How Daima’s Super Saiyan 4 Could Fit Into Super’s Timeline, Explained

After Super Saiyan 4 was introduced in Dragon Ball Daima, fans have been wondering if Dragon Ball Super and Daima could fit into the same universe, or if they are necessarily set in two different timelines.

While many fans are satisfied with either these two series being part of different universes or not even caring about the continuity between them at all, others are still trying to put these series into the same universe. There are actually a few ways to do it — but how could that be?

Goku Unleashed SSJ4 For The “First Time” In Episode 18

Aya Komaki, co-director of Dragon Ball Daima, confirmed in an interview that Goku wasn’t able to unlock Super Saiyan 4 before Episode 18 of Dragon Ball Daima, at least in this universe (we know he did it first in Dragon Ball GT, which is set in a different timeline).

This means that when Goku said that he “didn’t know if it would work,” he didn’t mean that he had previously turned into SSJ4, but that he knew he had a power lying inside him and wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to unleash it.

She also added that she wanted the sequence to make it clear that a new form was being born at that time — “being born” in the sense that it was something completely new (at least in that timeline), and not a power that Goku was hiding from anyone.

Does Her Statement Contradict Goku’s Quote?

In the series, when asked by Vegeta about his new form, Goku replies that he had been training and that he wasn’t sure if it would work, leading many fans to believe that he had already awakened this form prior to the series. These fans seem to think that Komaki’s remarks contradict the story.

However, his original quote is actually a bit vague, and her comments only expand on its meaning. According to her, Goku trained a lot to become stronger, but he didn’t awaken any new powers until Episode 18. As mentioned above, he probably felt something inside him, but he didn’t know how to access it or if he would ever be able to ever unleash it.

Neva’s Magic Probably Triggered SSJ4

When we first saw the transformation scene, it looked like Neva intentionally awakened SSJ4 with his magic — so it looked like SSJ4 was part of Neva’s magic. However, while his magic was probably important, he didn’t necessarily know exactly how Goku would react, and he probably didn’t even imagine that there was such a thing as a Super Saiyan 4 form. He just used magic to trigger Goku to awaken his inner power, hoping that Goku would be able to defeat Gomah with it.

While the following episodes led many fans to believe that the theory that Neva’s magic awakened SSJ4 was debunked, Komaki allows us to think about it in a different way. Neva’s magic probably served as a booster for Goku, allowing him to briefly recover and amplify his strength, and, with that, he was able to awaken SSJ4.

Why Hasn’t Goku Used SSJ4 In Dragon Ball Super?

This actually leaves a lot of room to think about why Goku wouldn’t use SSJ4 in Dragon Ball Super in the case that both stories are set in the same chronology — the producer has already teased that they might be part of different timelines.

Well, the most obvious way to go is to establish that Neva’s magic triggered it, and that Goku still cannot do it alone. While that might settle things, some fans might not be satisfied — well, if Goku can go Ultra Instinct, why can’t he go SSJ4? Well, there’s a lot of magic in the Demon Realm, and it’s not common to see that much magic anywhere else in the series.

There are two good options to work with, and they are all about magic. The first one is that SSJ4 is a magic-based transformation — meaning that, to unleash it, Saiyans would need some magic to unlock their true potential.

The second one is that, while not entirely magic-based, SSJ4 is much harder to achieve and maintain without magic, to the point that it is meaningless to try to unleash it, especially when they can unlock supposedly more powerful forms with less effort. Given that SSJ3 is already too costly, it would make sense for SSJ4 to have even more drawbacks. This theory would mean, of course, retconning that Goku might have been able to unleash SSJ4 all along in DB Super, but he always thought it was pointless to do so.

Either way, it’s impossible to try to put all of this together without considering that Dragon Ball Daima was probably not produced with DB Super in mind – meaning that they probably weren’t too worried about potential contradictions.