Ok I promised myself to not post on this thread too much or reply to posts because honestly you guys are finding flaws out of nothing and hating for (mostly) no legitimate reason whatsoever and I genuinely believe it's only because you grew up with dbz/gt and not super that you hate super, but your post is something else entirely.
I've tried liking Super, I've watched since the first episode, and up until 64 I was constantly thinking, "this isn't bad, but for some reason this just doesn't feel like Z or even GT." Seeing Kaioken Blue was cool, but none of the other series made me have to see anything new just to keep myself interested. It wasn't until episode 66 and 67 that I got mad, since it ruined my favorite part of the Buu saga, and my favorite arc in all of the Dragon Ball franchise. I'll get more into detail as to why later.
Let's start with the first sentence. super is a direct sequel not a reboot. they didn't start from scratch, they continued where they left off. As for seeing your favourite characters being "emasculated", in-plot they literally get overpowered by a god who wasn't even using a quarter of his power. It's literally a god, and you're blaming goku for "giving up"? He didn't even give up. He keeps bringing up that he wants to have a rematch with beerus and even said before that ssb kaioken was something he had in the bag in order to surprise beerus with, but he had to bring it out way earlier than he thought. He's thinking of strategies and training constantly in order to win. I don't see how you think he gave up or how his L vs beerus was the death of his character. That point doesn't make sense.
It's fine to lose. As a matter of fact, it's a necessary part of life, and you need persistance to be successful. Goku's persistence was nice, but the lack of care in the last part really got me. Goku just said, after tanking a blast, that that's all the power he had left and gave up. They didn't have to make Beerus lose either to make him still look like an unbeatable God. Just, instead of having Goku fall down after tanking the blast and saying that he gives up, have Goku still stand and have just enough energy to transform back. Beerus becomes impressed and state that he's impressed yada yada and that he won't blow up the universe. (It's mad close to what they already did, just needed a bit more of actual care and bam, Goku's character is preserved, while still making Beerus a badass.)
Secondly, just because your role model was a muscular figure from the late 80s when you were a kid, doesn't mean there weren't any other role models, because there are. Even for millenials, there are plenty, you just decided on your own role model and that's fine. I don't really see the issue in that, or what you're saying. I actually don't even understand what you're trying to argue there at all, everyone has different role models.
True, during the 80s there were a lot of masculine role models in the media. As much as I hate this hyper-individualism nonsense, due to it being the reason why we have completely destroyed collective institutions that kept society stable, (Including the family unit, a strong historic root and ties to your ancestors, and a care for your own people.) I can't deny that, besides Dragon Ball and other 80s Shonen, Clint Eastwood movies, Bruce Lee movies, etc. have used such forms of individualism to promote a more masculine man as well.
It WAS really the only masculine anime that hit the mainstream for Western audiences that transferred over to the 90s-2000s, though. Which was the era which traditional masculine dynamics was replaced with far more egalitarian values. Testosterone has been declining in men since the 1980s, so having an actual muscular role model in the form of Goku helped influence a lot to men raised in the 90s, that's why so many athletes say Dragon Ball Z was their inspiration. (
https://uk.reuters.com/article/heal...clined-in-last-20-years-idUKKIM16976320061031)
This post gives a good tl;dr.
And finally, Trunks's humble symbol of hope shtick was still the theme of his arc overall, I don't know what made you think otherwise. I will agree however that his arc's ending was very... anti-climatic. it could've been handled differently.
The ending of the arc literally had his entire future destroyed, causing all of his emotional and physical training he did to be in vain. Zamasu achieved his goals and there is no way for Trunks to return to his actual future. The ending was so blatantly disrespectful to his character that it ruined him. It was a ridiculous levels of nihilism, another evergrowing ideology which absolutely disgusts me.
I agree super's quality of writing isn't as polished or as great as dbz, because Freeza had some good build up and is actually the best written character in the series, cell had the gohan and goku development shit, and vegeta was developing as a character throughout the series, but it's not that far off. If anything look at buu saga for horrible writing/plot, not super.
I could talk about how false that is, and how terribly unoriginal and poorly written Super is, but honestly that would be missing the point., as the series was never about a good plot to begin with. The reason why Super sucks is because it fails to do what Z brought, raw masculine fights and energy. This part single-handedly makes the manga readable, despite having a garbage plot that at some points are even worse than the anime.
The Buu saga had some of the best fight scenes in Z. As a matter of fact, let's dissect what makes this fact give off that vibe that makes you want to pump iron and train non-stop.
Super Buu vs Mystic Gohan
The pacing of this fight is a lot slower than in Super, the pauses are a lot more apparent - instead of instantly going from one punch to another, there is a few seconds added in per punch, adding far more weight to it. Power scale is a lot more clear, and you're truly able to feel like Gohan is bodying Super Buu, as he's getting tossed around for a solid 11 minutes slowly, as opposed to a 7 minute rush between Vegito and Zamasu in the anime, which had attacks that honestly felt like Vegito wasn't doing much. It was just way too fast paced, focused more on being flashy than the actual punches. Z didn't utilize a whole lot of techniques, just simple punches, beams and balls for the most part, but it succeeded in giving us a raw, masculine feel that far outclasses stuff you see in modern anime like Super, Naruto, Bleach, etc..
Toei Animation had a significantly smaller budget, and given the nature of hand drawn animation, they had to use a lot of techniques and be more careful with their chereography. Instead of just dumping money in, they had to use smaller budget techniques that required less complex drawings. A lot more focus was on the environment, using loops of clouds looming or mountains being slid in half to convey intense action even if you literally couldn't see them fighting. That's why even the hand drawn style from Dragon Ball has significantly more weight to it than any fight from Super, despite being drastically less flashy, and requiring a lot less of a budget. Toei has just forgotten how to do choreography like it used to, and as a result, Super has failed to remotely replicate the feel of Z, and falls flat on its face.