said to be eight years old during the 25th Tenka’ichi Budōkai, which takes place on May 7th, Age 774. Official guidebooks place Trunks’ birth year as Age 766.

  The chronological timeline provided in Daizenshuu 7 notes that the wish to erase the people of Earth’s memories of Majin Boo’s rampage was granted by Shenlong on September 7th, Age 774. This is likely based on Dende’s comments in chapter 469, where he notes that they will be able to use the remaining two wishes in 4 months, as they only used one of the three wishes to return all those killed by Vegeta at the 25th Tenka’ichi Budōkai. However, the narration in chapter 517 notes that this wish actually occurs “half a year later”, which would put the wish to erase the people of Earth’s memories of Majin Boo’s rampage in November, Age 774. It is also shown in this episode that when King Gomah and the others arrive on Earth, the Dragon Balls are still in their inactive stone state, indicating that one year has not yet passed since that date for the Dragon Balls to reactivate (assuming all three wishes were granted).

  Therefore, when Trunks is celebrating his ninth birthday at the beginning of Daima, it appears likely that this is taking place sometime in Age 775. For reference, the events depicted in Dragon Ball Super begin in Age 778.

Character Names

• King Gomah (キング・ゴマー; kingu gomā)
  Possibly takes his name from 開けゴマ (hirakegoma), an archaic way of writing/saying “Open Sesame” in Japanese.
• Degesu (デゲス; degesu)
  From でげす (degesu), an archaic state of being (“to be”) phrase in Japanese. This fits in with previous Kaiōshin-adjacent characters, such as Gowasu and Zamasu.
• Doctor Arinsu (ドクター・アリンス; dokutā arinsu)
  From ありんす (arinsu), an archaic state of being (“to be”) phrase in Japanese. This fits in with previous Kaiōshin-adjacent characters such as Gowasu and Zamasu.
• Neva (ネバ; neba)
  Possibly takes his name from ねばねば (nebaneba) meaning “something sticky”, likely in reference to snails/slugs that Namekians are based on. If this is indeed the name source, “Neba” may perhaps have been a more straightforward spelling choice.
• Warp-sama (ワープさま; wāpu-sama) / Small Warp-sama (小ワープさま; ko wāpu-sama)
  Only named in the end credits, their names simply use the English word “warp” (and then a smaller version of the same thing).
• Abra (アーブラ; ābura)
  Spoken aloud during Gomah and Degesu’s early conversation, Dabra’s father’s name is likely sourced from the same magical phrase: “Abracadabra” (アブラカダブラ; aburakadabura). Another character named “Abra” (アブラ; abura) appears in Toyotarō’s Dragon Ball Heroes: Victory Mission manga series, spelled without the extended first syllable.

Translation & Language

• During the birthday party, Kuririn asks Goku:
  

  神龍に頼んでブウをいいやつってことにして地球に残しちまうんだからな。

  This gets slightly mistranslated and adapted in the simulcast English subtitle translation as:

  You actually asked Shenron to make Buu a good guy and let him remain on Earth.

  Kuririn is stating that Goku had Shenlong make it so that Boo was considered a good guy (not “made” one), and let him stay on Earth — this is likely a reference to the wish that made the world populace forget about his evil deeds.

• Degesu’s reference to what is translated as “mortals” in the simulcast English subtitle translation is 人間 (ningen) in Japanese. While this word more literally just means “humans,” it has historically been used by deities in the series to refer to non-deities — most specifically, as seen with Zamasu in the “Future Trunks arc” of Dragon Ball Super. As such, “mortals” is a reasonable adaptation here. That all said, 人間 has a pretty interesting usage history in the series, referring to Earthling human beings as well as aliens alike!
• Neva and the other Demon Realm characters repeatedly refer to the Namekians as ナメック人 (Namekku-jin or just “Namek People”). This is in contrast to what we read and hear back in the original series most often as ナメック星人 (Namekku-seijin or “People of the Planet Namek”).
  

  At the time of this episode’s debut it remained to be seen if any of these Demon Realm characters know about or have any further insight into a specific origin planet for Namekians; this changed a few episodes later as we received confirmation that they originated from a planet in the Second Demon World. That all said, there is a distinction being made in the Japanese dialogue between Namekku-seijin and Namekku-jin, and this may perhaps be why the simulcast English subtitle translation goes with “Namek” rather than “Namekian” alongside this Japanese verbiage difference.

  It is worth additionally noting that the idea of Namekians coming from another realm altogether first popped up in the “Granolla the Survivor” arc of the Dragon Ball Super manga — this is likely one of Toriyama’s own contributions to the story, and therefore not particularly surprising to see it surface here in Daima.

• Neva states that it has been tens of thousands of years (何万年; nanman’nen) since he has seen other Namekians. The simulcast English subtitle translation simplifies this to “thousands of years”.
• As seen from the splash on the second key visual, Gomah and Degesu hail from the “Great Demon Realm” (大魔界; dai makai); the “Great” (大) part is left out in the official simulcast English subtitles, as if often the case with elaborate titles like “Great Demon King Piccolo”. Dabra is referred to as the king of the “Dark Demon World” or “Demon Realm of Darkness” (暗黒魔界; ankoku-makai) using dialogue from the original series.
• The “Tamagami” protecting the Demon Realm Dragon Balls are written in the closed captions in katakana as タマガミ (tamagami). This is in contrast to what could have been written with kanji with distinct character meanings as perhaps 玉神 (“Ball Gods” or “Orb Guardians”). Since the name is written out phonetically in Japanese, we have preserved this “untranslated” spelling (at least for now?) in our own style guide.
• The “Evil Third Eye” mentioned by Degesu and Gomah is spoken aloud in Japanese and spelled in the closed captions as 魔のサードアイ (ma no sādo ai), with “Third Eye” being English words. This is referred to again as the “Legendary Third Eye” shortly thereafter spoken aloud in Japanese and spelled in the closed captions as 伝説の第３の目 (densetsu no dai san no me). The simulcast English subtitle translation throws in the phrase “Legendary Tertiary Oculus” — perhaps this was a way of avoiding the repetition of saying “Third Eye” again so soon, but there is no basis for this elaboration in Japanese, and “tertiary” in English doesn’t just mean “third” (it means “third in rank” or “third-degree”). If dead-set on Latin, perhaps “Oculus Tertius” would work… but more than anything, it reads oddly similar to a particular Kintoki (Akira Toriyama 2010 one-shot manga) scanlation where it felt like someone looked up Latin words and smashed them together without any regard for proper syntax.

Staff & Cast

• For the most part, voices in this first episode reflect the legacy casting and latest replacements as of the Dragon Ball Kai and Dragon Ball Super television series and subsequent theatrical films. Notable changes, however, include the following:
  • Ryōta Suzuki as Yamcha, replacing original voice actor Tōru Furuya who has stepped down and been replaced from all major voice acting roles
  • Though Yumiko Kobayashi was announced as playing “Kaiōshin (Mini)” for the series, Shin’ichirō Ōta is credited as playing Kaiōshin during this first episode. Ōta has historically been the go-to replacement voice for Kaiōshin whenever original voice actor Yūji Mitsuya has been unavailable, including Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Super. As we learn in the next episode, with the exception of Masako Nozawa, an entirely new voice cast takes over for the Daima-exclusive “Mini” versions of the existing cast.
• Legacy voiced characters in flashback material include (in order of appearance and spoken lines):
  • Son Goku — Masako Nozawa
  • Kaiōshin — Shin’ichirō Ōta
  • Kuririn — Mayumi Tanaka
  • Vegeta — Ryō Horikawa
  • Bobbidi — Bin Shimada (taking over for the original and late Jōji Yanami as of 2014 for Dragon Ball Kai)
  • Majin Boo — Kōzō Shioya
  • Dabra — Ryūzaburō Ōtomo
  • Yamcha — Ryōta Suzuki (newly replacing Tōru Furuya)
  • Shenlong — Ryūzaburō Ōtomo (taking over for the original and late Kenji Utsumi after 2013’s Battle of Gods)
  • Gotenks — Masako Nozawa and Takeshi Kusao
  • Son Gohan — Masako Nozawa
• Legacy voiced characters in new material include (in order of appearance and spoken lines):
  • Trunks — Takeshi Kusao
  • Kuririn — Mayumi Tanaka
  • Kaiōshin — Shin’ichirō Ōta
  • Kibito — Shin Aomori
  • Majin Boo — Kōzō Shioya
  • Bulma — Aya Hisakawa (taking over for the original and late Hiromi Tsuru as of 2018)
  • Dende — Aya Hirano (taking over for the original and late Tomiko Suzuki as of 2009 for Dragon Ball Kai)
  • Mister Popo — Yasuhiko Kawazu (taking over for the original and late Toku Nishio as of 2009 for Dragon Ball Kai)
  • Yamcha — Ryōta Suzuki (newly replacing Tōru Furuya)
  • Shenlong — Ryūzaburō Ōtomo (taking over for the original and late Kenji Utsumi after 2013’s Battle of Gods).
• Legacy characters that appear unvoiced in this episode (within normal scenes, as opposed to just flashbacks on video screens) include: Chi-Chi, Goten, Ox Demon King, Turtle Hermit, Pu’er, Oolong, Piccolo, Maron, Mr. Satan, and Bee.
• Naoki Tatsuta continues as narrator for Dragon Ball Daima, having taken over the role early during the broadcast of Dragon Ball Super from the original and late Jōji Yanami.
• Brand new voiced characters include (in order of appearance and spoken lines):
  • King Gomah — Showtaro Morikubo
  • Degesu — Jun’ya Enoki
  • Doctor Arinsu — Yōko Hikasa
  • Neva — Hiroshi Naka
  • Warp-sama & Small Warp-sama — Ken’ichi Ogata
• This series marks the debut of yet another new composer for the Dragon Ball franchise: Kōsuke Yamashita.
• Animation artist Eru Saida is incorrectly credited in the ending credits as “齊田恵理“, rather than the correct spelling of her name, “齊田恵瑠“. This misspelling has been corrected in the credits listed below.

Animation Alterations

Various scenes were altered in composition, special effects, and/or for content between initial trailers and the final episode broadcast. These include (but are not limited to) the following scenes. The initial trailer scenes are shown below, which you can hover over to view the scene as it was eventually seen within the episode.

• The ki blast effects in the flashback footage of Goku using the Genki-Dama against Boo have been brightened, which overpower some of the underlying animation in the final broadcast.
  
• The underneath view of the various video recordings is composed of entirely different scenes and a slightly different background composition.
  
• The size and spacing of the back and hand rests on Gomah’s chair have been altered.
  
• The composition, sizing, and placement of Goku in the background of Vegeta charging up his blast has been changed.
  
• The right-most Tamagami is holding his weapon in a different hand at a completely different angle.
  
• Scratches on Goku’s forehead during his post-wish transformation have been removed.
  
• Similarly, scratches and even blood on Vegeta’s forehead during his post-wish transformation have been removed. A small amount of blood will later be shown on Vegeta’s forehead during his battle with Tamagami Number Two during episode 11.
  

Episode Credits

All credits listed below are presented as they originally appeared in the episode’s initial Japanese broadcast and international simulcast, although any errors have been corrected to maintain accurate and consistent spellings throughout the site. For more information and a complete listing of the series’ staff, visit the Animation Production Guide.

Cast Credits

The cast credits are traditionally listed in order of character importance within the series or episode. For more detailed information about the series cast, visit the Cast Guide.

Opening Credits

Ending Credits