Hannibal Buress once said that rice is the best choice if you’re so hungry that you want to eat a thousand of something. Wise words.
If rice is the cure for a hungry stomach, then anime is the cure for a hungry eye. While some of the world’s finest anime is a tight 24-episode story split over two seasons, other anime consider 24 episodes barely worthy of being called an arc. No, when your eyes get a real hankerin’ for some moving pictures, you gotta wet yer eye-whistle with some of these long-running titles—no matter how gross it sounds.
But why should you binge these anime instead of the actual longest anime of all time? Well, unless you want to watch the tepid exploits of a horse girl who has been horsin’ around since 1969 and is still going strong, there are better anime to watch than Sazae-San. If you’re gonna waste your life in front of the TV, you might as well make sure it’s good TV, and you can’t get much better than these series.
Hunter X Hunter
Don’t let these cutesy little Shonen types fool you, Hunter X Hunter is one of the finest anime stories ever told. It’s also one of the longest, clocking in at 148 episodes. The story is about a young boy named Gon Freecss, who embarks on a quest to become a Hunter to find his long-lost father, Ging Freecs—a legendary Hunter himself. Along the way, he meets a boy named Killua who becomes his closest companion, and the pair set out to do what shonen kids do best, get strong.
Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
The Breaking Bad of anime, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood is a prestige title clocking in at 64 episodes and it just may be the finest anime series of all time. The story is about the young Elric brothers, Alphonse are Edward, who attempt to use the magical art of alchemy in order to bring their mother back from the dead. It doesn’t go as planned. The boys end up summoning an undead horror, Edward loses a leg and arm, and Alphonse’s spirit becomes trapped in a suit of armor. They go on a quest to get their missing body parts back and uncover an ancient conspiracy that will change the fate of their nation forever.
Naruto
220 original episodes of Naruto and 500 episodes of Naruto: Shippuden make up a total of 720 episodes. THAT’S A LOT OF ANIME. And it’s not even done there! After the events of Naruto: Shippuden, the series shifts focus to Naruto’s son Boruto, who is the titular protagonist of an ongoing anime series himself. Pair this with like 20 animated movies and you could be watching Naruto scream about “believing it” for years! In case you rent an apartment under a rock, Naruto is about a distressingly loud boy who wants to become the ninja president.
Dragon Ball Z
The ORIGINAL long-running Shonen anime, Dragon Ball Z clocks in at a total of 291 episodes, and that’s not even counting Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball GT, and Dragon Ball Super. This titanic franchise proved to the world that a series about a dude whose sole goal in life is to become strong enough to kick the ass of every other dude in the multiverse could make MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. Other long-running anime like Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece copied the formula and became the Big Three we know today.
One Piece
Speak of the devil and he shall appear! In the form of a rubber boy with undiagnosed ADHD and a tapeworm! One Piece is by far the longest series on this list, clocking in at 1,073 episodes as of August 2023. This anime has been on since the ’90s. The most terrifying thing of all? Only 10% of the show is filler. And the filler is GOOD. What’s it about? Rubber tapeworm boy wants to become King of the Pirates, and he has to sail the dangerous seas and find a fabulous lost treasure to do it.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
Do you want to spend a month watching anime but don’t want to look at straight people for that long? Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is the anime for you. The series is split into four parts—following generations of the Joestar family—for a total of 152 episodes. What’s the series about? Hot, fabulous, muscular men posing for each other in increasingly homoerotic ways while engaging in an all-out spiritual battle between the forces of good and a vampiric evil.
Monster
Monster is many things, and a Shonen anime about the power of friendship is not one of them. This series is for adults only. Not in a kinky way, but in an “Oh my god I didn’t realize the world could be so horrifying” way. Set in post World War II Germany, Monster follows the talented young Japanese brain surgeon Kenzō Tenma who works at a prestigious hospital. Everything is going great for Tenma, that changes when he decides to perform a life-saving operation on a child instead of the mayor. Saving a kid is a good thing right? Wrong. Turns out that the boy Dr. Tenma saved grew up to be one of the most twisted serial killers in history. Feeling responsible for his former patient’s horrible actions, the disgraced Tenma decides to track the young man down and make things right. While the anime is only 74 episodes long, it’s stressful enough to make you feel like you’ve aged five years.
My Hero Academia
One of the most popular anime in recent years, My Hero Academia currently clocks in at 138 episodes and is showing no sign of slowing down. Set in a world where most of the human population has superpowers called “quirks”, the young Izuku Midoriya dreams of being a superhero like the legendary All Might. The trouble is, he doesn’t have a quirk. All that changes when a chance encounter with All Might causes him to inherit one of the most powerful quirks of all, but to control it he’ll have to go to hero school!
The Fate series
Fate/Zero, Fate Stay/night, Fate/Strange Fake, Fate/Prototype, Fate/Apocrypha, Fate/Extra Last Encore, Fate/Grand Order, and more. There are a fate-trillion spin-offs of the Fate series. So many in fact that there’s a whole separate article on this site devoted to just keeping track of them all. Essentially, the Fate series is about a never-ending war waged by sorcerers and their mythological servants/warriors over control of the wish-granting, reality-warping, totally freaky Holy Grail.
Nana
What’s this? A long-running anime series that doesn’t have five episode long fight scenes? Instead, we have five episode long explorations of young women going through particular feelings? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!? Nana is about two girls both named Nana who meet by chance on the train into the big city. One of them dreams of musical superstardom, while the other dreams about … boys. The series is a beautiful, emotionally brutal rollercoaster-coming-of-age-cry-your-eyes-out drama. While it’s shorter than many of the other series on this list (only 47 episodes) it will make you feel like you just lived out your adolescent years all over again.
(featured image: Toei)
