Change is hard to accept when you can't reconcile long-standing feelings with current reality. Trust me, I was like most critics when Word first came out in October 2023 Dragon Ball Daima's upcoming release. It was a difficult pill to swallow after waiting five and a half years since then Dragon Ball SuperThe epic tournament of power is complete, our re-entry into weekly Dragon Ball Anime episodes would be with Goku and the gang as kids…again! However, after reluctantly watching the first few episodes, I quickly realized I was wrong, and so were you all.
In 2025 that's cool Dragon Ball series and for good reason. The combat animations are not as meticulously choreographed as in Attack on Titan or Jujutsu KaisenPresent And the animators usually hide this fact by making it seem like they're fighting too quickly for us to even fully understand the action. Much Dragon Ball Super focused on the ever-changing power dynamics under transformations that cheapened the tension by simply making a random transformation (Super Saiyan Blue Evolved? WTF?). Goku is an idiot, Gohan is annoyed, and Vegeta keeps losing everything. For this reason Always turns off all that noise.
In just 15 wonderfully animated episodes, the latest series has given back the Dragon Ball franchise to its roots. Goku's Super Saiyan transformation used to be a rare goo that conveyed the legendary status of his power. Only in the fifth episode of Always That Goku briefly undergoes the golden transformation to dispatch King Kadan's soldiers, and he only reverted to this form a few times in the 10 episodes that followed. Instead, the series prioritized hand-to-hand combat (with a little power pole action) to ground the fantastical performances in some form of reality. The anime also reversed everyone when Vegeta revealed his Super Saiyan 3 transformation in episode 12 to win the Dragon Ball from Tamagami Number Two. This one moment not only made a big mistake in the Dragon Ball series (Vegeta really has Kakarot and Gotenks SSJ3 going, but not him?), but it let it be known that the Dragon Ball Canon was open to revision Always.
The fight choreography is also some of the best the franchise has had since Broly's master class duel with Goku and Vegeta Dragon Ball Super: Broly 2018 film. Goku dodges Tamagami number three's Ki Blasts, only to land destabilizing kicks to the legs and avoid Tamagami's Thor-like hammer knocking him away before using his power bar to break the handle in one Movement brought literal tears to my eyes. The fights in Always Feel like they have real stakes and aren't just throwaways to fill time and entertain people with dazzling Ki bubbles.
The story also does a great job of expanding on that Dragon Ball Z Bows that we love without venturing into polarization Dragon Ball Super stories. Let the record show Dragon Ball Super is wildly underrated and the Tournament of Power is arguably the greatest story arc in the entire history of Dragon Ball. That being said, Super sometimes delved too deeply into the gods who control everything. The fused Zamasu vs. Vegito Blue was too amazing that it was solved by the newly introduced Zeno, the god of all, to simply depose the villains from existence. Dragon Ball Daima Taking on the fan-favorite Buu saga and expanding on it without negating what happened in it has been done exceptionally.
Sure, Goku is still an idiot and not as stoic as he is when he faces off against Zelle or Frieza Dragon Ball Z Most episodes focus more on exploration than combat. But with the introduction of compelling characters like Glorio, Dr. For Arinsu and Pany, the journeys around the newly explored demon worlds feel less like a quest and more like excavations on one Dragon Ball The past was under our noses all along. We can only have one more month Always in front of his Season finaleSo I implore all of you, lovers and haters alike, to have an honest watch of this fantastic series and then take an honest look in the mirror because it's time to own up Always is exactly what that is Dragon Ball Franchise needed and deserved.
