The "Big Three" anime (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece) is a term whose origins and definition are surprisingly complex and often misrepresented, with its meaning evolving over time and lacking a single, concrete justification.
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you might think you know what the big
three are and why I thought I did too at
the beginning of this journey but I
assure you you'll soon find out that
almost everything you thought you knew
about this Trio of anime has been a lie
let me explain coined in the early 2000s
The Big Three was a title bestowed to
capture the importance of three specific
series Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto
bleach by tight Kubo and of course one
piece by hir Oda individually they are
some of the most illustrious and
successful manga ever released but
together they form the big three however
now 20 years removed from when that
title was first coined two of these
series have concluded while the other is
approaching its end and so it begs the
question or rather questions if these
legendary stories were universally
agreed to be the big three from the
early 2000s is there a big three for our
current ERA of anime is that even
possible what does the big three even
mean really and where did it come from I
figured this question would be simple to
answer but oh boy was I wrong seeking
this answer has taken me across the
entire internet down a rabbit hole so
deep that I forgotten the feeling of
natural light and even led me to
interview a former Chief marketing
officer SL director at Crunchyroll who
also happens to be an anime consultant
and historian of sorts the journey to
answer this supposed simple question is
more interesting than you might think
and spoiler alert if you thought you
already knew the answer you're dead [Music]
[Music]
wrong to the I'm about to break I
about okay so before we determine what a
modern day big three looks like we must
first establish an answer to one
question what made one piece Nar and
bleach The Big Three now I thought this
was going to be the easiest part of the
video but once again I was wrong and
going forward I will learn from this
mistake and refrain from thinking ever
again to set the stage this journey
began with me just idly wondering this
very question and taken to the internet
to get my answer except very quickly it
became evident that all of these
websites contradicted each other article
after article I only further spiraled
into a deeper confusion CBR claimed the
big three came about out as a fan term
due to their popularity length and how
often they were on the cover of weekly
shown and jump together conversely game
Rand claimed that the term was not
fan-made at all but an official moniker
adopted internally by Shonen Jump itself
due to the substantial positive sales
impact these stories had on the
magazines domestically during the late
'90s and early 2000s article after
article Forum after Forum it became
abundantly clear that there really is no
absolute consensus on this the only
component of this I was certain on was
that one piece Naruto and bleach were
the titles that comprised the big three
but still no answer for the Y aspect of
it all which means it's time to deploy
the nuclear option I must H do my own
research I will never forgive the online
anime Community for forcing me to do
actual work and so the first step in my
research Journey was just going down a
hole and factchecking everything in the
aformentioned gamand article
the principal assertion of the article
was that the big three was in fact a
title which represented a specific
instance in history rather than one that
could be passed on so to speak and
that's an interesting assertion but why
though I'm going to try to paraphrase
here but it basically explains that
since its debut in the late 1960s weekly
sh and jump quickly became shu's
standout magazine thanks in part to its
most popular era ever and no it's not
the big three it was a time period
referred to as the golden age and thank
God this is something we can actually
fact check pretty easily weekly Shonen
Jump sales are public data and look at
that we can see pretty clearly that its
sales were growing exponentially through
this Golden Age all the way through to
1995 the year Dragon Ball ended which is
kind of crazy I mean I guess next time I
diss the bo Ark I should keep in mind it
probably sold more weekly shown and jump
copies than pretty much any other Arc in
the manga history furthermore we can
also positively fact check game runs
claim that after this Golden Era weekly
Shonen Jump sales plummeted with weekly
circulation going from around 6 million
in 1995 to almost 3 million by
1998 so far so good well I mean good
that the article was objectively correct
with this claim but not so much that
Weekly showen jum sales were in the
toilet however this is where the article
breaks down completely and sent me
crashing head first into a brick wall it
claims that Weekly shown in Jump's
figures once again skyrocketed when the
big three came along reaching similar
Heights as the Golden Era and saving the
magazine from the brink and the reason
why I have an issue with that is because
it is objectively wrong and don't take
my word for it just look at the data was
this the sort of quote Revival of
Interest they were referring to sales
and circulation figures of the magazine
year after year marching figuratively
off a cliff with the only years where
these figures didn't plat tow or
decrease being 1999 and a short stretch
a decade later from 2008 to 2011 however
by that point the magazine sales had
plummeted so low that they were
literally less than half of the 1995
Peak not exactly the Revival that was
described okay maybe I was just missing
something I thought maybe I need to look
specifically at the numbers for the big
three themselves let's see what I can
find um ah there we go the list of
bestselling monks all I have to do is
organize by publisher
and wait this list only offers data that
has been gathered since 2008 that misses
like 10 years of one pieces run and a
large chunk of bleach and Naruto's 2o
arguably their most successful arcs this
is that brick wall I mentioned earlier
basically every article cites amazing
sales figures as a core reason for the
moniker of big three but none of that
data is actually a available anywhere
and if we can fact check those how in
the hell can we verify any of this
sentiment how can I even continue making
this video I'll tell you how throw a
Hail Mary of a tweet Into The Ether get
the attention of one of the most
reputable and well researched
individuals in the English-speaking
anime Community to comment on your post
and then pester them in DMS incessantly
until they agree to an interview with
you and answer all your
questions and listen Okay you might be
saying at this juncture Mark why do you
care so much this is an internet meme
from over 20 years ago why has the
atmosphere of the video changed from a
light-hearted bit of fun to obsessively
sweaty data analysis mixed with
rudimentary journalism so what if
everyone can't agree on a concrete
definition these are all fine questions
to which I say [ __ ] off and eat a dildo
definitions matter thousands of people
this very second are arguing viciously
over this 20-year-old meme that they
don't know the first thing about making
enemies in the process as far as I was
concerned trying to untangle this
internet mystery was my good deed for
the week but when I hopped onto the call
with Miles my perspective on the big
three and how it came to be changed
forever for those that don't know miles
is the guy when it comes to
consultations for anime marketing
statistics in the west and over his long
career working for companies like
Crunchyroll and Anime limited he's acred
estimates and sales figures from this
era that are not only valuable but
impossible to find
online one thing at the moment we're
trying to kind of sauce out is presently
we've only been able to find sales data
from 2008 onwards for the weekly show
and jump releases in question do you
know where we might be able to find uh
more comprehensive data to confirm the
sales I mean I paid a lot of money for
those numbers oh okay okay fair enough
fair enough fair enough basically yeah I
I worked with some consulting firms in
Japan to get a lot of my numbers for the
purp of making English language reports
that I could then sell okay so clearly I
had found the right person however in
this interview when I opened with the
question what defined the big three
according to his knowledge his response
was not what I expected he didn't say
cultural influence nor did he mention
any dominance regarding sales figures
what he told us determine the big three
initially was the user feedback cards uh
what the heck are those so every week uh
when you buy a volume of Shonen Jump
there like a million and a half 2
million people who are buying Shonen
Jump every week or picking it up at
their local convenience store and
there's a like basically a reader
response card where you can rank the
manga within the pages there are 20 25
different manga featured every week and
you can kind of use it to show your
fandom or show your support and these
cards are one of like a dozen metrics
that the editors use to decide the
popularity of things it really actually
doesn't matter uh there are a lot of
interviews with editors that say this is
a pretty meager metric for anything
other than like one shots or brand new
series those are the only places where
those cards are you know going to be a
Difference Maker it's just kind of a way
to get people engaged but when you look
at the numbers of people who submit
those cards we're talking tens of
thousands so we're talking less than a
percent of all people who buy the
magazine are sending it back in and that
kind of makes sense just a lot of people
aren't going to be bothered to do that
we've seen you know periods where
hundreds of thousands of people are
sending it in but it's still a fraction
of the total audience this was news to
both myself and my entire crew despite
these user feedback cards being a clear
OV exaggerated and overblown
representation of popularity within the
magazine itself these results were still
used as the initial metrics which
established these three titles as the
big three in the west and what's more is
it gets even more interesting I've heard
a lot of people reference the I suppose
the impressive sales figures for the
trio of manga bleach one piece and
Naruto as the reason that they're the
big three but is it more fair to say
that it's the consistency with which
they place within the top three in the
popularity polls that determined whether
or not they were in fact the big three
that was the origin of it because the
sales weren't there yet so the big three
kind of came around 2006 2005 2006 era
and at that point they weren't selling
like Gang Busters yet like they were not
the best three selling by by any means
like death note was still around Hunter
Hunter was doing really well now
retroactively people have gone back and
used that as a justification but that's
that is kind of with the benefit of
hindsight you
can like I said like we don't actually
have very good data so we only know the
top 10 bestselling Monga of all of Japan
for most of those years like I've tried
to access other forms of data that show
and it kind of shows Death Note like
again mostly estimates it shows that
Death Note would have been a big three
for a lot of those years and Hunter
Hunter would have been a big three
only in like 2009 2010 were the big
three the big three in terms of sales so
like there's a short period of time
couple years where they were the best in
the polls or in the survey the reader
surveys there's a short period of time
where they they're the bestselling and
now retroactively they are the
bestselling overall from that era okay
that's also because they're long running
and so other manga have way outperformed
in terms of a per volume basis according
to those numbers the only years where
one piece Naruto and bleach were
collectively considered the big three in
terms of sales figures were 2009 and
that's kind of it in both 2008 and 2010
while they are up there certainly they
are not the top three together and so
while when all was said and done there
are great sales numbers between all
three that put them in contention with
each other when it came to looking at
each individual year only one lined up
the way we wanted it to
what what the [ __ ] this flies heavily in
the face of the commonly accepted
knowledge of their long Reign at top the
sales charts together what's most
interesting to me concerning these stats
is that from the looks of it what has
defined the big three over the decades
has morphed and changed over time to
justify these three being packaged
together by any means necessary you
could say that what has defined the big
three has sort of changed over time
almost to justify these three things
staying in contention with each other so
realistically if you want to stay with
the original definition of the big three
you'd want to be looking specifically at
the popularity polls for the most
consistent metric almost like a moving
goalpost sales figures weren't enough to
justify their grouping in the mid to
late 2000s and so the popularity polls
were used despite their lack of Merit
and you know what's hilarious it now
finally makes a little more sense to me
why this 2011 OVA Crossover with too and
one piece exists at all prior to the OVA
I had no idea who this weird buff guy
with the blue hair was but now I know
too kicked bleach out of the top three
within those ever so sacred popularity
poll back in 2008 and given that those
popularity polls were the only metric
folks were using to determine the big
three back then a reasonable
conversation had begun to anoint Toro as
the latest member of the trio in '08
which funnily enough had also been the
case for both death note and Hunter
Hunter look at that kids learning is fun
I do Wonder then if by using that metric
because this is a metric that carries
forth to even today you could in theory
use that metric to Define and determine
uh big three for each individual decade
and people have tried to do this um but
because the definition has changed yeah
but even people have used the same
metric and there's just actually not the
same dominance anymore okay things cycle
in and out and like even let's say when
my Academia was at its most popular in
the west like 2016 2017 yeah it wasn't
in the big three of Shonen jump it was
like number four pretty consistently by
that metric and so that kind of seems
weird to us because a lot of westerners
have also taken the perspective that oh
we that was what the big three
originally meant we own it now and it's
the big three in the west but that's
also kind of not true because Naruto was
more popular than than one piece and
bleach combined three times over in the
odds when I first began making this
video I thought I had a clear idea on
what made these three stories worthy of
the moniker The Big Three I thought like
many of you did sales figures were on
their side and that their cultural
impact in the west would be the final
factor which sealed their legacy but
after sitting down with Miles digesting
the data he shared and the perspective
he offered it seems that I was incorrect
on both fronts not only were the sales
figures not what formed the original
definition of the big three as we know
it but the cultural impact I've heard
touted all over the internet too wasn't
as we once thought with stories like one
piece a now modern-day Juggernaut in the
2000s it along with bleach were orders
of magnitude more irrelevant than Naruto
and a wide assortment of other anime
ripe for contention in the west also
people were like why aren't you watching
Code guos why aren't you watching this
why aren't you watching that everything
was more popular than one piece in
English-speaking countries sure in
France or Germany yeah there was more
one piece love in Latin America for sure
but it took a long time for one piece to
kind of shed its four four kids like
Sheen the the bad reputation they got
from that so only recently did one piece
become popular in the west uh or in the
English speaking World while Naruto
bleach and one piece were the properties
miles spoke on the most he also gave me
a lot to think about regarding Dragon
Ball and that Golden Age we explored
earlier while yes sales of weekly shun
and jump dropped considerably and never
recovered following 1995 there could
potentially be another way of
interpreting this data according to
Miles rather than this drop necessarily
being an indication of plummeting sales
figures due to subp power manga being
serialized in the magazine it could
instead be a return to the status quo
Dragon Ball to this day is still one of
the most popular properties in the
entire world looking at the sales data
for that era it's clear that those
incredibly profitable years for weekly
Shonen Jump were at least in part
facilitated by Monumental moments from
that series such as the climax to the
Frieza Arc and Gohan's clash with cell
as miles describes series like slam dunk
and Dragon Ball encouraged and brought
in an audience that otherwise would
never have purchased copies of weekly
Shen jump to put it as simply as
possible you know how there's a lot of
people who have only ever watched Dragon
Ball and Naruto but not any other anime
or perhaps you know of the droves of
football stars that love one piece but
nothing else it's sort of that same deal
once in a while a property like these
comes along and crosses the line from
interesting to anime fans on into
interesting to the entire world and in
the process luring in viewers who would
otherwise never read any other manga the
golden era was a huge boom in this exact
type of viewer with dragon ball and slam
dunk bringing in casuals from virtually
everywhere and once they were gone
weekly Shonen Jump's plummeting sales
was actually just returning to the
status quo so at the very least the
those plummeting sales figures are not a
product of the big three and its error
shortcomings which is good but that
still kind of leaves us hanging in a
limbo State regarding the why on the big
three even with internal data and an
expert at her side any concrete data
driven explanation for its existence is
flimsy at best I think looking at
everything I've learned the closest we
can get to an explanation is just that
these three relatively popular series
all came together and experience Global
popularity around the same time which
felt significant so then out of
curiosity before the interview concluded
I confronted miles and asked him what he
personally would use to gauge a modern
big three my personal argument would be
that it would be internationally focused
since most of the revenue from anime and
manga is now outside of Japan which was
the case for a brief moment during the
big 3's Reign but it finally is again in
a consistently in a consistent way okay
um so I would say just in terms of
overall impact and then I would say you
wouldn't look at the popularity polls or
anything like that because those are
always going to be limited in self-
selecting so they're never going to be
representative of the whole of the anim
manga community and then I'd also say it
has to be anime related because in
English-speaking countries the rate of
people who Read Manga relative to watch
anime is like 50 to 60% despite it all
even as inane and poorly defined and
ethereal as the big three has turned out
to be I think this loose definition for
the big three really aligns most with
what the community now thinks of when
they think of Naruto one piece and
bleach when most people think of the big
three they aren't thinking of hard sales
data or polling cards or weekly Shen
Jump covers they just think back to a
period of time where three standout
anime all at once held the dominant
place in viewers Minds regardless of how
it was defined originally with that in
mind who we may Crown the new Big Three
is tough to say there are a great many
anime in modern times that have captured
a attention in huge ways even outside of
shown and jump IPS properties like
Attack on Titan one punchman and killer
kill manag to reach those Heights in
specific verticals going as far as to
secure huge Global streaming deals with
the likes of Netflix as well as helping
to establish crunchy role as a household
name should they not count for
contention just because they didn't come
from the right magazine I don't think so
personally but ultimately I think if we
were to zero in on the True Modern Kings
of anime and manga we have to look for
those rare properties that not only
manage to capture huge appeal to both
dedicated and Casual fans alike but that
also held that position altogether in a
way that helped push the medium itself
into the spotlight three anime that have
been running concurrently with each
other for years upon years now and
consistently made up a significant
portion of what people think of when
they think of anime today and with that
in mind I decided to ask miles what
three he would choose and as surprising
as it was with everything I now know I
think I agree with him I mean I would
say we don't have a a big three anymore
we have a big two and and a third really
I would say the big two are Jiu-Jitsu
kaisen and Demon Slayer okay and then
the third is one piece both Demon Slayer
and Jiu-Jitsu kaisen are modern anime
through and through and have lived at
the top of that mountain for so much of
their run it's nearly impossible to deny
their impact and if you try you will
invariably end up running into a Demon
Slayer bumper sticker at your local
supermarket a day later these two series
have sat next to each other redefining
what people think of when they think of
anime for a long time now in a way that
once again feels very noteworthy and
then of course the surprise third member
here is one piece still hanging around
where it calls home the very top of the
industry if it isn't apparent by now
this modern big three we've chosen isn't
exactly as concrete and factual as you
want it to be the true objective why of
the original big three is all but
unknowable a combination of Many Many
Factors that coales into this relic of
the past anyone that tries to tell you
an objective reason why the big three
are what they are has much like those
articles I looked into earlier not dug
deep enough to find the real truth and
that truth is that the big three are the
big three because we call them that now
we might have initially used popularity
polls and eventually pivoted to sales
data when it suited us or perhaps some
of you have used any number of alternate
Avenues to try and justify its existence
as we know it today but ultimately none
of them are absolute if there is any one
thing I personally have taken away from
this journey though other than a
personal Vendetta against several anime
news websites damn them straight to hell
I think it's a curiosity for what will
come once these properties have all
finished especially one piece naturally
with Demon Slayer concluded and
Jiu-Jitsu kaisen ending very soon a new
era of anime at top the mountain is sure
to take its place in the future I don't
think anyone is sincerely worried that
anime will run dry of exciting new
stories to tell and characters to fall
in love with but one piece that's what
interested me most during its run Dragon
Ball reached Heights that broke barriers
beyond the anime industry and into a
worldwide cultural phenomenon that
arguably has still yet to be matched and
in its wake slowly over the years one
piece began to take its place to the
point where now it too has broken past
that barrier not by remaining part of
the big three solar system but by
standing on its own as a Galaxy into an
of itself but that didn't happen
immediately in 1995 when Dragon Ball
concluded Ed one piece was but imly and
culturally compared to where it has
gotten to now decades later Manga and
Anime went years without a Golden Arrow
level barrier breaker like one piece and
soon because of that we will soon find
ourselves back in 1995 once again when
one piece ends once the dust has settled
and the anime streaming sites have all
repaired their servers that will no
doubt be lit on fire in the process who
will stand to take one piece's place
will we experience another decade
without a cultural phenomenon leading
the charge or or will an unlikely anime
spring forth from the shadows and become
the next one piece the next Dragon Ball
I have honestly no idea but that's kind
of what makes this so exciting I mean my
personal bet is on my wife becomes an
elementary school student that one
sounds like a real winner just kidding
or am I thanks for watching guys
goodbye well I hope you enjoyed the
video it ended up very different than I
originally planned but was one hell of a
journey regardless my interview with
Miles was actually over 30 minutes long
so if you're curious and want to watch
the whole thing I'll be posting it to my
patreon for fourstar supporters and
above go check it out if you're curious
and remember to eat your vegetables [Music]
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