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The big 3 anime that earned that title in the early 2000s were Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. While the title of "Big 3 anime" has been tossed about here and there since then to describe various anime including My Hero Academia, Haikyuu, Toriko, and Demon Slayer, OG fans will know that the title is still held by Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece.
There are various reasons for this, ranging from their worldwide popularity to their massive length. While Bleach may have fallen off the train for a while, it still hasn't been replaced in many minds or officially, and Thousand Year Blood War brought it back, to name one example.
Disclaimer: As always, there are going to be spoilers for the big 3 anime, including endings for the mangas and their animated adaptations. Opinions covered in this article are exclusive to the author, fans, and any creators spotlighted.
Action scenes, story moving at a good pace, and other reasons why the Big 3 anime remain at the top after decades
One Piece: The Longest running pirate adventure
One Piece is, as of the time of writing, one of the longest-running shonen manga and anime to date. The anime has well over 1,000 episodes, and the manga has 1,000 chapters.
The manga has also won a Guinness World Record for "the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author" in 2015 and 2022. It is the best-selling manga series in history with over 516.6 million copies in circulation in 61 countries and regions worldwide.
This swashbuckling and outrageous pirate adventure starring the ever-expanding Straw Hat crew began in 1997 in manga form and in 1999 in anime form. The reason for the popularity of the first of the big 3 anime varies.
Some say it's because the storyline is incredible, some say it's because of the sincerity and lack of cynicism leading to a lot of emotional engagement, while others say it's the fight scenes being extremely cartoonish compared to other tales.
Truth be told, to really look back on One Piece and its two decades and ongoing run would feel really exhausting if not for everything moving at a good pace. There's a lot less filler than other anime, especially the two other Big 3 anime. Major factors include the foreshadowing for mcguffins like Nika, the Devil fruit, and other powers and characters that always pay off.
One of the biggest reasons cited is that the world feels alive with every island, landscape, backstory, and political structure. The world feels huge and fantastical with water trains, islands in the sky, and other elements that immerse fans totally in the fantasy land.
Naruto: An emotional ninja tale
The second of the Big 3 anime is no less long than One Piece is. Naruto spans over 700 chapters in the manga, and the same amount of anime episodes, although the number would be much higher if we count the spin-off Boruto.
Compared to One Piece, which has roughly 43 video games, Naruto has over 50. It also ranks, at the time of writing, number 6 on the best-selling manga series list according to Wikipedia and other sources, with over 250 million manga copies sold.
This emotional ninja tale and one of the more prominent of the big 3 for western fans started in manga form in 1999 and in anime form in 2002. The anime has thus far spawned a Part 2 of sorts in Naruto Shippuden, which ran from 2007 to 2017, and a "next generation" sequel in the form of Boruto: Naruto the Next Generations which started in 2016 and is still going.
It's also worth noting that Naruto has the only two canon anime movies of the big 3 anime: Naruto The Last and Boruto: The Movie.
All of this is to say that Naruto probably has the biggest media outreach compared to Bleach or One Piece in extra material: the movies are talked about more, the video games have largely been praised higher and are more fondly remembered, and Naruto has many more light novels than the other two.
What makes this ninja adventure so popular then?
Simply put, the action scenes are well executed, the story has a major coming-of-age theme to it and the characters' stories aren't over just because they grew up. The fact that Naruto became Hokage before Ash became Pokemon World Champion or Luffy Pirate King is an accomplishment in and of itself.
Bleach: The soul reaper tale returns
The third of the Big 3 anime is Bleach. Bleach is among the best-selling manga, outselling massive hits such as JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Attack on Titan, and even the classic Fist of the North Star. The series may have fallen to the wayside in popularity, but Thousand Year Blood War ensured its return was a good one.
When Bleach premiered, many fans were worried the series would go into a massive amount of filler given the first 50 chapters were set up. It turned out all that set up paid off when the Soul Society arc kicked off, giving Ichigo and friends significant development and time before the story took a turn.
Likewise, one of the other reasons was Ichigo felt a lot more mature and responsible compared to other impulsive shonen anime protagonists. This was also combined with the fact that Bleach has a lot of characters, typical of the big 3 anime, who all have their own story going on, which is atypical.
While Bleach's popularity waned due to the anime going into entire filler arcs that nearly rival that of Naruto's, it bounced back when the Thousand Year Blood War came around.
Since Aizen exited the scene, Bleach fans were hungry for a villain and story arc that would lift it out of its spell. It took approximately 10 years for the anime to finally begin adapting the final arc of the manga, but when it happened, it kickstarted the resurgence of the third of the big 3's anime's popularity.
The improved animation, the well-adapted fight scenes, and the return of everyone people grew up with really helped reinvigorate the series' popularity.
Thus the decoding of the big 3 anime's popularity is complete. Basically, they all have great world-building (One Piece), character development and emotions (Naruto), and a lot of payoff for foreshadowed elements (Bleach).
The basic conceit is that the big 3 anime remain popular to this day and are likely to never be dethroned on that for a while, if ever. If any readers have any other reasons why these three anime might be popular, please don't hesitate to comment.
