lost the gen z's to Anime
They never sacrifice the male protagonist to make the female protagonist stronger.
For these two above statements I think we would be remiss in not mentioning the pitfalls of anime (and manga) which can still sexualize the heck out of women. The treatment women (in real life) get is often objectified by men. They also do have a lot of violence.
One more thing anime does right - it poses philosophical questions that younger kids might not understand but older ones will.
Well so does other movies but it comes from a different way. Random example personally while I thought Belle could be seen as a damsel needing some rescue she also had backbone, didn't see Beast as someone to ostracize because of his looks and it also put forth very prominently that Belle was an intellectual who loved reading and that reading was perfectly acceptable for women (openly showing Gaston and the village folk as behind the times there).
Toy Story, while I understand your critiques of the later movies, would at least say they grappled with coming of age themes something Pixar has maintained over the years as being the Studio that does that, something that younger audiences aren't necessarily the target audience despite the animation used.
But anime is steeped in a different culture one of which it is more normal to bring forth certain philosophical themes. It doesn't mean that no one else does this, it can just mean they tackle things as they relate to the culture they are targeting.
I think for the same reason you did not have your girls watch the classic movies, if my kids were small now there would be no way i would have them watch the current ones.
IMO this isn't the flex that you think it is. Because in your comments you come across more that you feel annoyed that you perceive the male characters to be portrayed lesser than the women characters such as this below comment of yours is saying
Dinsey of new - has changed this and now the male character cant survive without the female.
But you readily admit you loved the "classics". Loving the classics at the same time as saying you don't like the new ones when the issue is still the same (to you that is where one gender is seen as needing help over the other and that's the plot point).
It comes across more like you're just more annoyed that you feel males are getting the short end of the stick rather than utilizing the thought that you wished Disney had started
from the beginning with more equal viewpoints rather than a genderized version, like you feel the pendulum swung the other way and you don't like it.
Like if you instead of saying you didn't like how Kristoff sings that he can't live without Anna and instead framed it as you don't feel like anyone should be singing about not being able to live without anyone (and gender wasn't even part of it). I mean I get it you say they need to go back to the middle but it's still in the lens of gender being at the forefront which just comes across to me like you don't want the men (in your opinion) to be portrayed as hmm more stereotyped female of that past. I think that's where you're losing people.