Do you think your age has anything to do with how you view Super?

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Generally speaking, younger people (uhh... I guess people up through their 20s?) haven't traditionally had a chance yet to be a part of a community and dissect things. They go all-out and in the process tend to confuse being a critic with being critical. They're not jaded enough yet in life to realize that endlessly criticizing something doesn't actually bring them any joy and it hasn't emptied out their shell of a human being yet.

(I'm old, been-there-done-that, and don't have time for that anymore. I have negative opinions, but don't feel the need to shout them from the rooftop each week. I take no enjoyment in being constantly negative. I'd rather write up a guide about family names that three people will ever read.)

There are plenty of nuanced discussions happening around Super (some from older people, some from younger people), but quite frankly, it's a tiny amount in a sea of loud-mouthed, internet-culture adolescents. Negative opinions drown out positive opinions. Negativity begets more negativity. It's an endless cycle. It takes experience and it takes determination to strive for and achieve something more than constant whining. Some people never get there.

It's also tied to the medium and the format: a weekly show encourages weekly discussion. However, and I say this all the time... I don't think Dragon Ball (or most weekly shonen, for that matter) is something worth discussing on a weekly basis. Very little is achieved each week, and said weekly discussion encourages a focus on the minutia rather than the long-tail game the series is playing. This is the "missing the forest for the trees" analogy I keep bringing up.

(We're part of the problem in that we have weekly episode discussion threads on the forum. This is a necessary evil to keep things at least somewhat contained.)

Soooooooooo... yes. Age is a factor, but is not the sole answer. Some people are just different from other people.

That is something that I realised a few months ago actually, things get too over-analysed especially titles and summaries and then leads to over-reacting and assumptions based off no context, for example I remember people complaining why doesn't everyone go in the RoSaT then we later find out Vegeta blows it up! Or people complaining why they don't get non-Earthlings to join the team a few episodes later this very subjective was discussed in-verse.

I also think most people aren't used to watching DB in a weekly format, most shows people watch nowadays are over in a cour or two . I also think people's expectations on anime and in turn DB have changed based on a plethora of different shows folks have presumably watched for example you got all the "why can't madhouse animate DB" or "why can't DBS look like OPM!!!!!" the elder series has that grandfather treatment where a new show is just prime for picking. Like most complaints for the show I have seen could be applied to the elder series and I am sat here sometimes thinking how xyz person is even a fan of franchise in the first place.

[Yomi]

Who cares what the director or animator's name is? Who cares if you're not studious enough to know the correct terminology? As long as you get your point across and don't screw up the facts, what does any of that matter? Why should it matter?

I'm talking about people who have no experience or knowledge of the industry, but end up getting treated as authorities on these subjects.
It urks me. It's like a teenager who has never been in a kitchen, lecturing a chef on what he's ought to do, and what spices to use, and how he's gotta base his meats.

Whenever these nasally teenager anime youtubers say something, and you try to have a different opinion, their fans act as if their word is law on the matter.
As if they're some kind of authority on anime. When they have never set foot in, or researched what goes into anime.

It's just weird how many of these channels there are, and how authoritative they act on the industry.
And it's not like what they're saying is correct, like for example, I remember some "animation quotes" from these guys.

"use the same studio as you did in episode 94/95, don't use the toei animators", "One punch man had the same budget, and it looks 1000x better, they just need to try harder." "This is how Show A should have been written, (only gives examples from Hunter x Hunter, instead of expressing a general adoptable concept).

[SansrivaaL]

I dont buy it having anything to do with age. Lot of factors to input like people's expectations for the show differs, along with your current lifestyle and experiences can really change your views on a fictional entertainment show.
In my case 2015... wasnt such a good time for me as well so I was able to enjoy what DBS was despite the retellings, a little bit of entertainment and work helped me get past what happened, this time around I was able to move on and this is what happens, I become critical af from time to time especially when something dumb happens in the show, DBS is something different than your average show for me, I grew up watching DB so basically its DB and Goku that got me into anime so the character itself is what has me watching the show, the story/current arc being boring has nothing to do with it as I am watching for Goku,Gohan,Vegeta,Piccolo and Krillin (I may say I dont like Vegeta and Piccolo but without them it would just feel weird) what I am sure of is when the next gen happens and they remove the original cast especially Goku, I can completely stop watching this (literally happened with Naruto as I dont watch Boruto, tho I skip parts when I hear people talkin about Naruto having an appearance)
Another is I'm pretty inconsistent with my views on the show depending on the situation I'm in, like ep 100 for example, normally I wouldnt have liked the episode with what just happened, ignoring 18's comment on Krillin which was just as bad, the Kale one really was horrible, not because she whooped Goku but because I dont like Broly homage, I want Kale to be her own character, and Kale's SON GOKU scream fails in comparison to Zamasu's.

[DBZ Macky]

Surely, what's going on in a person's life while he's spending his time on watching the episode has much more to do with their enjoyment, rather than their age.
I'm 18, and most of my college exams are on Monday. So when I'm literally spending a good chunk of time watching and discussing about the series and the episode turns out to be trash, I'm gonna be pissed.

Nowadays, I don't have anything too important to be worried about until August, so I'm much more forgiving towards Super and any other series that I'm enjoying at the moment. I feel it's probably the reason why your average 10 year old viewer, who has less things to worry about than your average college student, is a lot more forgiving towards the show. It's because they don't have to find that balance between enjoying their favorite Anime and studying to get a good job.

[Pluto]

I still watch it with the joy of the 12y old...with 30.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

As one who spent enough of his young life doing not much at all to be now reaping the consequences of that malaise, I can at least acknowledge that there are better ways to waste time, and picking apart Dragon Ball episodes in the ways that have become common don't sound like a good one. In that regard I can understand Lenny's furor! I'm just happy to have Dragon Ball back, honestly!

More importantly though, I and anyone who "grew up" with Dragon Ball am in a position to interpret Super as a production and a product of where the franchise is as well as a story (a booming revival that can seemingly do whatever it wants and succeed, adapted from Toriyama's likely broad text outlines versus a scene-by-scene manga, etc.), not to the degree that VegettoEX or our animation observers do, but enough that just about anything I could chose to take issue with is explained away by circumstance. Even if I did not follow Kanzenshuu for the extra details I would have come to that same conclusion on the broad facts that its being produced twenty years later and not derived from any other source material.

[greeZH]

I watch Dragon Ball differently than I used to. I'm more interested in character interactions, world building and the hole gods and angels situation than in spectacular fights. That's why I don't care much for power scaling or how and when someone reaches a new form. That's why I'm enjoying Super a lot, because imo the world building is better than it's ever been.

I wonder how I would like DBZ if I would watch it the first time at my age. When it comes to character interactions and humor, DBZ was the weakest of the francise. I wasn't a big fan of the early Dragon Ball episodes, where there wasn't much fighting going on, when I was younger. Now I think Dragon Ball is the true masterpiece of the series.

[Esfír Dedragón]

Given what my age is right now, my preferences in what entertains me has somewhat changed since I last saw a Dragon Ball related show during the early 2000's.

Several life experiences have compelled to realize that what entertained me as a child cannot be the same thing, in general, as an adult now. I have often been involved in praise and criticism of Dragon Ball since then. A major idea of speculation that I thought about countless times was if I would ever see some kind of continuation of the Dragon Ball Story.

I foolishly thought that TOEI and Toriyama would have enough time and dedication to write a high quality story that would attract an older audience, especially from grown-upped fans. Instead, they keep vomiting out the same old junk that no longer makes me appreciate the franchise.

I generally feel that I'm just too old for that. I don't care if it's all about making more money; that shouldn't be an excuse to give us subpar and clichéd story ideas in Dragon Ball.

[Lord Beerus]

I think age is a factor in some degree. How we perceive and analyse stories certainly has something to do with our critical thinking and broad sense of general knowledge. Something which doesn't develop until out older years. I used the think the Cell arc was the best arc in all of Dragon Ball Z. But when I grew older and re-watched the show I picked up on certain elements of the story, which I wouldn't have as a child, and now I don't don't view the arc in the same anymore. That's not to say that young children won;t pick on the flaws of any given show, especially animated ones. But most kids are certainly more inclined to more tolerable to the shortcomings any type of media that may experience.

[dbs fanboy]

I think so, i hadn't actually started to try to analyze anything or care about other people's views on the franchise until the Super/modern dragon ball era, and i pretty much reflected some of this on my first signature.

Before that i only watched dragon ball because i loved the fights and the characters, and because i always had a good time during break time on school playing with my friends, (usually choosing to play as Goten) and imagining that we were Z warriors. Or tying a belt to my pants and run around shouting MAMA I'M A SAIYAN.

That was basically it, thought i still keep some of my child self inside me, the main reason i watch super (besides being interested on it's improvements) it's being enjoyed. That's my rule, enjoy first, analyze later.

[Super_Divine_Genki]

Yeah, I feel that age is a big part for me personally, as I fall into the latter group of being an 80's kid. It's not just age though, as a lot of my view has to do with the actual presentation of content. Super is obviously more about playing to the most recent generation(s) (as it should be going for new younger viewers) -- it doesn't have that 'everyone' and timeless appeal as DB/Z did before it. It only dips back into the more popular areas to cater to 90's nostalgia, and there is very little depth to any of its storytelling, imo. Super is more for the young kids and the online/social media age groups who want that instant gratification, imo. It's very contemporary. We can see how much difference that there is between DB/Z and Super as being products of that specific time, kinda like if you look at the original Jurassic Park and compare it to Jurassic World. One will remain an all-time classic, and the other will go down as something that just happened at the time (but break box office records in the process ).

However, if I'd been flipping through the channels early on Saturday morning in late 1996 as a teen, had Super been running at the time, I most likely would've stopped there and kept with it like I did the DBZ "Ocean dub". I mean, character designs (Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo,etc.) like that back then were unlike anything on American TV. I'm not sure how long that I would've actually kept up with it for long-term back then, as its something that I feel I would've probably got bored with, or forgot about to other stuff. That's tough to say.