Episode 46 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on May 2, 1990 and titled Defying Orders in Funimation's uncut 2005 dub (The Ruthless Frieza in the Ocean/Saban version), splits the story into two tracks that will run side by side for weeks. On Namek, Gohan and Krillin trail Frieza to a Namekian village. On Earth, a single Senzu Bean puts Goku back on his feet and sends him into space: six days of travel, and a machine that multiplies gravity so he can train on the way.
Summary
Hidden in the cave, Bulma, Krillin and Gohan feel Frieza and his men streak overhead. The two fighters are shaking: they have never sensed power like this. The radar confirms the group already has four Dragon Balls and is heading for a fifth. Krillin and Gohan decide to follow at a distance with their energy suppressed, while Bulma stays behind, pops open a capsule house and radios Master Roshi to tell him how bad things are.
At the hospital, Goku asks his doctor when he can start training again and is told to rest. Master Roshi arrives with Bulma's news: Vegeta is on Namek and fully healed, someone even stronger is there, and the ship is wrecked. Then Yajirobe walks in with Korin's fresh crop of Senzu Beans. Goku eats one, snaps his casts by flexing, throws on his gi and leaps out of the window onto the Flying Nimbus, with Chi-Chi yelling after him that he has not even packed clean underwear.
Dr. Brief is waiting at Capsule Corporation. At Goku's request, he has built a ship based on the technology of the pod that brought Goku to Earth as a baby, complete with an artificial gravity machine that goes up to one hundred times Earth's gravity. The trip to Namek will take six days. Goku will not even wait for the scientist to finish installing the stereo speakers, and takes off at once.
On Namek, Gohan and Krillin reach a ridge above the village and see Frieza in the middle of it, with Zarbon and Dodoria holding Dragon Balls. Dodoria briefly picks up a faint power level but decides it was a bird. Soldiers drive a few Namekians out of a house, among them the elder Moori and two children, Dende and Cargo. Out in space, Goku jumps straight to twenty times gravity and learns that eleven might have been a smarter start.
Our take
A transitional episode, but a very watchable one. The Earth half plays like a comedy: Goku restless in bed, Roshi groping a nurse, a Senzu Bean turning a patient in casts into a fighter ready to launch. It is the last breath of lightness before the saga turns very dark.
The gravity ship is one of Toriyama's smartest ideas. It turns six days of travel into a training montage and sets up everything that follows: we know Goku will reach Namek far stronger than he left, and the wait becomes part of the story.
On Namek, the tension builds quietly. One shot of Frieza standing in the village between his two lieutenants is enough to show who is in charge.
Trivia
- Written by Hiroshi Toda and directed by Mitsuo Hashimoto. It adapts chapters 250 and 251, with a 17.3% ratings share.
- In the manga Chi-Chi is not at the hospital (Goku says she went shopping), so her watching him fly off is anime-only.
- Dr. Brief mentions finding Goku's old pod wrecked, a nod to the anime-only scene in which Piccolo destroys it.
- In Japanese the scientist wants to finish installing the speakers; Funimation's dub has him deciding where to put a cappuccino maker.
Did you know? This is Goku's last ride on the Flying Nimbus in Dragon Ball Z. The cloud only returns at the end of the Goku vs. Pikkon fight in the afterlife, this time with Gohan as the rider.