English Dub Review: Dragon Ball Daima “Panzy”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Goku and friends meet Panzy, the little demon girl who they helped previously, and her father, King Kadan.

OUR TAKE

We’re back with another Daima Friday and it has dawned on me that these reviews are gonna feel pretty lethargic for at least the next few weeks as we wait for something big to happen. That something big is on its way, thankfully, which I know from watching ahead and being up to date with the subs, but in the meantime we’re just gonna have to spin our wheels talking about the miniscule progress being made. In this case, we meet Panzy, who will round out this rag tag group of weird demons…and Goku, while Kadan’s attendant Hybis goes to get Vegeta, Bulma, Piccolo, and Kibito. And I think the issue I have here is that this is just where my usual writing tastes and Toriyama’s writing style just chafe against each other, because by this point in the fifth episode of something, I’m hoping to be either learning more about these characters or see something interesting happen as they explore the world. And this Third Demon World has not proven to be a very interesting place, being just rocks for as far as the eye can see and having worldbuilding that I almost instantly forget. Not to mention Goku is not exactly going to go through some major character development in this show, so all that is left to the newer characters and Shin, who are…not the most compelling.

I don’t want this and the next few weeks of reviews to boil down to “trust me guys it gets so much better”, though I fear that may be what ends up happening. Daima’s first third is, simply put, not very well paced, and there will also be a handful of episodes that will drag a bit as well, but…yeah, trust me guys, it gets considerably better. As of this writing, there are three episodes remaining in the twenty planned that have yet to air, and things have escalated rather significantly. With that in mind, it’s a lot easier to deal with the more sloggy parts that we’re dealing with in the dub at the moment, but for viewers only watching the dub, I couldn’t blame them for feeling underwhelmed or considering falling off in order to binge it later. But I don’t have that luxury, so all I can tell you is, yeah, it does indeed get better. However, this episode specifically is contradicting that. But seriously, stick with it!