Finding a new anime series and learning that it has decades of material to explore is incredibly exciting. Still, there's a fine line between copious content and a number of episodes that's genuinely intimidating. Anime's various genres and demographics lend themselves to stories of contrasting lengths. A longer story doesn't always translate to a better story, and it's paramount to understand where brevity is needed and when it's the right occasion for more patient filler.
Some anime are hundreds of episodes long, yet they never feel like they're dragging their feet or struggling with pacing. Alternatively, other lengthy anime become excruciating experiences not because they're hundreds of episodes but because the same story could be told in a more efficient package. All of these series are anime that would benefit from fewer episodes.
10 Bleach
366 Episodes, 4 Movie
Ichigo Kurosaki's heroic journey to hone his shinigami skills and protect the people that he loves has helped him become one of the most beloved shonen protagonists. Unfortunately, Bleach's success got away from it. It's an egregious example of extended filler and anime-exclusive content that veers the story so off course that Bleach struggles to realign itself with its source material.
Bleach's grander pointsstill connect, but it takes far too long to get there in 366 episodes. It's been more than a decade since the last episode, but the signature shonen series is finally getting closure through 2022's sequel anime, Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War.
9 Fairy Tail
338 Episodes, 2 Movies
Fairy Tail is one of the most popular fantasy-shonen hybrids, but it has a polarizing reputation largely because of its brash protagonist, Natsu Dragneel. Natsu takes time to come into his own as a hero, which requires too much patience on the audience's part. Fairy Tail covers a lot of ground in more than 300 episodes, but there's also a heavy sense of aimlessness that could easily lead to a tighter series.
A sequel series continuation, Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest, is in production. Some fans are excited about new adventures with Natsu and the rest of the Fairy Tail Guild, but others feel like there's already enough Fairy Tail content.
8 Dragon Ball Z
291 Episodes, 15 Movies
There are four separate Dragon Ball anime, but it's Dragon Ball Z that's the longest and most extraneous. Granted, Dragon Ball Z's longer nature gives it a lot of its personality when it comes to the more playful anime-exclusive filler, some of which introduce incredible characters.
At the same time, there's no denying that Dragon Ball Z could be told in a more concise manner, and the remastered Dragon Ball Z Kai tells the same story in 100 episodes fewer than the original. There's a balance to be found between these two versions of the same series, but Dragon Ball Z loses impact by stretching out its most important battles.
7 Ranma 1/2
172 Episode, 3 Movies
Rumiko Takahashi is a prolific mangaka who's responsible for evergreen series like Urusei Yatsura and Maison Ikkoku, but also the breakthrough shonen action-comedy, Ranma 1/2. Ranma 1/2 begins with an excellent sense of character development, world-building, and humor, but it quickly begins to spin its wheels.
172 episodes is only a fraction of some of the other long anime, but a lack of major villains and serialized story arcs cause Ranma 1/2 to lose momentum. Ranma 1/2 could lose more than 50 episodes, and the anime's story wouldn't suffer. A tighter take on the material, much like the updated 2022 version of Urusei Yatsura, is exactly what Ranma 1/2 needs.
6 Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma
86 Episodes
Shokugeki no Soma, also known as Food Wars!, turns the competitive combat of battle shonen series into stressful culinary showdowns. Food Wars! brilliantly uses the complexity of cuisine as the backdrop for a humble hero's quest to become the very best in the kitchen. Food Wars! doesn't have an unreasonable amount of content at only 86 episodes, but there's still a lot more that exists than what's necessary.
Shokugeki no Soma has five seasons, each of which feels shallower than the last. There's a strong case to be made that Food Wars! only needs to be a single- or double-season show. The extension of Soma's culinary quest only weakens its recipe.
5 Naruto: Shippuden
500 Episodes, 7 Movies
There are more than 1,000 episodes in the complete Naruto saga, but it's the 500-episode Naruto: Shippuden that routinely gets the most attention; it's the longest chapter in Naruto's Hokage saga. Naruto's most important accomplishments are experienced in Shippuden, which is more than twice as long as its standard Naruto predecessor.
Shippuden turns Naruto into the classic shonen hero that everyone loves, but it's definitely guilty of wasting time and diluting the dramatic impact of its story. Shippuden even seems more cumbersome now that the ongoing Boruto sequel series has produced more than 300 episodes.
4 InuYasha
193 Episodes, 4 Movies
InuYasha feels like the proper evolution of Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura. The time-displaced shonen series appeals equally to male and female audiences due to the tender relationship that forms between half-demon Inuyasha and the demure Kagome.
InuYasha starts as a creative hybrid of period fantasy with supernatural action, but its tempo greatly slows down and InuYasha loses its sense of purpose. The concluding episodes from InuYasha: The Final Act properly pick up the pace, but it's too little too late, and there's not enough to show for InuYasha by the time it's over.
3 Dr. Slump & Arale-Chan
243 Episodes, 11 Movies
Akira Toriyama will forever be known as the creator of Dragon Ball, but Dr. Slump & Arale-chan predates Toriyama's Saiyan shenanigans. Dr. Slump is more of a playful gag anime that stars a precocious girl robot named Arale.
Dr. Slump & Arale-Chan was rebooted in the late '90s as Doctor Slump, but with only a third of the episode count at 74 installments. Many consider the '90s Doctor Slump to be just as good as its '80s predecessor, which indicates that the series doesn't need to be more than 200 episodes in order to make its points, even if more Arale hijinks are always entertaining.
2 Yo-Kai Watch
250 Episodes, 6 Movies
Pokémon's overwhelming success has led to a wealth of imitators, some of which are more successful than others and actually tap into something unique. Much like Pokémon, Yo-Kai Watch has made waves as both a video game and anime series where players catch a litany of unconventional creatures. Yo-Kai Watch technically deals in demonic spirits, but the presentation and visuals are cute enough to connect with kids.
Several Yo-Kai Watch spinoffs have come to pass, but the core series has 250 episodes, many of which are just killing time. Granted, there are considerably more Pokémon episodes, but those cover more diverse ground, whereas Yo-Kai Watch's formula is more repetitive.
1 One Piece
1,061 Episodes, 15 Movies
Eiichiro Oda's One Piece continues to go strong after more than 1,000 episodes. Luffy and the rest of his courageous Straw Hat Pirate crew continue to tackle greater heights. Ironically enough, One Piece has gradually found the right balance with filler, much of which has become some of its most entertaining material.
One Piece's filler is now much more under control, but this doesn't change the rougher nature of the anime's earlier content. One Piece's best days are far from behind it, but there's still a strong case to be made that a more economical version of One Piece could be told in a fraction of the episodes without consequence.