What Does Daima Mean? Decoding the Latest ‘Dragon Ball’ Series Title!

After a long wait, Dragon Ball is finally back with a completely new anime series – Dragon Ball Daima. The series will, as far as we know, premiere in Fall 2024, and while details are still scarce at the moment, we know some important details. Aside from the fact that Toriyama himself is working on the project, it has been revealed that Goku and the Z-Fighters have been turned back into children once again, which means that we are going to see Kid Goku once again, but this time with better animation and better fights, for sure. And while the plot is an enigma in itself, we are going to explore what the “Daima” in the title actually means.

“Daima” is a made-up term that Toriyama translates as “Evil”

When we write articles that actually explain the meaning of a word or a title, we usually have a certain structure that we follow, but this article will be an exception, as we actually do have an official explanation of the title written by the author himself; usually, we don’t have such a straightforward explanation, so we have to analyze the phrase and the kanji individually, but this time, Toriyama has been kind enough to provide us with the following explanation:

“Hello. I’m Akira Toriyama.

I’m currently working on a new Dragon Ball.
The title is “Dragon Ball DAIMA”.

“DAIMA” is a made-up term, which in Japanese characters would be “大魔” or in English would be something like “Evil.”

Due to a conspiracy, Goku and his friends are turned small.
In order to fix things, they’ll head off to a new world!
It’s a grand adventure with intense action in an unknown and mysterious world.
Since Goku has to make up for his petite size, he uses his Nyoibo (Power Pole) to fight, something not seen in a long time.

I came up with the story and settings, as well as a lot of the designs.
I’m actually putting a lot more into this than usual!

Things will unfold that close in on the mysteries of the Dragon Ball world.
Hope you all enjoy these different-from-usual battles that are cute and powerful!!“
— Akira Toriyama

(Source)

As you can see, we have bolded the most important part of Toriyama’s message, which explains the title’s meaning. As you can see, “Daima” is a made-up phrase (all phrases are, but you get the gist), and in kanji, it would be written as 大魔, which reads “Daima” when you simply read it like that. 大 is the kanji for big or great (read dai in phrases), while 魔 is a kanji that can mean either a demon or magic (and is read ma in phrases).

And while Toriyama himself stated that “Daima” is best translated as “Evil,” which does make sense in that aspect, the literal translation would be either “Great Demon” or “Great Magic,” both of which make sense and are aligned with Toriyama’s interpretation of the term.

So, what does this mean? Well, probably that “Daima” won’t have such a deeply-rooted importance as we might think, and that it is merely a reference to the plot, probably the villain, and the overall tone that the series will have. On top of that, the series is probably going to be written in katakana – like this: ドラゴンボールDaima(ダイマ) – which will further erase any importance from the title, but we do agree that it is always good to know more, and we’re actually happy that Toriyama has provided us with enough information on the series’ title so that we don’t have to wonder what it is going to be about.

And that’s the story of the title. We have analyzed every known and unknown detail for you, so you can now relax and wait until next fall when the series is going to premiere and when we are finally going to find out if the title has any major meaning or not.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments below!