Since the early 2000s, the Big Three of anime have pretty much ruled the medium. Although they only encapsulate the shonen demographic of anime/manga, One Piece, Bleach and Naruto have managed to stand the test of time. While fans love to argue about which franchise was or is the best, an even more frequent conversation revolves around which protagonist of the Big Three -- Naruto Uzumaki, Monkey D. Luffy or Ichigo Kurosaki -- is the strongest.
Over the years, the debate has become bigger and bigger, with a lot of fan content being about trying to decide a clear winner. For the sake of this comparison, the three characters will be compared to when they were at their best. Let the match-up begin!
One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy
Luffy is one of the strongest characters in One Piece, with extraordinary physical abilities, mastery over Haki and deceptively strong Devil Fruit powers. With these Devil Fruit powers, Luffy can stretch his body however he wants and is incredibly resistant to most attacks thanks to it now being made permanently out of rubber. As strong as he already is, Luffy is also able to enhance his already immense strength even more through the use of Haki and his "Gears."
As the manifestation of Luffy's will, his Haki power is immense and practically limitless. With it, he is able to increase his body's strength and durability, sense opponents' strength and presence and exert his will onto others, breaking their own in the process. This gives Luffy an incredible range of abilities and options when it comes to taking on opponents, especially with each of their advanced forms. With their advanced techniques, Luffy is able to use his Haki to break things apart from the inside, see into the future and infuse his strikes with the will-breaking effect without ever making physical contact, significantly increasing his destructive potential. He can even enhance his attacks with flames by combining his Devil Fruit powers with his Haki, making them even stronger than before.
Luffy's Gears are just as impressive as his Haki. With his Second Gear, Luffy increases his speed and strength immensely. His Third Gear lets him increase the size of his bones and therefore his limbs, making his strikes both vastly larger and stronger. Fourth Gear takes it to the next level by having Luffy inflate the muscles in his body after they have been coated in Armament Haki, which acts to compress his muscle structure as it expands. This combination gives Luffy an exponential increase in both speed and strength, allowing him to fly and move at high speeds and strike with an enormous amount of explosive power.
After awakening his Devil Fruit, Luffy learned that he has the powers of Sun God Nika that he can fully access in his Gear Five form. With this transformation, Luffy has complete control over his body's ability to stretch and apply cartoon physics to himself, his opponents and his surroundings. Described as the most "ridiculous" power in existence, all of Luffy's abilities increase exponentially, and he can even stretch parts of his body to the size of islands and attack with them. Even defensively, this form allows him to tank attacks as if he were a cartoon, making it pretty hard to bring him down.
Naruto's Naruto Uzumaki
Naruto Uzumaki is said to be the strongest shinobi in his series. Born with a strong body and huge amounts of chakra, combined with training from some of the series' greatest fighters and having the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside him, he is considered the strongest shinobi in his world.
The Shadow Clone Jutsu allows Naruto to make hundreds of copies of himself, with the only drawback being that they are only as strong as the amount of chakra he puts into them, meaning that if they take too much of a beating or run out of usable chakra, they disappear. Naruto's main offensive jutsu is the Rasengan, which allows him to harness his chakra into a pressurized, rapidly spinning ball that has vast destructive potential. By adding more chakra or a nature transformation to it, he can increase its size and properties, thus giving it more destructive power. The ultimate form of the technique is the Rasenshuriken -- a shuriken-shaped Rasengan with incredible cutting power -- that Naruto can fire and guide toward his opponents from afar.
Naruto also has all the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Kurama. Not only does it give Naruto immense strength and healing abilities, but he is even able to cloak himself in Kurama's chakra, enhancing all of his physical abilities and jutsu. The ultimate technique of this form lets Naruto surround himself in a life-sized chakra avatar of Kurama, granting him access to the full power of the Nine-Tailed Fox. Naruto has also been given some chakra of every tailed beast, increasing his natural chakra reserves and granting him access to their respective Nature Releases.
Naruto's Sage Mode is an incredibly powerful form that lets him absorb nature energy to increase all of his physical and sensory abilities and jutsu significantly. He has also been granted the power of Six Paths Sage Mode -- a much stronger version of the standard form -- and when used in conjunction with his Nine-Tailed Chakra form, Naruto is at his strongest, able to use all the power of both forms and even fly.
Bleach's Ichigo Kurosaki
Due to the unique nature of his existence, the way Ichigo's powers work is a little complicated. The Shinigami powers that Ichigo inherited from his father are directly linked to his inner Hollow, essentially merging them into the same thing, whereas his Quincy powers were from his mother. As such, Ichigo's powers have two sides to them: the Hollow/Shinigami and the Quincy.
After forging his true Zanpakuto, Zangetsu, Ichigo was able to access the full extent of his powers and balance them together. This "balance" took the form of two separate blades, with the large sword being a representation of his Hollow/Shinigami powers and the large knife being his Quincy one, though both are technically Zangetsu.
With his true power, all of Ichigo's physical abilities were exponentially enhanced to the point that even the strongest and fastest enemies were overwhelmed. Ichigo also has an immense level of durability and endurance, letting him fight through intense battles and injuries without falling. One swing of his sword can destroy entire castles with ease, and he can even fire his immense Spiritual Power in the form of giant, destructive energy slashes from his sword.
By upsetting the internal balance of his powers by exposing or manifesting immense amounts of Quincy energy, Ichigo can bring out his Hollow powers even more, transforming into a Merged Hollow Form, thus significantly increasing all his physical and spiritual abilities. Ichigo can also use the ultimate Hollow technique, the Gran Ray Cero, and combine its power with his signature ability, the Getsuga Tensho, creating an even stronger attack. Ichigo's true Bankai combines both blades into a larger one, and while the full extent of it was never revealed, this form elevated all of Ichigo's powers more than ever.
And the Winner Is: Monkey D. Luffy
Based on what has been shown in each of the series so far, Luffy can match both Naruto and Ichigo's strengths and speeds thanks to his Haki and Devil Fruit powers, or at least get close enough that the differences don't matter, even in any of their transformations. Luffy's body also makes him highly resistant to Naruto's attacks, and with Armament Haki, he can protect himself further, even from Ichigo's swords.
Luffy's advanced Haki techniques should work well against both of them too, as they have no real way of countering them. Armament can break their bodies apart from the inside, while the Conqueror's can hit them hard and break down their wills without him ever having to actually touch them. Observation Haki even lets Luffy predict their attacks, making it incredibly difficult for either to land a decisive blow considering neither has any power that offers them the same ability.
As it is the full power of Sun God Nika, Gear Five is what really helped Luffy pull ahead. It's a perfect matchup against Naruto's Tailed Beast form, as Luffy can grow himself or any part of his body to the size of a Tailed beast. By using it in conjunction with his Haki, Luffy should even be able to damage Naruto from inside his Tailed Beast form. The same is true for Ichigo, who has shown that he struggles when fighting foes with powers that can't be explained, which is exactly what Gear Five is. Gear Five's powers seem to be unlimited in what they're able to affect and do, so Luffy is pretty much able to use "cartoon physics" to bypass any defense or attack that Naruto or Ichigo could employ.
Even if Ichigo and Naruto's physical abilities exceed Luffy's, they have no clear or surefire way of countering any of his advanced Haki techniques or awakened powers. It might be hard to imagine, but since 2022, Luffy has managed to trump all the competition, even those in other universes.