When Dragon Ball Super introduced the Goku Black arc to audiences, many were instantly hooked by the opening scenes that consisted of Future Trunks scrambling to reach his time machine and save his future. However, what caught many more by surprise was the revelation of a villain who looked exactly like Goku, and eventually, revealed to have been Zamasu who took his body and used it to enforce his new world order. Nevertheless, the story had an excellent beginning, an impressive middle, but sadly had a lackluster end to its arc as well as how it managed to be resolved. The Goku Black arc's ending left many fans dissatisfied and even outraged at the lack of a resolution or rather how its resolution felt like a total loss, which begged the question to many of whether this could have been prevented. Could the ending have somehow been different in the long run, and if so, what were some of the flaws of the ending that need to be highlighted to be understood?
The Goku Black Arc changed a lot of things for the audience and a formula for the shows narrative at the time. Not only did we learn more about the Supreme Kai's of other universes and their roles in the story, we also got a return appearance from Future Trunks, character arcs between him and his father Vegeta, and a deeper more cunning villain in Zamasu and Goku Black. The two villains in particular made the highlight of the Goku Black arc as interesting and engaging as it was when it started. However, the biggest glaring problem and stain ended up being its final episodes as well as how the ending was resolved between Future Trunks' resolution, the overall erasure of his universe, as well as the outcome of what many consider to be an unfair and dreadful ending. Still, what flaws or glaring issues could have contributed to its ending, and how different could the ending have been to be an improvement?
Flaws And Cracks In The Armor
To begin with the very first indications of a lackluster ending, it is important to address the elephant in the room. The battle between Fused Zamasu and Future Trunks certainly had a climactic showdown, especially when Trunks used the spirit energy from the remaining survivors into his sword to defeat Fused Zamasu. While the technique came out of nowhere and certainly felt more akin to a deus ex machina, if the arc had ended right there with Zamasu's defeat and the universe and timeline saved, the fans would not have had such a polarizing reaction compared to its original ending. Especially when the original ending consist of Zamasu releasing all of his energy before death to essentially become omniscient and consume all the universe and timeline that Future Trunks called home.
The major problem with this ending is that it makes all the struggles that Future Trunks, Goku, and Vegeta went through to defeat Zamasu futile and ultimately wasted. It doesn't necessarily feel satisfying to see the heroes succeed in defeating the villain, but the villain destroys their world and everything they hold dear anyway and leaves the audience confused at best, and distressed at worst. The major reason is the disconnect as well as the fact that that timeline's Zeno erased the universe and Zamasu along with it, ending the arc with a pyrrhic victory that doesn't feel resolved or remotely the best ending. The audience can't exactly consider it a good ending when everything felt like it was wasted as well as the fact that Future Trunks and Future Mai have to travel to a different timeline for them to start over, leaving an unresolved and unanswered question. However rushed the ending may have been, the Goku Black Arc isn't unsalvageable or unable to be improved upon overall.
Potential Improvements
Dragon Ball Super at the time had a lot of opportunities to fix the ending in the Goku Black Arc, and many of these are related to the point of why these flaws are such a huge deal. For example, Zamasu's defeat at the hands of Future Trunks could have been a perfect send off to the arc. Even with the cosmic order of the Dragon Ball multiverse destroyed, if the universe wasn't assimilated by Zamasu there was still a chance to fix everything with the Super Dragon Balls. The story and the arc would have been resolved at the end of the day, thanks to this detail. Goku and Vegeta's involvement would have paid off, Future Trunks would still have a universe and future to build up for, and Zeno would never have to get involved overall.
Still, there is sadly no guarantee that Toei is going to consider the ability to do such a thing. It is years late for the arc to have had any different ending that didn't require erasure of the entire universe, and sadly the story had to be resolved the way it was. Of course, that doesn't mean that the story couldn't have been improved by removing Zamasu's last ditch effort and having him fully destroyed before any further damage can be done. At the end of the day, Dragon Ball Super is not a perfect show as seen before. The Goku Black Arc is certainly not perfect, as shown through its final episode and ending, so there is always some level of understanding as to what to learn from this.