Warning: Contains spoilers for Dragon Ball Daima.Throughout the entirety of Dragon Ball Daima’s run, the biggest hang-up people have had about it has been its relationship to Dragon Ball’s canon. Taking place a year after the Majin Buu saga, Daima, on the surface, would fit very cleanly into canon, but certain story elements blatantly contradict Dragon Ball Super without ever being explained, which has been annoying for anyone wanting a more uniform narrative from Dragon Ball.

The contradictions between Dragon Ball Daima and Dragon Ball Super are impossible to ignore, and by the end of its run, people were calling it an alternate timeline at best and non-canon, at worst. While it’s understandable that people would be upset about things like that, not only does it ignore Dragon Ball’s long history with its specific approach to canon, but anyone who watched Dragon Ball Daima while actively thinking about how it worked into canon was missing out on one of Dragon Ball’s best stories in years, and overall, that’s disappointing to think about.

How Dragon Ball Daima Contradicts Dragon Ball Super’s Canon

Dragon Ball Daima's Weird Relationship With Canon

Dragon Ball Daima’s relationship with canon is a major issue to some, and that doesn’t come from nowhere. For starters, Dende is depicted as a child instead of an adult, and while it’s not the first time that’s happened, it’s nonetheless egregious. More than that, though, is how Kibito Kai used Majin Buu’s gases to split back into Shin and Kibito, and while that doesn’t necessarily retcon the Potara earrings’ lore, the problem is that Shin and Kibito are still separated by ’s finale, even though they were fused in the beginning of Dragon Ball Super.

Bigger than all of that, of course, is what Daima does with Goku and Vegeta. In a surprising turn of events, Daima gave Goku and Vegeta Super Saiyan 4 and Super Saiyan 3, respectively, and while it’s not impossible to explain away Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta, Super Saiyan 4 Goku is a plot hole because Goku knew it beforehand, yet he never uses it in Dragon Ball Super, despite how useful it would have been. Goku and Vegeta’s new Super Saiyan forms are the biggest examples of Dragon Ball Daima’s blatant contradictions with canon, and unfortunately, that’s impossible to ignore.

Dragon Ball Daima’s Positives Far Outweigh Its Issues With Canon

Why Dragon Ball Daima Is Plenty Worth A Watch

As annoying as Dragon Ball Daima’s issues with canon may be, avoiding the series specifically because of them does nothing but a disservice to Daima. From a visual perspective, Dragon Ball Daima has some of the best animation of any Dragon Ball project thanks to its gorgeous visuals and fluid and creative fight scenes, all of which are far better than the majority of what people had to sit through with Dragon Ball Super for three years. In of pure spectacle, there are few Dragon Ball projects better than Dragon Ball Daima, and that shouldn’t be ignored.

More than that is the quality of Daima’s story. While there are plenty of shortcomings in the pacing and overall execution, between the consistently great comedy and how great a job every episode does of selling the chemistry between the heroes and villains alike, Dragon Ball Daima boasts some of the most fun writing of any recent Dragon Ball project and is an all-around perfect tribute to Akira Toriyama’s legacy. Every aspect of Dragon Ball Daima is a fun time, and any Dragon Ball fan would be remiss to on it just because it doesn’t perfectly mesh with canon.

Dragon Ball Stopped Caring About Canon Years Before Dragon Ball Daima

Canon Has Never Been A Concern For Dragon Ball

Above all else, the biggest reason why Dragon Ball Daima’s relationship with canon shouldn’t be an issue is because that’s always been a problem with Dragon Ball. While Dragon Ball’s canon is largely consistent across 40 years, the series has always been filled with retcons and inconsistencies, with notable examples being Piccolo’s origins, Vegeta’s motivations, and Beerus’ power level. Even Goku being a Saiyan is arguably a retcon after he was originally just a boy with bizarre monkey powers, so criticizing Dragon Ball Daima for continuity errors doesn’t work when Dragon Ball has been doing that from day one.

All of that, of course, is why Dragon Ball is so iconic. Dragon Ball always focused on just delivering what Akira Toriyama and other writers thought would be cool in the moment and worried about making it work later on, and the fact that Dragon Ball has always found ways to make its inconsistencies work as a flowing narrative is nothing but a hallmark to the strength of its writing. Dragon Ball Daima will probably be more of the same eventually, but even if it isn’t, it has so much going on for it that it really shouldn’t matter.