Dragon Ball Daima Episode 20 Review: Goku's Super Saiyan 4 Battle With Gomah Closes the Series on a Mixed Note

Dragon Ball Daima's story wrapped up with episode 20, titled "Zenkai," which translates to either full force or maximum. The episode opens with no title sequence at all, going straight into adult Goku's freshly revealed Super Saiyan 4 form squaring off against the Grand Demon King Gomah. The plan going in was never for Goku to beat Gomah outright with the third eye still active. As had been set up the episode before, the idea was for Goku to distract Gomah long enough for someone else to knock the third eye off the back of his head and cut his power down.

The battle that follows runs somewhere in the neighborhood of six or seven minutes and is worthy of a proper Dragon Ball final battle purely on animation and spectacle. It is built around a specific standout cut and several key animators, and it leans hard into raw visual intensity rather than the seesaw, multi-episode storytelling that older fights like Frieza or Cell used to get. Compared to modern Dragon Ball, it plays a lot like Gogeta versus Broly, putting everything into animation and action rather than back and forth plotting.

Goku's Kamehameha Blasts a Hole Through All Three Demon Worlds

Once the fight gets going, Super Saiyan 4 Goku is beating Gomah down hard, hitting him with pain he has apparently never felt before, with only the third eye keeping him in the fight. Gomah counters with a new technique, throwing purple orbs that look powered by his staff, and later a modified green version that fires energy blasts Goku has to dodge. There are references scattered throughout, including a moment where Goku punches Gomah into rocks and Gomah uses telekinesis to hurl them back, echoing Frieza's tactics. It is the kind of sequence that moves so fast it needs to be watched in slow motion to catch everything.

At one point Goku powers up and starts glowing, which could be read as a nod to Ultra Instinct, though that is not certain since Goku has glowed like that before. He raises an arm, lightning comes down, and he elevates his energy to fire off what is described as the most over the top Kamehameha in a long time, probably since the one used against Kefla. The blast tears through Gomah's purple energy, punches a hole through Gomah's stomach, and keeps going, blasting straight through all three demon worlds, so much so that water from one demon world starts draining into another. It might not be multiversal in scale, but by Daima's standards it counts as one of the biggest Kamehameha feats in the series.

A Surprising Character Knocks the Third Eye Off Gomah's Head

With a hole through his stomach, Gomah should be dead, similar to what happened to Goku early in Dragon Ball Z, but the third eye begins regenerating him. It is not as fast or as potent as Majin Buu's regeneration, but it shows the third eye makes its wearer nearly immortal. Piccolo tries to execute the planned attack on the back of Gomah's head, but Gomah smacks him away and the attempt fails. Gomah then powers the third eye up again and creates a force field to keep everyone at bay.

While that is happening, one of the weakest fighters in the group sneaks up from behind carrying a large borrowed book and smashes it into the back of Gomah's head, which is what finally knocks the third eye loose. The eye pops out, Gomah reverts to his original short form, and the battle ends when the eye is stepped on. Of every character who could have landed the finishing blow, it being this particular fighter was a genuine surprise.

The Fusion Bugs Are Never Used, Despite Being Set Up Since Episode 4

The one big surprise of the finale is that the fusion bugs teased all the way back in episode 4 never get used at all, not even for a comedy fusion. Expectations had been kept low about getting something like a Super Saiyan 3 Vegito or Gogeta, not because a Goku and Vegeta fusion was ruled out, but on the suspicion it would be something new instead. Even so, a fusion of some kind, even a joke one, seemed like a safe bet given how many fans and other content creators were asking about it after episode 4.

Instead, the bugs Goku had dropped are simply forgotten about entirely. "That type of foreshadowing and not delivering is just not something you want to do," and it reads as a real writing misstep rather than a case of misplaced fan expectations, since the show itself planted that seed and never paid it off.

Gomah and His Aide Are Sealed Away, Not Killed

After the fight, Gomah and his aide are surrounded by purple sludge and effectively arrested. A demon-realm sorceress then performs a demonic version of the Evil Containment Wave, the Mafuba, trapping both of them inside a small jar. Neither of them dies, which leaves the door open for a future storyline where they could return or be freed, though there is no confirmation that another season of Daima or any specific follow-up is planned.

Before Akira Toriyama's passing, word had been that Daima's storylines and characters in its lore would be used later in Dragon Ball, though it was unclear whether that meant more Daima or a future Super storyline. Whether that plan still holds now that Toriyama has passed is genuinely unknown, and it seems like he may have had more ideas in mind, whether written down or not, that only the people closest to the production would know about.

A Minor Fighter Becomes the New Grand Demon King

With Gomah gone, the show spends time figuring out who the next Grand Demon King will be, and of all people it ends up being the same minor fighter who landed the final blow, who receives a cape just as previous demon kings did in flashbacks, since wearing a cape functions like a crown in the demon realm. That character then launches into a speech about changing the demon realm for the better that plays almost like a politician's campaign pitch, described simply as "so goofy." Toriyama has a history of throwing curveballs in these stories, and handing the crown to the least powerful fighter in the group counts as another one, alongside the missing fusion.

Elsewhere, one character hands Bulma one of the small magic crystals to take with her, which feels like it is being set up for something later, though there is no way to know for certain what that would be.

Goku Calls the Form Super Saiyan 4, But the Explanation Contradicts Itself

In a conversation with Vegeta, Goku explicitly calls his new form "Super Saiyan full," the only time the show ever names it Super Saiyan 4 outright. He claims he continued training and that the form "just kind of happened," saying he always felt he had it in him. That claim sits awkwardly next to episode 18, which shows the character who used magic on Goku directly rearranging his DNA to trigger the transformation. The likeliest reading is that it took both training and that magic working together, since Goku apparently could not reach the form on his own until that character's magic triggered it, but the show gives no explanation beyond that, and no reason is given for why Goku does not use the form again after unlocking it on his own in the previous episode.

That gap is likely to fuel arguments among fans about whether this fits into the same continuity as Super, especially since there is no explanation offered for other loose points either, like the fused Supreme Kai. Vegeta does get a nice callback line, bringing back "it's a Super Saiyan bargain sale" from the Majin Buu Saga, to which Goku replies that Vegeta got three forms. Still, it reads as a missed opportunity that Vegeta himself never gets access to Super Saiyan 4, even though that character's magic could easily have extended to him too.

Gohan Is Nowhere to Be Seen in the Finale

Despite expecting at least a brief cameo of Gohan as an adult once Goku returns to Earth, that moment never happens. The only appearances Gohan makes in the entire series are in the episode 1 recap of the fight with Super Buu and in the opening sequence recapping earlier events. Even in the end credits, which show adult versions of Majin Buu, Mr. Satan, Krillin, Android 18, Trunks, and Goten, including Trunks riding a hoverboard, Gohan is absent entirely, which is likely to disappoint fans of the character.

The Post-Credit Scene Reveals a Second Demonic Third Eye

The post-credit scene was expected by some to tease Beerus or a character named Moro tying into Super, but instead it returns to the shop from episode 4 where the fusion bugs came from, as Goku looks for healing bugs. There is a gag where Bulma is given bugs that can de-age or rebeautify her, and then a jar is found containing another third eye, revealing that more than one of these demonic eyes exists. The scene plays like a post-credit tease in the style of an MCU sting, suggesting a future storyline, though whether that ever gets followed up on after Toriyama's passing is unknown. It could be a throwaway joke about there being multiple third eyes, or it could set up something more serious involving that remaining eye.

Final Verdict on Daima's Ending

The fight between Goku and Gomah is worth seeing on its own, executed about as well as a Daima final battle could be. The trouble comes in the final roughly twelve minutes, which feel rushed given how many plot threads are left open, echoing the concern raised as far back as episodes 13 and 14 that there simply would not be enough time to wrap everything up. The show would likely have benefited from five more episodes. Episodes 18 and 19 land better overall than episode 20, even though the combat and some of the comedy in the finale still stick the landing.

The ending feels more like a season finale than a true series finale, without any guarantee that more Daima or a follow-up storyline is coming. The first half of the episode earns a thumbs up, while the back half lands somewhere in the middle, leaning down given how much foreshadowing, from the fusion bugs to the Super Saiyan 4 explanation to Gohan's absence, never gets a proper payoff.

Does the Daima finale feel like a satisfying series ending to you, or does it leave too many threads dangling to call it a proper conclusion?