Shonen Jump’s Big Three: Which Series has the Biggest Impact?

What do you think when you hear the term the big three in Shonen Jump? For those who don’t know, SHONEN JUMP is the primary manga imprint for releasing the tankōbon volumes of the series that have appeared in magazines in Japan. You think of anime/manga like Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach, and you would be right. The question is, which series has affected our generation the most? Well, I am here to give you that answer. Let us start with the background of these respective series and how they affected us. I will try not to get into spoilers, but I do not guarantee you will be safe. So, spoilers are warned.

I am going to start with Naruto since that is the show that made us start to watch anime. Naruto is a show where the main character (which is Naruto, not duh) wants to become Hokage. (Which is basically ninja president) Naruto was discriminated against for having the nine tails inside of him. (It’s like an inner demon; it’s really corny) So Naruto has to overcome some challenges to become a Hokage, but we are not here to talk about that. We are here to see how Naruto has affected us. Let’s start off with the show in general. The show has affected everyone mainly due to its fight choreography or its message that you deserve a second chance because others went through your pain. This has affected people so that they can train so that they can fight like the characters in Naruto or be better people in general. Then there’s the other part, which is the memes. Naruto is a corny show, so there are bound to be some flaws, like the animation. I’m not saying that Naruto has terrible animation, but in Shippuden, there is that one goofy fight scene that we all know about. I bet it’s a really big PAIN in the bum watching that fight unfold. Or the fact that people Naruto run. Which is cringe, but I am not judging because we all at least did the run one time. But the biggest meme for Naruto is the talk no jutsu. This is where Naruto, instead of just killing or knocking out his enemies, he wants to talk things out and be civil. People make fun of this because it makes the plot really dragged out, or he “saves” people who committed really horrible crimes (downright atrocities even) with zero consequences. Overall, Naruto has affected the world one way or another, whether that be you in your cringe middle school era wearing your Naruto headband and Naruto running across the halls for your lunch, interested in the plot of the story, or for the sake of the memes.

Bleach is very similar to Naruto in a way. Both have inner demons inside of them (and that’s literally it). I have the least amount of knowledge about Bleach because I thought it was boring. But I am not talking about me but us. Bleach is a show about Ichigo just dealing with life basically. The plot is centered around him and soul reapers, basically ghost-hunting hollows. Soul reapers are basically “good” ghosts, and hollows are “bad” ghosts. But the show gets deeper than that. And that is what makes the show really good compared to Naruto. Unlike Naruto or even One Piece, Bleach can get extremely dark when you slowly understand the story and the amount of manipulation Ichigo has to go through. This is why people like bleach and the insane powers in bleach. I won’t get into details since there are too many, and I don’t know any. (I don’t really like bleach) But what I do know is that slowly, over time, the animation gets really good, and I think that affected us because it draws us in with the story with its great visuals. That’s what I got for bleach unless we want to talk about the memes. Like Renji being the Yamcha/Vegeta of Bleach, where he is the punching bag, or Aizen being such a mastermind when you say a wrong opinion about him, he says it’s a part of his plan. Other than that, I think Bleach has affected us the least because nobody knows about it unless they are big anime fans.

 Now, we can discuss a show about Wealth, Fame, and Power: The One Piece. It is the #1 best-selling manga of all time, surpassing the Father of anime/manga Dragon Ball, and is more than Naruto and Bleach combined. Unlike Naruto’s choreography or Bleach’s dark theme, this anime focuses on world-building with amazing antagonists and villains. I am not saying that the other two didn’t have any; it's just that with one piece, you’re not able to power scale like DB due to their enormous power. It also gets tangled with emotions, being the funniest to the saddest anime compared to the other two. But a similarity between One Piece and Naruto is the fact that both protagonists aim to achieve an impossible task due to the challenges, and the only similarity it has with Bleach is its amazing animation production over time. Also, the adventures like saving a random island to meeting new people and their culture (almost no limit), but with Bleach, the plot mainly stays in Japan, and for Naruto, I mean, sure, they meet new people. Still, the world-building is small, and there’s a limit to meeting others unless they’re children being born or aliens that pop out of nowhere. And sure, many people say One Piece is too long to watch, but those people who’ve watched it know that it is a journey that can never be forgotten. The same goes for Bleach and Naruto. It is a one in a lifetime. To wrap it up, the anime that had the biggest impact is definitely ONE PIECE, then NARUTO (even if I don't like it because of it being corny (I would rather put Bleach than NARUTO)) according to research and statistics (I still don’t know how it's better than BLEACH even after BORUTO), and lastly BLEACH. But being biased at the end, I would much rather put OP, BLEACH (even if I haven’t seen much of it), and last, NARUTO.