Thread by @Herms98

November 21st, Age 762: after much finagling, Bulma and co head off to Namek in Kami’s old spaceship. Seven days later, Vegeta reaches Planet Vegeta No.79 and has a chat with his old rival Kewi, while in filler land Bulma and co run into some of Kewi’s victims. #HistoryofEver

Kewi’s not the only one in Freeza’s forces who’s been busy. Right around now, the Ginyu Force are attacking Planet Yardrat, home to a race who utilize Spirit Control for a variety of seemingly disparate techniques. Vegeta likes the Ginyu Force about as much as he does Kewi.

After the Saiyan battle, we skip to the hospital the next day. Kuririn and Gohan are due to be discharged in three days, while Goku will take far longer, barring any magic beans (fan lore has it that this is “Wukong Hospital, even though the sign looks more like “We—kong”)

Bulma checks out Kami’s spaceship and initially says it will take 5 days to remodel, but then revises this to 10 days when she learns she’ll have to change the Namekian language settings. Estimated trip time to Namek: one month.

So, using the Daizenshuu dates, the Saiyan battle is November 3rd, the hospital scenes are the 4th, basic spaceship remodeling finishes on the 9th (Bulma’s initially stated 5 days) and Namekian language conversion wraps up on the 14th (the full 10 day period).

With the spaceship ready, they take off (likewise on November 14th). 7 days later (Nov 21st), Bulma speculates about Vegeta’s whereabouts, and we see him arrive on Planet Freeza 79. The narrator says it’s been 18 days since he left Earth (this all checks out: Nov 3rd+18=21)

It’s at this point that DBZ ep.39-40 show Bulma and co encounter Zeshin and his fellow space orphans. Thanks to the orphans’ shortcut, they wind up on Fake Namek on the 10th day of their trip (so November 24th, though the Daizenshuu timeline doesn’t include this event)

DBZ ep.41-44 depict this narrative cul-de-sac on Fake Namek, which is intercut with scenes of Vegeta’s healing. So anime Vegeta takes at least 3 days to heal (if he started on Day 7 of Team Bulma’s trip and is still at it on Day 10), a far longer timespan than the manga implies.

In fact, the Daizenshuu timeline has Vegeta’s healing finish on December 13th, over three weeks after he began on November 21st. What’s that about? The assumption seems to be that it must take Vegeta 5 days to reach Namek, since that’s how long the Ginyu Force take to arrive.

The narrator says Bulma and co arrive on Namek 34 days after leaving Earth, with Vegeta showing up minutes later. If Vegeta’s trip from Planet Freeza took only 5 days, then this would leave a 22 day discrepancy (since he reached Planet Freeza on the 7th day of Team Bulma’s trip)

So the Daizenshuu timeline resolves this by having his healing take 22 days. However, for my money it’s much simpler to just say Vegeta’s trip lasted longer than the 5 days it took for the Ginyu Force. After all, shouldn’t they leave from Yardrat rather than Planet Freeza?

(Actually, there is a filler scene that shows them departing Planet Freeza No.79, made long before Yardrat was a twinkle in Toriyama’s eye. Even if we go by this, we can still just say Vegeta’s ship is slower. Surely the Ginyu Force must get all the best equipment, right?)

(Also: on the trip’s 7th day Bulma says they have 20 days to go, despite the narrator eventually saying they reach Namek after 34 days. Viz changes this to “20-plus days” to fix this minor discrepancy. Was the Fake Namek filler likewise made partially to plug this gap?)

On Tuesday: long days on Namek!

Thanks as usual to @Terez27 for the clips