Gods, I haven't watched the Anime of these three in ages. Not even One Piece, which is my personal favourite, so forgive me if I sound misinformed, but my opinion stands based on the Manga.
Bleach lost my loyalty as well as interest a long while back. The beginning was good, and the Soul Society arc was excellent, but after that, I couldn't help but feel that the story lost both momentum and character. Ichigo lost the spark that made me like him at first, and from what I've seen lately, that troublemaker spark is completely gone by now, and the story has become what a story never should become: anonymous. The manga would have ended two arcs ago, if not for the fans' whining as well as pure milking. The quality of the story has only lowered since the Soul Society arc, which made me stop reading it altogether.
Bottom line, I find that Bleach lost its soul a long time ago. I stopped reading after the Hueco Mundo arc, so I can't say I have much of a developed opinion on Bleach compared to the other two :/
Naruto does still however hold my loyalty somewhat, if only because it seems that the light at the end of the tunnel finally seems visible. Kishimoto has, in all honesty, caused a big-ass mess with his story. There are much too many holes in the logic as well as the plot tor me to properly stomach, and it prevents me from fully enjoying the series. It would seem Kihimoto just has too many ideas in the air at once, but can't hold onto half of them. Then he seems to change some details halfway through. Want an example? Why, take the Shukaku for one. Originally, he was said to be a sand priest that had absorbed the soul of a demon, or something along those lines. Now look where that went.
But what pisses me off even more is that when a character, and Naruto himself in particular, finally seems to have developed a little, that progress is stomped out two chapters later. Kishimoto is much too afraid to disrupt the status quo, and the relationships between characters remains much too static to be realistic in any way. It bores me, honestly. The fights are much better done, but the power scaling is much too erratic. One character seems incredibly strong one arc, but a simple scrub the next. People who would seem to have been nerfed immensely in comparison to the main characters from sheer story progression seems to somehow still pose a significant threat, despite how they by all that is logic should be classed as scrubs by then. Really, don't make the boss from the second real arc into a big-ass boss in the last one. It just doesn't make any sense.
In short, I just want Kishimoto to make his damn mind up. Linear progression, Kishimoto, this is a Manga series, not an Elder Scrolls game.
One Piece on the other hand, does what the other two does not and does it brilliantly. It sets a clear goal from the start: Raftel, (the last island on the Grand Line and the most probable location of the One Piece, which is the treasure they're looking for,) and hasn't strayed since. The story of One Piece tells us about their journey there, simple as that. The longer the characters travel, the more people they meet, the more they discover, and the more intricate the story as well as the world around them becomes. Yet despite this intricacy, Oda never EVER loses track of any one thread, of any one detail. Something mentioned briefly book thirteen might become a major plot point, thirty books later. And no, I'm not exaggerating. That actually happened.
Oda isn't afraid to be outrageous and/or over-the-top. He writes his story with enough self distance for me to take it just seriously enough to appreciate the humour, yet allow me to still be deeply invested in the story. In all honesty, One Piece is as I see it the only one of the big three that hasn't lost track of its original genre, its characters or its soul.
Perhaps most impotantly of all, the characters that we have followed from book one still are the same. They have matured, and learned more of the world, yes, but Luffy is still the same outgoing, spontaneous, ever hungry, adventure-loving Luffy I've followed so long. Zoro is still the lazy, amazingly loyal oaf he's always been. Nami is still a money-hoarding, violent control freak, and so on. The core of the characters are still very much the same, where this core seems to have warped and/or faded in the case of Naruto and Bleach. A story is about the characters, not the other way around, and Oda remembers that. It shows.
It's really a pity that so many judges One Piece for its cartoonish artstyle. The Manga series is and has been the best selling Manga series in Japan for around a decade and as far as I know, still hasn't seen any decline. It's really a beautiful and surprisingly deep story, if one only takes the time to look beyond the decievingly simplistic surface.
But then again, I don't read a Manga series for the fights. When I read, I do it for the characters and the story, which is likely why One Piece fits me so much better than the others. Yet in the end, it's all a matter of taste.
