10 Best Things Bleach Does That Naruto & One Piece Don’t

The original shonen “big three” have plenty in common as spiritual successors to Akira Toriyama’s famed Dragon Ball franchise. Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach all feature strong male leads with supernatural powers, the power of friendship, and power-ups that clearly took cues from Super Saiyan mode. That said, author Tite Kubo’s Bleach did plenty of cool things that Naruto and One Piece never did.

All three series have their own distinct styles, themes, and tone, and sure enough, Bleach easily set itself apart from its competitors with unique elements that only Tite Kubo could write. Even if these ideas feel conventional in the broader shonen anime world, they allow the big three’s underdog to develop a voice of its own, and for that, Bleach fans are always grateful.

RELATED: 10 Things Shonen’s Big Three Does Better Than The Dark Trio

10 Using Monster Hunter Elements With Hollows

A variety of shonen anime series fit the “monster hunter” concept, showing well-trained professionals using special weapons and/or superpowers to destroy monsters that roam the streets. Demon Slayer, Chainsaw Man, and Fire Force all do this, but Bleach made the monster hunter concept cool before any of them were even published.

In Bleach‘s world, it’s up to black-robed Soul Reapers to use their zanpakuto, or soul-cutting swords, to slay monstrous Hollows and protect ordinary people from them. Even if Bleach gradually phased out this concept, it’s still more monster-hunting than Naruto and One Piece did.

9 Having Reverse-Isekai Characters Like Rukia

Bleach has some isekai elements to it, as does One Piece with its Sky Island arc, but not even One Piece has any reverse-isekai. This is when anime flips the script and throws an otherwordly being into the mundane real world, such as Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid.

In Bleach‘s case, Ichigo’s tsundere friend Rukia Kuchiki ended up stranded in Karakura Town for a time, far away from her Soul Society home. So, Rukia blended in with the locals, such as going to school and living in Ichigo’s home. Later, Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya’s team did the same, and to humorous effect, too.

8 Depicting The Afterlife

Bleach has strong spiritual elements, using human souls as a focal point for its storytelling. That means Bleach shows where those souls go when the mortal body dies, with the afterlife being the rustic, largely peaceful Soul Society. That realm is modeled after pre-industrial Japan and is the home of all Soul Reapers.

Ichigo visited the Soul Society during his first isekai-style adventure, and he even met the soul of a boy who died earlier in Bleach‘s story. Ichigo saw the gates of Hell itself, though he couldn’t see much beyond the gates before they closed again. However, there’s no way Naruto Uzumaki or Luffy will ever visit the afterlife the way Ichigo Kurosaki did.

RELATED: 10 Ways Bleach Embraces Shonen Cliches

7 Giving Weapons The Power Of Friendship

All three shonen titans make frequent use of the power of friendship, and many other shonen titles do, too. What sets Bleach apart is that even weapons can embrace the power of friendship, not just people, since zanpakuto are conscious beings with their own personalities and names.

Not even Big Mom’s conscious hat-sword Napoleon is quite like the zanpakuto in Bleach. These swords won’t release their full power until their Soul Reaper owners befriend them and build bonds of trust with them, including Ichigo and his own blade, Zangetsu. More recently, even the brutish Kenpachi Zaraki learned his zanpakuto’s name and realized it’s his partner, not a mere tool.

6 Showing Modern High Schools

Anime fans all know that plenty of series take place in modern Japanese high schools, such as Komi Can’t Communicate and Fruits Basket. However, Naruto and One Piece are both set in stylish fictional worlds, and not even the ninja academy in Naruto is anything like a real-life school.

Meanwhile, Bleach‘s early arcs take place at a high school in Karakura Town, which Ichigo, Chad, Uryu, and Orihime all attended. Even Rukia wound up attending class there during her time in a gigai body. Having such a familiar setting helped keep Bleach grounded and provided much-needed contrast with the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo.

RELATED: 10 Most Dangerous Soul Reapers in Bleach

5 Weapon Power-ups

Most shonen action series depict their characters training to attain new forms or powers, such as Naruto using his biju cloak or Luffy awakening Gear 5 while fighting Kaido. Bleach switched up the formula by giving those power-ups to zanpkauto instead, including shikai and bankai forms.

All this makes Bleach‘s combat system more unpredictable, since a sealed zanpakuto won’t hint at its true form until it’s activated, especially if the shikai and bankai are unrelated. Captain Soi Fon, for example, has an instant-death stinger for a shikai, but a destructive, arm-mounted cannon for a bankai, making her zanpakuto highly unusual.

4 Depicting a Non-Himbo Tsundere Hero

Shonen protagonists Naruto Uzumaki, Monkey D. Luffy, and Ichigo Kurosaki have plenty in common as Goku’s spiritual successors, but Ichigo is definitely the odd one out. While Naruto and One Piece star food-loving himbo heroes, Bleach took another route and followed the adventures of a tough tsundere punk.

In many ways, Bleach‘s hero is more like the next Yusuke Urameshi or Kenshiro than he is like Goku, and any anime fan who’s tired of Goku knockoffs would appreciate that fact. Ichigo is a stern but well-meaning punk with a constant scowl, and he’s not the type to clean out a restaurant of ramen or meat.

RELATED: 10 Huge Problems Bleach Never Addressed

3 Giving the Hero Quality Time With His Parents

In one sequence, Naruto Uzumaki spoke to the spirits of his parents, but in physical reality, Minato and Kushina died the night Naruto was born. In One Piece, Luffy’s mother is totally absent and his father Dragon is almost never even on the same island as his son, but Ichigo’s family is different.

Bleach shows a shonen hero spending plenty of quality time with his father, which sets Bleach apart from its peers and even sets it apart from My Hero Academia and Chainsaw Man. For once, a shonen anime gives the hero’s father a chance to help his son grow and train, including one sequence of Isshin Kurosaki teaching Ichigo to use the final Getsuga Tensho.

2 Giving the Hero Villainous Ancestry

All three shonen titans give their heroes a familial connection to important people, such as Minato Namikaze the fourth Hokage and Monkey D. Dragon, the revolutionary leader. However, only Bleach gave its hero a familial connection to the villains, since Ichigo’s late mother Masaki was a pureblood Quincy.

This meant that when Yhwach attacked the Soul Society, Ichigo Kurosaki was face-to-face with his maternal ancestor. That is also why Yhwach sought to capture rather than kill Ichigo, and called him “my son born in the dark.” Despite this, Ichigo identifies only with his Soul Reaper heritage from Isshin, and rejects Yhwach as his Quincy father.

1 Giving the Hero A Quiet Retirement

One Piece has not yet concluded Luffy’s character arc, but at this rate, it’s unthinkable that Luffy will retire and settle into domestic bliss as a family man. Naruto Uzumaki did marry Hinata and have two children with her, but he is also the Hokage, which keeps him busy as a famous ninja.

Bleach gave its protagonist a totally different endgame. Ichigo fought hard to save the day from evil, but her never actually identified that much as a warrior, despite all his efforts. While Naruto sought to become Hokage and Luffy strives to be Pirate King, Ichigo was born an ordinary Japanese citizen and wishes to stay that way now that the fighting is over. That led to his simple but well-deserved ending as a happy family man with Orihime, and he has hung up his hero cape for good.