Since Dragon Ball's initial departure from the pages of Shonen Jump, there was large hole left unfulfilled within the ranks of Japanese action/adventure series. However, such a gap in Shonen entertainment would soon be closed, as not only one but two fresh faces for the company would enter the scene to not only carry Dragon Ball's legacy but the sales and critical acclaim of the magazine as a whole.

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These two series are Eiichiro Oda's pirate adventure, One Piece, and Masashi Kishimoto's punk rock, ninja intrigue, Naruto. Both series have not only dominated the manga sales charts for their runs but have also been plastered on every viewing screen, comic book shelf, and body pillow to be had.

However, such popularity between two series may mean massive commercial success for Shonen Jump, but it also translates to a new age of fan wars for its audiences. Between the two kings of modern Shonen, which is better? This list will try to add some clarity to the debate as it will run down a few reasons why One Piece is better and a few others that mean Naruto is.

10 One Piece: World Building

Luffy looking out over Prison Island in One Piece World Seeker

Naruto does well to create a fully realized world, where Japanese history and mystical, ninja arts meet. It has complex magic systems, political intrigue, and a deep history. It's unfortunate, however, that much of that history boils down to conflicts between Uchihas, Uzumakis, and parallels of Uchihas and Uzumakis.

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It's a general history very much accessible within a simple timeline. One Piece's world and history, however, has a library's worth of information within just a single wiki alone. A combination of the multiple, interweaving paths of its history and the amazing amount of detail within just its islands helps set the series apart as one of the most realized Shonen worlds.

9 Naruto: Seriousness

In credit to Naruto, the series does an absolutely incredible job of giving its characters and issues with provocative drama and emotions. There's a tangible sense of gravity to the situation as a combination of the art and tone of the series helps the audience better connect with the world in a way that just detailed world building can't.

Seemingly coincidentally intersecting with a period of time that gave everyone My Chemical Romance and Coldplay, Naruto entered the Shonen scene during a time when everyone wanted an edgy, rebellious big brother, and its ideas of isolation and parental neglect related to a few more teenage readers than anyone would like to admit.

8 One Piece: Comedy and Silliness

However, drama, tragedy, and seriousness aren't everything to making a series distinct and attractive. While One Piece certainly has strong portions of that, what helps its stand out tonally as a Shonen series is its masterful use of humor to both dress up its world and add to its fanfare.

It's one thing to make someone cry in one scene and laugh in another but to fuse the two feelings in a roller coaster of emotions is true art. Abstract character designs, strange powers, running gags, and an incredibly colorful world helps to both enhance the series' sense of fantasy as well as its accessibility to a diverse audience.

7 Naruto: Fight Scenes

Typical to a beloved Shonen series, both Naruto and One Piece have strong collections of fight scenes. However, while One Piece does well to include them, it is not always the best at them, with there being less than a handful within the series' history that are often talked about.

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Naruto on the other hand has 10 second interactions that feel like a full on punch to the face. The variety of powers, detailed choreography, and incredible sakuga all serve to give Naruto some of the best fights in anime history.

6 One Piece: Diverse Designs

If there's one thing that One Piece can do, it's stick to the mind of the average anime viewer. Within just a few seconds, one can find a variety of color within the backgrounds and characters that easily stick out from the mold of the typical anime. This isn't to say that Naruto doesn't have good character or world designs, however.

There are certainly a strong variety of fan favorites characters based on design alone. But, when looking at the series of dark rocks, trees, and green uniforms during the Great Ninja War, it's easy to find that Kishimoto ran out of ideas at some point.

5 Naruto: Animation

Naruto _ Izuna Uchiha vs Tobirama Senju

Despite lacking a bit in the variety of its art style, Naruto more than makes up for it in the actual moving and pacing of that art. As immediately imaginative as One Piece is, its run with Toei Animation is an infamous one full, full of poor background and character art as well as a few more than noticeable dramatic pauses.

Naruto easily surpasses its contemporary here, as most movements between fighting and just emoting are done incredibly well.

4 One Piece: Sales

A bit of a cheap shot for the most hardened fan, if there was ever a clear disparity between the popularity and perhaps acclaim of the two series, it's the huge gap between their manga sales.

Not only does One Piece's lifetime sales nearly double Naruto's, it is also one of the best selling graphic novels of all time, lagging only behind but quickly catching up to the lifetime sales of Batman and Superman comics. It has even garnered a Guinness World Record for fastest selling graphic novel of all time.

3 Naruto: Length

As much of a sales giant as One Piece is, one major roadblock it has for gaining new readers and viewers is its incredible and still growing length.

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It's a series with seemingly no end and too deep of a beginning, with a large mass of content doing more to intimidate new fans than actually entice them. With Boruto aside, Naruto does have a significantly more accessible reward for its readers between its shorter length and definite ending.

2 One Piece: Eiichiro Oda

If there was ever something to define a piece of art's artistic merit, it would be the love and dedication of its authors. Masashi Kishimoto is certainly a man in love with the industry who does well to compete in and celebrate the medium. However, much like author others, he can noticeable grow tired with his series, further encouraging him to either end things or create drastic change.

Eiichiro Oda on the other hand is someone who's a bit too in love with his series, maintaining the same interest for the story that he had when he began to this day. He works an insane schedule and was once even hospitalized for overworking himself, bringing a love and interest for a story near unparalleled within his industry.

1 Naruto: Western Release and Appeal

As popular as One Piece may be and as dedicated as Oda may be, nothing stops bad marketing from wrecking its releases. 4Kids is already infamous enough for its horrid dubbing and censorship of Pokemon, but its involvement with One Piece is arguably directly responsible for killing its Western release.

Naruto on the other had not only had the benefit of getting a Funimation dub but was also distributed on Toonami, a platform wonderfully regarded for bringing some of the best anime action to Western audiences.

Not only that, its serious design and punk rock sensibilities better meshed with Western audiences, making it the perfect series for people tired of cutesy cartoons and Dragon Ball's idealistic cliches. Major points to Naruto for helping the West take anime a little more seriously.

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