Three years have passed since Goku set out on his training journey. One day, Goku rescues the fox boy Konkichi, who was being pursued by an evil group. In gratitude to Goku, Konkichi says he will obtain the traveling fare for going to the Tenkaichi Budokai grounds. However, Konkichi is arrested for being a bank robber! Konkichi protests that while he may be a thief, he’s no bank robber! For Konkichi’s sake, Goku does a splendid job of capturing the real criminals!!

The 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai at last opens! When Kuririn and Yamcha arrive at the tournament grounds, the Turtle Hermit’s rival the Crane Hermit and his disciples Chiaotzu and Tenshinhan appear before them! The Crane Hermit leaves after saying some dreadfully insulting things! Meanwhile, Goku is nowhere to be found, and the tournament registration deadline has almost come! As everyone worries, Goku appears in the nick of time!! The friends enjoy their three-year reunion!

The tournament preliminaries have begun! Kuririn and Yamcha naturally advance through their respective brackets. Tenshinhan and Chiaotzu show up there, and rile them up with their bold demeanor. Sparks fly between the Turtle Hermit and the Crane Hermit’s disciples before the matches have even begun. Tenshinhan easily wins during his first appearance in the preliminaries, displaying a mere fraction of his bottomless ability! And then Goku’s turn has finally come! His opponent is King Chapa, well known as a master!!

Goku’s match against King Chapa begins! It seems that even Goku was having a difficult fight, but he brushed King Chapa’s attacks aside like they were nothing and achieved a sweeping victory!! Afterwards, Goku and the others continue to do well at advancing in the preliminaries! And Jackie Chun, the champion of the previous tournament, naturally advances as well! Meanwhile, Tenshinhan cruelly defeats Namu, who had fought against Goku in the semi-finals during the previous tournament! Goku and co. plus Tenshinhan and Chiaotzu thus ended up all participating in the main tournament!

A lottery takes place to decide the match opponents out of the eight contestants who have survived into the main tournament. Tenshinhan uses Chiaotzu’s psychic powers to fix the match combinations as he sees fit! Because of this, the first match becomes a match of Yamcha versus Tenshinhan!! Yamcha harbors an extraordinary animosity towards the provocative Tenshinhan! When the match then starts, it becomes a white-hot offensive and defensive battle, with neither side giving an inch!!

Yamcha and Tenshinhan violently clash! Yamcha uses the Shin Roga fu-fu ken against Tenshinhan, but is gradually pushed back and is in a pinch. As his final hand, Yamcha fires a Kamehameha!! But Tenshinhan deflects the Kamehameha and defeats the faltering Yamcha in midair! Furthermore, he strikes the already unconscious Yamcha with a finishing blow! Goku burns with intense anger at the coldhearted Tenshinhan!!

The Manwolf, who goes up against Jackie Chun in the second match, seems to harbor a grudge towards Jackie for some reason! The cause of this turns out to be because Jackie destroyed the moon with a Kamehameha in the previous tournament. Since then the Manwolf, who transforms into a human when he looks at the moon, has been unable to return to being a human. Jackie handles the Manwolf with ease and wins the match!! He then chooses Kuririn’s head to stand in for the moon, and restores the Manwolf to being human.

The third match becomes a showdown between Kuririn and Chiaotzu! Kuririn is bewildered by Chiaotzu’s strange techniques!! Flying freely through the air, Chiaotzu fires a “Dodonpa“, the same technique used by the assassin Tao Pai-pai! It turns out that Tao Pai-pai is actually the Crane Hermit’s younger brother!! After learning that Goku defeated Tao Pai-pai, the Crane Hermit orders Chiaotzu to kill Kuririn! Cornered, Kuririn resolves to using a Kamehameha!!

The Kamehameha that Kuririn fired hits Chiaotzu head-on! Angered, Chiaotzu uses his psychic powers to prevent Kuririn from moving, and attacks him! But Kuririn realizes that Chiaotzu releases his psychic powers through his hands, and instantly throws out a math question! He then defeats Chiaotzu as Chiaotzu tries to use his hands to do the calculations!! That night, Goku is attacked by the Crane Hermit! However, Tenshinhan enters and stops him, vowing that he will defeat Goku in their match!!

Goku’s turn has come at last! His opponent is the popular action star, contestant Panputto! But Panputto’s manager is afraid of Goku’s strength, and right before the match he tricks Goku and takes him away! As Goku is on the verge of losing by default, through Lunch’s help he barely manages to make it to the match on time! The match then begins, and Goku wins in the blink of an eye! Goku has already acquired strength above the level of an ordinary human!!

The first match of the semi-finals ends up being a matchup of Jackie Chun versus Tenshinhan! Before the match, the two both burn with fierce fighting spirit!! The match then begins! Jackie uses a multi-fold Zanzouken, but Tenshinhan splendidly breaks through it!! Having made light of Jackie, Tenshinhan is overwhelmed by his strength! Meanwhile, seeing that Tenshinhan possess power greater than he imagined, Jackie begins to feel that a new age is coming!!

It’s the blazing white-hot match of Jackie versus Tenshinhan! Tenshinhan gets serious, and uses the Taiyou-ken! Flinching at the flash, Jackie is downed by a knee kick! After standing back up, Jackie tries to persuade Tenshinhan to walk on the true path. But Tenshinhan realizes that Jackie is the Turtle Hermit, and fires a Kamehameha of all things! Jackie deflects the Kamehameha, and jumps down from the arena, willingly receiving an out of bounds loss!

Having won through Jackie’s out of bounds loss, Tenshinhan is completely unable to understand what has happened! He then willingly meets with the Turtle Hermit and questions him on his reasons! The Turtle Hermit says that it is because the time has come for him to gradually turn the era over to the young heroes. He then again tries to persuade Tenshinhan to walk on the true path. Tenshinhan’s heart has begun to gradually turn. At the tournament grounds, Goku and Kuririn’s very first fight has begun! The two fight at full force, not holding back!!

A battle where neither side gives an inch unfolds in the semi-finals! Kuririn has grown far more since last time, but Goku has become even stronger than that!! As Kuririn begins to be gradually pushed back, he takes advantage of an opening and grabs Goku’s weakness, his tail! But this doesn’t affect Goku, who during his training strengthened even his tail!! Goku moves at such high speeds that he can’t be seen and attacks Kuririn, knocking him from the arena and winning the match!!

The morning of the finals at last arrives. There’s a big clamor at the tournament grounds as it overflows with people trying to watch the match! Seeing this, Goku burns with fighting spirit!! Meanwhile, Tenshinhan is moved by the Turtle Hermit’s words, and heads to the arena as if to stop his uncertainty. And then the final round begins at last! Once the match begins, the two immediately launch into a grand, intense battle!! But Tenshinhan has seen through Goku’s fighting style, and attacks as if pressuring Goku for a response. Goku is in a great pinch!!

Tenshinhan uses his secret technique, the Haikyu-ken, to smash Goku into the floor! But Goku gets up easily, and faces Tenshinhan not with the power he uses for matches, but rather the power he uses for battle! Their techniques smash furiously against each other! Goku’s Zanzouken is effective, and Tenshinhan is downed!! Tenshinhan uses his even more secret technique, the Taiyou-Ken, but Goku counters it with sunglasses and instead Tenshinhan is the one to be knocked down! The two continue their super-intense match, but Goku’s condition suddenly becomes strange!!

Goku has suddenly become unable to move his body! This is due to Chiaotzu’s psychic powers!! He sealed up Goku’s movement on the Crane Hermit’s orders. But Tenshinhan realizes the Crane Hermit’s trick, and puts a stop to it! The heart of a proper martial artist has sprouted in Tenshinhan!! The Crane Hermit is mad with rage, but he is knocked off into the distance by the Turtle Hermit’s Kamehameha. And then this time for sure, Goku and Tenshinhan’s earnest match begins!!

To test Goku’s ability, Tenshinhan uses his still even more secret technique, the Shiyou-ken! Two arms appear from his back, and Tenshinhan attacks with all four arms!! But Goku continues his attack without even flinching! In order to decide the match, Tenshinhan resolves to use his ultimate secret technique, the Kikouhou (Energy Cannon)! It’s a frightful technique that has destructive power many levels greater than the Kamehameha! The arena is then completely blown away by the Kikouhou!!

The Kikouhou has left both fighters weary and exhausted. With all of their energy gone and the stage destroyed by the Kikouhou, Tenshinhan and Goku plummet towards the Earth, with the first to touch down losing the match! A new Champion is crowned today!