I am Saiyaman

Gohan arrives at Capsule Corporation with a simple request: he needs a disguise so he can fight crime without exposing his identity. Bulma takes the challenge enthusiastically and tells him the suit will be ready in two hours. While waiting, Gohan wanders the building and runs into young Trunks. Their conversation is interrupted by Vegeta, who strides in and lectures Gohan about squandering his Saiyan potential on schoolwork. The criticism rolls off Gohan's back easily enough.

Bulma presents the finished product: a full-body costume stored inside a wristwatch and deployed by pressing a red button. Gohan activates it and immediately loves the look. Trunks does not share the enthusiasm and calls it ridiculous. On his way home, Gohan rides the Nimbus before deciding to test the suit's capabilities on his own. He spots a pair of reckless speeders tearing down a highway and lands in the middle of the road to stop them. When they demand to know who he is, Gohan invents the name on the spot: the Great Saiyaman. The drivers burst out laughing. Gohan stomps the ground in frustration, splitting the pavement open with a crack that stretches for meters. The laughter stops immediately.

Back home, Gohan practices changing in and out of costume, with young Goten appearing for the first time in the series. The following day at school, a distress call pulls Videl away from class. A bus full of passengers has been hijacked. Gohan excuses himself to the restroom, transforms into the Great Saiyaman, and races to the scene. Videl handles the hijackers with her own fighting skill, but the bus careens off a cliff. Saiyaman catches the falling vehicle, sets it down safely, and delivers a flamboyant pose before flying away. Videl watches him go, her suspicion growing stronger by the second.

What makes the Great Saiyaman work as a concept is that it is both completely sincere and completely absurd. Gohan is not being ironic. He genuinely wants a cool superhero name and dramatic poses, and the disconnect between his universe-shaking power and his dorky presentation is the engine of the comedy. Vegeta's dismissal of school as a waste of Saiyan power highlights the philosophical tension at the heart of this arc. Gohan is rejecting the warrior path his father walked, choosing to be a scholar who only fights when innocent people are in danger. The Great Saiyaman persona lets him have it both ways, even if the execution leaves something to be desired.

This episode introduces Goten, Goku's second son, born after the Cell Games and never met by his father. The narrator describes him as "the son Goku left with Chi-Chi," establishing the bittersweet foundation of his character immediately. Bulma's updated design, featuring a bowl-cut hairstyle and gold hoop earrings, signals that the seven-year time skip has changed the supporting cast as much as the leads.

The manga counterpart to this episode is titled "A Hero Is Born!" and follows a slightly different sequence. In the manga, Goten's first appearance occurs as Gohan leaves for school in the morning, whereas the anime moves it to an evening scene. These small adjustments allow the anime to give the Great Saiyaman debut more room to breathe.