10 Best Anime Series With Over 5 Seasons

Some anime are excellent because they are short and sweet, with titles like Bocchi the Rock! and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners coming to mind. They pack a lot of goodness into just 12-24 episodes, which is great for a weekend binge, but plenty of anime fans ask for even more. Longer anime can go much deeper with their settings and character arcs, which means fans should strap themselves in for a multi-season ride.

Some moderate-length anime like Attack on Titan do the job just fine, with Attack on Titan having four and a half seasons’ worth of content for fans to lose themselves in. Other anime go even harder, inviting viewers to an epic, 100+ episode adventure with many story arcs, dozens of characters, and more than a few amazing plot twists. These anime are often action series that can’t resolve things in just one season — they need five or more to bring the saga to a proper end.

My Hero Academia Charts the Rise & Fall of Hero Society in 8 Seasons

There’s a general trend for modern anime to be mean and lean, such as Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man, but a few other titles have a more epic scale to them, such as My Hero Academia. This anime isn’t trying to outdo the classic shonen big three in episode count, but it does have the same sense of scale in its eight seasons. This anime takes its time building up its cast, plot, and Quirk-based combat system, and it mostly works.

It could be said that My Hero Academia takes a little too long to kick its story into high gear and focus on the collapse and hypocrisy of hero society. On the plus side, My Hero Academia is great fun even when it spins its wheels in the first few seasons, with well-paced tournament arcs and training sequences. It also helps how this outstanding superhero anime has four canon movies that tie right into the plot, rather than being extraneous non-canon fluff.

Dragon Ball Z Is Divided Into 3 Breathtaking Sagas of Saiyan Action Across 9 Seasons

Dragon Ball Z is a lengthy and historic shonen anime that could afford to trim some fat with its filler content, especially in the Frieza Saga. That is one of the anime’s few genuine weaknesses, being rather bloated as Goku and the others keep getting sidetracked with silly one-off adventures that made fans terribly impatient to see Goku take down Frieza at last.

The rest of Dragon Ball Z is sheer upside, earning its impressive length with countless high-octane fights and a genuine sense of adventure and fun. It’s a tad slow for modern anime fans, but devotees of classic shonen anime will love how villains like Frieza, Perfect Cell, and Majin Buu feel menacing because they keep surviving everything the Z Fighters throw at them, episode after episode.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Features Iconic Joestar Heroes Throughout Its 6 Seasons

Unlike some other mega-length anime, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has next to no filler content, since the source manga had more than enough material for even six whole seasons of material. That allows JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure to feel quicker and leaner than it actually is, and it helps how the anime keeps refreshing itself. Each season has its own Joestar protagonist, renewing the hype and novelty in each season.

It also helps how JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is one of the most creative and unpredictable anime, doubly so in the realm of 5+ season anime. The Joestars’ personal arcs can end in all sorts of ways, since none of them have to return for another season beyond cameos, to the point that Jonathan even died in Season 1. No other anime could write out its own star and then produce five more seasons of superior content while never losing any steam.

Fairy Tail’s 9 Seasons Follow a Meandering Story of Epic Wizards & Dragons

Fairy Tail never succeeded in surpassing or even matching the original shonen “big three,” but fans of fantasy and action don’t need it to. Fairy Tail is best for fans of huge, back-to-basics shonen anime that stick to winning formulas like the power of friendships and high-stakes tournament arcs, which makes its long length easier to handle. It goes by even faster if fans bypass all the filler content.

Detractors might say Fairy Tail is aimless and disjointed, but even if that’s undeniably true to some degree, this also works in the anime’s favor. Fairy Tail doesn’t spend so many episodes and seasons drawing out one central conflict, instead breaking itself up into semi-independent arcs concerning Tenrou Island, Edolas, the Grand Magic Games, and the struggle against the Spriggan 12.

Gintama’s 10 Seasons Are a Leisurely Parody & Love Letter to Shonen Anime

At a glance, it may seem odd for a comedy/parody anime like Gintama to have so much content to its name, including a number of movies. Fans may compare it to shorter and equally sweet parody titles like Gurren Lagann and KonoSuba and wonder why Gintama needed 10 whole seasons to make its point. The secret is how Gintama makes fun of many shonen anime at once while also having its own plot.

KonoSuba was a general jab at isekai anime, while Gurren Lagann was both a love letter and playful deconstruction of mecha anime, and neither anime needed 5+ seasons to get the job done. Meanwhile, Gintama is a leisurely paced comedy epic poking fun at the original shonen big three and their Dragon Ball Z inspiration, all while having plenty of great characters and original ideas of its own to help make the story feel more substantial. Parody alone can only go so far — anime like Gintama need their own muscles, too.

Bleach’s 17 Seasons Explore Adventures in Karakura Town & Incredible Spiritual Worlds

Bleach is part of the original big three, and like its two peers, it’s a mega-length anime that couldn’t possibly finish the hero’s journey in under 50 episodes, or even under 100 episodes. Bleach started a bit modestly with the reverse isekai antics of Karakura Town, then grew wonderfully ambitious with the Soul Society Arc and Arrancar Saga. Now, the final season has stronger pacing in the anime’s oversized 17th season.

Fans might say the Bleach anime is actually a bit too long and didn’t need this many seasons to tell Ichigo’s full story. The anime is nearly one-third filler, with some seasons being mostly or entirely filler content. It also doesn’t help how Bleach often spent time on too many sideshow fights to pad the runtime, but at least the new Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War anime has none of these issues.

One Piece Needs Its 21 Seasons & More to Sail the Entire World

If any anime can justify having so many full-length seasons to its name, it’s One Piece. From the start, One Piece was built to be a fantastically epic story as Luffy and his crewmates sail the islands of the Grand Line. Any story that’s open-ended about exploring countless new locales is bound to be a lengthy one, even if there is also an endgame goal in mind as well.

The East Blue Saga is already longer than many new shonen anime are, and even individual arcs like Dressrosa and Wano are a few times longer than most current titles. Fans could fit four Demon Slayers into the Wano Arc alone by episode count, for example. One Piece defied all odds and kept getting stronger, more entertaining, and deeper with each passing season rather than wearing out. The anime does go in circles in some ways, but fans don’t mind that.

The Pokémon Anime Is at 26 Seasons With No End in Sight

The Pokémon franchise is another anime that easily earned the right to be far more than five seasons in length. Like One Piece, the premise of Pokémon is open-ended and focused on the thrill of a never-ending adventure, and that fact has been clear from the start. No one got into Pokémon expecting a short and focused adventure, and in fact, fans will no doubt feel devastated when the Pokémon anime finally ends for good in the distant future.

Millennial anime fans grew up with Pokémon since the 1990s, and now, as 30-somethings, they still don’t want the fun to end anytime soon as the Pokédex keeps filling up with hundreds of these creatures. There is always another region or island to visit, not to mention gym battles to be fought, and the Pokémon anime may even fill in bits of its fun mythology as it goes. It’s absolutely a slow burn, and fans don’t want it any other way.

Naruto’s 30 Seasons Are a Mix of Legendary Canon Arcs & Seasons of Filler

Just like its peers Bleach and One Piece, Naruto is a beloved product of its time as an action anime that keeps going bigger and bigger. The combat system, lore, and world of Naruto demanded far more than two or three seasons, with the jutsu combat system being much too rich for just 100 or fewer episodes. No one would want 500+ episodes of Demon Slayer‘s breathing techniques, but jutsu is different.

For the most part, the Naruto anime feels just right as a massively long title with many seasons and episodes, which makes momentous scenes like Naruto’s and Sasuke’s reunion hit that much harder. That being said, Naruto could stand to trim some material, such as omitting its multiple seasons of filler and tightening up the episode count of the Fourth Great Shinobi War.

Hunter x Hunter Is on Hiatus But Its 6 Seasons Have Enough Material to Satisfy Anime Fans

Hunter x Hunter is a fair competitor for the shonen big three, and even if it doesn’t match any of them in length, it’s a worthy rival with all kinds of great content to offer. The 2011 version of Hunter x Hunter, in particular, is a fairly lengthy adventure that makes good use of that time to keep expanding the world and Nen-based combat system. Like Naruto‘s jutsu system, the Nen in Hunter x Hunter is too flexible and broad for just a 24-episode anime.

Plot-wise, Hunter x Hunter does just enough to justify its formidable length, and when and if the hiatus is over, the anime will no doubt have even more great content for fans to love. Until then, fans don’t mind the lengthy hiatus, since Hunter x Hunter has some truly awesome story arcs for Yorknew City, Greed Island, and the Chimera Ants to show off the power of this anime’s imagination.