Goku's New Move, Instant Transmission! The Three-Year Training Session Begins!

With Trunks gone, the Z Fighters press Goku for answers about his survival and long absence. Through a flashback, Goku recounts how he commandeered a Ginyu Force space pod seconds before Namek's destruction. The pod carried him to Planet Yardrat, where the gentle inhabitants nursed him back to health and taught him a remarkable new ability.

To demonstrate, Goku focuses on a distant ki signature and vanishes. Seconds later, he reappears holding Master Roshi's sunglasses, stolen from Kame House over 10,000 kilometers away. The technique, called Instant Transmission, allows him to teleport to any location where he can sense a living energy signature. The practical applications for the coming battle are immediately obvious to the group.

The Decision to Wait

Bulma suggests a proactive approach: locate Dr. Gero now and eliminate him before the Androids can be activated. Vegeta violently objects, threatening to kill anyone who robs him of a worthy fight. Goku agrees for different reasons, feeling uneasy about altering the timeline more than necessary. The Z Fighters collectively decide to spend the next three years training to meet the threat head-on.

A training montage covers the intensive preparation period. Goku, Gohan, and Piccolo train together in the wilderness, pushing each other to new heights through relentless sparring. Tien works alongside Chiaotzu, while Krillin attempts to resume training under Master Roshi at Kame House with mixed results.

Vegeta's training is the most extreme. He demands that Dr. Brief build him a gravity chamber capable of 300 times Earth's gravity, triple what Goku trained under on his journey to Namek. The prince pushes himself so hard that he accidentally destroys the chamber in an explosion that nearly levels Capsule Corporation. Bulma tends to his injuries afterward, and a quiet moment at his bedside hints at the relationship that will eventually produce Trunks.

This episode packs an enormous amount of character development into its runtime. The training sequences illustrate each fighter's unique approach: Goku's collaborative spirit, Vegeta's solitary obsession, and Piccolo's disciplined focus. These contrasting methods foreshadow how each warrior will perform when the Androids arrive.

The budding connection between Vegeta and Bulma is handled with subtlety. His refusal of her help after the gravity chamber explosion, followed by his unconscious mumbling about surpassing Goku, and Bulma falling asleep at his bedside, tells a more compelling story than any explicit romance would.