‘Dragon Ball Daima’ and its opening and closing tribute to Akira Toriyama

The final stretch of 2024 is pure Akira Toriyama with the premiere of ‘Dragon Ball Daima’ and the outstanding release of Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero. The new anime is a success, and its second chapter showed the beginning and end of the series, in which there is a hidden tribute to Toriyama that has not gone unnoticed by fans of his work.

In the end, the homage is entirely visual, but in the beginning it is found in the lyrics of the song. What is it? This can only be discovered in the original language of “Jaka Jaan”, the name given to this introductory theme written by the Japanese composer Yukinojo Mori. The words Akira, Yama and Tori (Yume wa TORI dori naYAMAnai AKIRAmenai) are mentioned from the 36th second on, an emotional and discreet tribute that accompanies us throughout the song and shows that despite his departure, his spirit is still very much alive and that ‘Dragon Ball Daima’ has all his soul.

A touching farewell to an incomparable mangaka

Unlike the opening, the tribute at the end is visual yet subtle, with the final sequence showing Goku saying goodbye to a bird made of feathers that grow around the character. This is due to his own surname, Tori, which means bird in Japanese, and in his early days, his fictional representation in “Dr. Slump” was even a blue-colored bird. In addition, Bird Studio, his production studio, wanted to pay tribute to him in this way in his last project.

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