Thursday, April 25, 2024

My thoughts on Big 3 (Shonen Jump)

Bleach

Finished

Naruto

Finished

One Piece

Chapter 1113

Hello everyone I'm XboxClown89, I always wanted to give my thoughts on the Big 3 from Shonen Jump We are talking Naruto, Bleach and One Piece respectively. Three lengthy manga series that was massive successes for the company. Even right now a lot of newer manga stories are heavily inspired by them. They are nearly as big as Dragon Ball which is really saying a lot!!!

Considering One Piece taking a long time to end. I already finalized majority of the rankings. In a future blog entry after One Piece finishes I'll reveal my last few rankings. Also waiting to make this simply came off being unnecessary. I think it's about time to reveal my exact thoughts on all three of them.

Comparison of the Big 3

All three of them are vastly different from each other. There's a few concepts they do shared that's simply done differently. I will openly confess I really don't like Naruto at all. There's little to nothing I like about it. In fact, it was one of the first overrated animes I heard about from school. Naruto eventually declines during the ending portions in the manga.

Honestly Bleach is also guilty of that with Yhwach ruining everything. This is more about comparing the manga series. I felt Naruto even with the darker moments is the lightest in overall tone in the Big 3. Majority of techniques were incredibly tedious. There's a handful of Naruto characters I like. Also do I need to say it again?

Naruto is simply not ninjas at all but kids to teens seems to like it. I also don't like the fact Boruto as in a spin off sequel manga series either. However considering the Big 3 is exclusively those three manga series. I'm not here to compare Boruto in this, also I really don't wanna read that either. Let's put it this way how Hunter x Hunter made hunters the way it did was pretty awesome compared to this!!!

Naruto himself was notably very annoying in Part 1 of the manga. In Part 2, he came more off like a cheap Goku ninja rip off I'm serious. I felt majority of the fights were simply too repetitive especially the last few fights. For me, Naruto doesn't even compare to the other two series. Which is kinda funny when a lot of people wants Bleach removed the Big 3.

One weird fact is Sanji in One Piece almost got named Naruto. But the author of One Piece found out about Naruto manga, he changed the name. Naruto manga is notably better than the two anime shows. I did fully read the manga, not a huge fan myself. I refused to resume the original Naruto anime. A friend told me Naruto has some bad filler episodes too.

Speaking of Bleach, I actually think it's one of the most awesome manga series I ever gotten into. I almost loved everything about it with some notable problems. A good example being a lot of the final story arc which the newer Bleach anime based on simply a mess. The last to second arc is too similar to Yu Yu Hakusho's Chapter Black arc.

I simply dislike majority of the quincies' powers too. In fact, the one quincy power I actually wanted was The Visionary from Gremmy. The power to make anything you think of become reality. A truly ridiculous power soul reaper captain Kenpachi faced. Yes it has a lot of strong similarities with Yu Yu Hakusho more so in their respective anime shows.

I actually respect Ichigo for a lot of reasons. I know some people called him being rather bland as well a boring protagonist. To me, he comes off as the most relatable of the three main characters. I also liked we get a great variety of skill sets with soul reapers and arrancars being my two favorites. You also get a few plains of existence thrown in for good measure.

I like a lot more characters in Bleach in comparison to Naruto. Bleach would be the darkest among the Big 3 by default. You can tell Bleach was going to be something amazing among reading it. Yes some concepts didn't quite happen hat could've been interesting. At the same time, I am very thankful what we gotten.

Tite Kubo is directly involved with the newer Bleach anime to make it true to his original vision. Try to think of it like Zack Snyder's Justice League situation. Where Snyder left the production due to his daughter passed away. Then a series of bad decisions from the company led to not great movie. It took a few years for Snyder to be allowed to make the original Justice League movie he was going to make.

The original Bleach anime does have some notable problems. Like up to the Soul Society arc isn't actually following the manga that well. Some parts did happen there but everything else for whatever reason got rewritten not representing the author's vision at all. There's a lot of filler episodes with a good number being not great.

Season 4 which is one of two filler seasons of the Bounts easily the worst Bleach season. It still currently among one of my most disliked anime seasons ever. The rest of the filler seasons are mostly decent I say. The movies including the live action one are decent too. It's very rare when an live action movie nails anime like this but it's not as good as the live action One Piece show.

Bleach was a rather take on the supernatural. You don't see hell but mostly non canon there's some stories involving there. The hell movie didn't represented the author's vision of hell. Which led to a bonus, sequel hell chapter. This isn't counted with the other chapters since the actual manga series ended a couple years prior.

Another weird thing with Bleach is unlike the other series within the Big 3. Bleach was more selective about which consoles gets Bleach games. Seriously there's a lot more Naruto and One Piece games in comparison. Thanks to a friend I guarantee high school with, I eventually played a little of a PS3 Bleach game.

Hands down One Piece is my favorite of the Big 3. Currently the only manga series still going that recently gotten a live action show. I know a lot of people complain about the story being really long. In it's defense the story actually surprisingly constant all these years. You are getting a lot more story in mostly bigger story arcs.

One Piece has plenty creativity in every sense of the word. In nearly every possible way perfection, it's that damn good!!! I know people may quickly write it off when they look at it. If you give this a chance you may be surprised how truly interesting it is. This is a pirate story with so much going for it. One Piece set the golden standard for not only the genre but for the company as well.

Almost everything you could possibly ask for an Shonen series One Piece delivers. It's also clear proof of the late author Akira Toriyama if he kept Dragon Ball Z the style of the original Dragon Ball. It still would've been a major success sadly DBZ's actual style partly ruined some series to a degree. The main crew of the story are surprisingly decent people that goes out their way to help others.

They have saved a few countries from many pirates including Doflamingo who had connections. Each location really feels like it's own more so than in a lot of similar series. A good example is Water 7 was inspired by Italy or Wano being inspired by Japan. Devil Fruits are honestly one of the most interesting powers in any Shonen series I ever heard of.

Luffy is a very relatable character that's one of many characters heavily inspired by Dragon Ball's Goku. Who was also inspired by Sun Wukong from Chinese mythology as well as Journey to the West story. It's very rare I say this, there's a lot of characters I like. It's way more than Bleach which by itself already saying something.

Nearly everything about One Piece is really interesting at it's core. The insane amount of art work to truly amazing story telling, it really blew my expectations. Haki is one of my favorite combat systems to date. Obviously, there's plenty of controversial moments that happens during the story. There's a great balance to everything so perfect you really couldn't ask for anything more.

One Piece actually made pirates kinda fun to watch. Some chapters has so much going on including taking up two pages it's really impressive that works as well as it does. This epic journey could possibly be one of the greatest stories ever told in Shonen manga history. Personally I already think it deserves such an honor.

I also got to mention One Piece does reference the other two series to a degree. Like Perona who has the Hollow-Hollow Fruit that allows the user to create as well as control ghosts. Obviously that's a Bleach reference devil fruit power. There's a few ninja characters that do reference Naruto to some degree mostly during Wano arc.

Not only that, one of Blackbeard's captains has a Naruto reference devil fruit power too. It also could be more of referencing the Japanese mythical creature Kurama. Some Shonen series like Yu Yu Hakusho references the same creature. I am really not kidding One Piece is heavily inspiring me over the years. Eventually everyone on Luffy's crew will reach their dream.

I also got to mention there's a lot of spin off One Piece stories. We got one following Ace's story as well as learning more about Sanji. I recently learned my favorite One Piece character Zoro getting his own spin off. There's a few crossover works including the late Akira Toriyama. Who actually was the author of One Piece's idol.

Toriyama stated his kid was into One Piece. Eventually he got into it, he said some great things about his work. It's almost like Toriyama passed the torch officially to Oda before he passed away. There was a few anime crossover episodes of One Piece. Although some of those were skipped in the Funimation dub version of the anime.

Speaking of that, there's already a new remake anime coming out. At this present time I'll keep quiet what my thoughts are about it. But I may write about it in a future blog entry. I will say One Piece anime being such a popular show for a long time is truly amazing stuff. I won't be surprise they get it again this year.

There's a lot more characters on both sides. I have decided to do two top 5 favorite characters lists each. Now this is a very suggestive ranking everyone likely going to have different lists.

I previously stated I didn't like many Naruto characters. Unfortunately I don't think I could do either list with five characters each.

Naruto

Heroes

2. Hinata Uzumaki

1. Kakashi

Villains

2. Itachi Uchiha

1. Orochimaru

Bleach

Heroes

5. Sajin Komamura

4. Toshiro Hitsugaya

3. Ichigo Kurosaki

2. Kisuke Urahara

1. Kenpachi Zaraki

Villains

5. Baraggan Louisenbairn

4. Sosuke Aizen

3. Shukuro Tsukishima

2. Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez

1. Ulquiorra Cifer

I refuse to put any quincies on that list.

One Piece

Heroes

5. Whitebeard

4. Red Hair Shanks

3. Monkey D. Luffy

2. Sanji

1. Roronoa Zoro

Villains

5. King

4. Charlotte Katakuri

3. Rob Lucci

2. Doflamingo

1. Kaido

Ranking the Protagonists

3. Naruto Uzumaki

2. Ichigo Kurosaki

1. Monkey D. Luffy

Ranking the Big 3

3. Naruto

2. Bleach

1. One Piece

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