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?

1

One Piece

On air since 1999 and past 1,170 episodes, still following one manga.

2

Naruto

220 episodes plus 500 of Shippuden, fifteen years of continuous broadcast.

3

Bleach

366 episodes, a decade off, then a prestige return for its final arc.

4

Dragon Ball Z

The series that taught television what a shonen saga looks like.

5

Pokémon

Nearly three decades of a boy, a mouse and a new region every few years.

6

Case Closed (Detective Conan)

Over a thousand episodes of a shrunken detective and no ageing.

7

Gintama

Ten years of switching between parody and genuine tragedy without warning.

8

Sailor Moon

Five seasons that set the template for the magical-girl genre.

9

Fairy Tail

Nine years of a guild that solves everything with friendship and fire.

10

Hunter x Hunter (2011)

148 episodes that stop exactly where the manga did, and are better for it.

11

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Six parts, six casts, one family, and a total redesign each time.

12

Inuyasha

167 episodes of feudal-era travel, plus a sequel series a generation later.

13

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters

224 episodes that turned a card game into a world-ending threat weekly.

14

Doraemon

The longest-running of them all in Japan, and barely known for it abroad.

15

Crayon Shin-chan

Three decades of a five-year-old behaving appallingly, still on air.

16

My Hero Academia

Seven seasons that carried the shonen torch through the 2010s and 2020s.