Top 16 Long-Running Anime Series of All Time
Some anime ask for a weekend. These ask for a year of your life, and keep asking. Hundreds of episodes each, decades on air: which one earns the commitment?
1One PieceOn air since 1999 and past 1,170 episodes, still following one manga.
2Naruto220 episodes plus 500 of Shippuden, fifteen years of continuous broadcast.
3Bleach366 episodes, a decade off, then a prestige return for its final arc.
4Dragon Ball ZThe series that taught television what a shonen saga looks like.
5PokémonNearly three decades of a boy, a mouse and a new region every few years.
6Case Closed (Detective Conan)Over a thousand episodes of a shrunken detective and no ageing.
7GintamaTen years of switching between parody and genuine tragedy without warning.
8Sailor MoonFive seasons that set the template for the magical-girl genre.
9Fairy TailNine years of a guild that solves everything with friendship and fire.
10Hunter x Hunter (2011)148 episodes that stop exactly where the manga did, and are better for it.
11JoJo's Bizarre AdventureSix parts, six casts, one family, and a total redesign each time.
12Inuyasha167 episodes of feudal-era travel, plus a sequel series a generation later.
13Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters224 episodes that turned a card game into a world-ending threat weekly.
14DoraemonThe longest-running of them all in Japan, and barely known for it abroad.
15Crayon Shin-chanThree decades of a five-year-old behaving appallingly, still on air.
16My Hero AcademiaSeven seasons that carried the shonen torch through the 2010s and 2020s.
#animation166#japan104#classics486#all-time321
Comments
Doraemon has been on air in Japan since 1979, longer than any of the Big Three, and most of their Western fans have never seen it: https://youpick.best/articles/one-piece-vs-naruto-vs-bleach-ranked
