"Nothing is replaceable here"— Anime fans come to Bleach's defense after latest Big 3 slander aimed at the series

Modified Jun 06, 2024 02:56 GMT

Bleach's place among the Big 3, the most popular battle shonen of the 2000s with Naruto and One Piece, has recently been defended by the anime community despite claims that the series could be replaced in that position. That original claim is a misunderstanding of what the Big 3 represented back in those years, and also does Tite Kubo's series a massive disservice.

The Big 3 was the result of One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach being the three most popular series back in those days. They were often the highest-selling series of Weekly Shonen Jump at the time, and also the first ongoing manga to make an impact worldwide, since properties like Dragon Ball had already concluded at the time.

Therefore, the place of Kubo's manga is also the result of a specific moment in time that cannot be taken over by any other series.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for this series. Any opinion expressed here belongs to the author and not Sportskeeda as a whole.

Anime fans defend Bleach's place as one of the Big 3 in the 2000s

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A person on X, with the username @JidanSekh, has recently claimed that Tite Kubo's manga's place among the Big 3 of battle shonen could be replaced by the likes of Dragon Ball Z and Hunter X Hunter.

The problem with this reasoning is that it doesn't consider the context of the term "Big 3", which emerged because of these three series being extremely popular in the 2000s, and also being the highest sellers in the manga industry at the time.

Therefore, the Big 3 isn't about the most popular or the best-written anime series of all time but rather a term to describe a moment in time in the manga industry. As a result, not only can this series not be replaced, but also the fact that Dragon Ball already ended its original manga at the time, and Hunter X Hunter, while very well-received, never sold as well as these three.

"NONE OF THE BIG THREE ARE REPLACEABLE," someone said.

"Never seen someone hate bleach so much" someone else said.

"Bleach Disrespect on this app is insane," another person said.

Ichigo Kurosaki in the recent anime adaptation (Image via Studio Pierrot).

Until the anime's return in 2022 to cover the Thousand-Year Blood War arc, the franchise had a very low profile since it had ended in the manga.

On the other hand, Naruto continues to live in people's minds through Boruto and One Piece is still ongoing, so it makes them have more of a place in the current landscape of the medium.

"I don't get anime fans like at all... Why can't people just watch what they like," someone else said.

"None of them can be replaceable, because the Big Three is not something that the fans have decided, it is an already defined concept, it is like changing the final value of 3+3. The Big Three is a objective concept defined by the three most selling mangas on SJ around the 2000" another person said.

More reactions online

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Another element that is worth taking into account is the fact that Bleach also had the misinformation of being "canceled". The anime ended the Fullbringer arc by the time the Thousand-Year Blood War arc started in the manga, which is why they decided to stop the anime and wait for Kubo to end his series.

By the time the manga was ending, Kubo was dealing with severe health issues and had to rush a lot of plot points, which is shown by his input and corrections in the recent anime adaptation.

"I swear, every other month someone is yapping about “the big 3” when they just fundamentally misunderstand what it means," someone said.

"Crazy how we still misunderstand the big three classification to this day," someone else said.

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Edited by Ahana Mukhopadhyay