I used mainly 2 kinds of criteria for generating this list: long time quality and short time quality. What I mean by these are that long time quality would mean that the series has been over the years very good and enjoayble, so it should at least get a rank on this list, but if it doesn't succeed in short time quality which basically means my feeling considering what kind of enjoyment the latest arc has provided me it didn't manage to rank high. An excellent example of this are Naruto and Hajime no Ippo, which both were excellent not considering couple of last years.
Anyways, this Top 10 list revolves around my current feelings of these favorite series considering previously mentioned qualities and is subject to change at some point.
From my point of view One Piece has it all, except romance which I don't care so much about. I remember that something like a decade ago I started watching some interesting animes that were arriving at that time and One Piece was one of them. However, I recall hating One Piece based on the first couple of episodes which I honestly didn't enjoy much, but thank god I didn't stop there. When the story started progressing very well I was sold and not once have I questioned One Piece's superiority compared to other series I have watched after or before it.
Characters are top notch when considering the enjoyability, they've all got great qualities that I like in one way or another. Oda has managed to put together several kinds of personalities that work extremely well together while forming great relationships between each of them. The only thing that has been somewhat missing from One Piece's character development is the actual development of their personalities, but this also I consider more as a strength than a weakness: why fix something that isn't broken?
But the main characters in my opinion are only half of the characters that truly matter. What matter sometimes even more is the villains and how they are designed and this is where Oda really shines in my opinion. The villains have been interesting, well designed and very likeable almost always. The more important thing than showing good villains is the art of not showing them: by this I mean the subtle hyping of the possible future villains has proved to be excellent tactic for keeping the interest for One Piece piqued.
As for art I have to say that it's top notch. Can't say that it has always been, since in the earlier years it was very much simplified regarding the backgrounds, but after 2010'sthe art quality has been magnificent compared to anything else but Berserk or Vinland Saga.
Story is absolutely the best part of One Piece. Eiichiro Odas skills lie in the incredible story telling, the most successful hyping of future events and long term commitment which shows as "foreshadowing" that every One Piece fan knows of. The hyping that I talk of is the art of readers getting seriously pissed for not getting enough of One Piece, Oda knows exactly how stimulate the balance between subtle hyping ie. future characters like Kaido and revealing us some important part of the story line at hand.
What One Piece's story also excells at is it's multidimensionality: it has seriously so much characters that are at the same time memorable, interesting and they constantly do things at the same time that we are following our main characters stories. In this way the story could be said that it's a multi layered one and at some point the layers intersect and we have a lot of interesting plot developments at our hands. This is a trait of One Piece that I have not really heard much about, but it's one of the most important things regarding the storys enjoyability and utter uniqueness.
2. Hunter X Hunter
The hardships began when I had to choose what to put on this list on positions 2-10 as number 1 was pretty much self explanatory. Hunter X Hunter is also one of my longest series that I've been following and it's been excellent in almost every way. This time it took the second place and I'll try my best to tell you why.
The character development and friendship between Gon and Killua has been very enjoyable to read and they have personalities that fulfill each other very well. Kurapica and Leorio I consider decent or good at the best, but it doesn't really matter since Yoshihiro Togashi seemed to realize this too by showing less of them. But the main characters in this series (even though they are good) are not the best thing, but it's the villains and the side characters that excell in Hunter X Hunter. Villains such as Hisoka (which is one of my all time favorite villains), Genei Ryodan etc. are excellent and Hisoka may easily take the top 1 place in my villain ranking if I decide to make one in the future. As for side characters I have to say that this is where HxH really does it's job well: Hunter Organisation's president Netero, Gon's father Gin, Kaito etc. are characters that aren't shown much but have had a huge impact considering the development of the series.
The story is a very good one and Togashi has managed to make it linear but very varying. When considering the beginning of the series and going through all the nen training finally to the ant arc it's great to see how the characters have developed power wise and that the series had managed to always make itself better, even though ant arc wasn't as excellent as the others. After the ant arc I have to say that Hunter X Hunter managed to make itself so good that it was truly enjoayble to read it week after week before it going back to hiatus. The cliffhanger that we have been left currently was an excellent one.
The art has been very varying. I remember the art being honestly like crap sometimes when Togashi was (according to the sources) being sick and sometimes it was from decent to even good. It never bothered me too much since the story was so good and interesting to read, but it is as it is.
3. Berserk
Is simply an incredibly totality when considering story, characters and especially the art
Characters are perhaps the third best thing when thinking of Berserk. The main character is extremely memorable, likeable and just plain badass. It's always great to see Guts' determination when going against seemingly undefeatable monsters and overcoming them each time with his bigger than life sword. However the side characters of Berserk are really nothing to mention of, thankfully they don't play too important part of Berserk, but they just aren't good and memorable. The villain side of the story focuses mostly on individual monsters that are to overcome, but Griffith is absolutely one of the good ones. Too bad we haven't seen much of him since he's usually doing his stuff behind the curtains.
Story is naturally the second best thing of Berserk. The development over an indisputable epic story is always a great thing to read through. It has everything that a tragic story needs and the darkness is always present that raises feelings of excitement throughout the darker part of the series that emerges after the eclipse.
4. Toriko
The reason that I like Toriko so much is that it resembles One Piece very much. Potentially huge storylines, sceneries, interesting villains, it's all there.
The character designs of Toriko are definitely a good side, at its best excellent. However, I consider the main character one of the less interesting ones; side characters, monster and villains hold the place for interest in my opinion. That's not to say the main character Toriko is bad, he's good but not the main thing that appeals in this series.
Story is getting better and better. At first when I started reading this I was a bit reluctant because of the whole gourmet setup, but it ended up being a lot better than I could have ever imagined. Also the design of the world provides limitless possibilities in which only imagination is the 'limit'.
5. Naruto
Naruto managed to take the 5th spot because of it's excellent long term value. I always remember watching the first tens of episodes of Naruto and ROCKS playing as it's intro the story started so well that it was the best thing ever. I'd say that Naruto is one of the best series when we are considering the first 100-200 chapters of it which were designed so well that it was almost unbelievable. However what lowers Naruto's ranking on this list are the chapter that we've had to read for the past couple of years. I admit that there's still been good plot developments and great enjoyability nonetheless, it's nothing compared to the first years of Naruto goodness. So basically Naruto is very good long term value, but decent short term value at its best.
Character designs of Naruto are mostly good. This is one of the series that manage to be often very good, but the main character itself is one of those that I hate the most. Naruto himself is in my opinion just too irritating and too tryhard character for me to like when compared to the aloof and carefree characters of OP, HxH and Toriko. However the villains, sidecharacters etc. in Naruto are excellent.
Art of Naruto is good, sometimes excellent. It's almost on par with One Piece but it seems to depend sometimes on the importance of the developments that happen in the story.
6.. Fairy Tail
I think that Fairy Tail is both decent long term and short term value, but it really doesn't excel at either. What matters in Fairy Tail the most isn't the particular parts of it's characters, story or art, but the entirety combines all the decent parts and makes the entirety into something good.
Fairy Tail has once again only good main characters at best and the side characters also shine in this one. Villains are also often very likeable. There's really not much to say, except that character design are good enough.
Story is also in my opinion only decent or sometimes with good twists it manages to turn good for a while. Some arcs have been a bit boring and tedious, but some have balanced the entirety with being very interesting, so the story quality could be described as varying.
7. Tower of God
It hasn't been long since I've read all of the chapters that have been released of Tower Of God. Technically it shouldn't even be on this list since it's a webcomic, but I've never really cared about such things.
Tower of God has good characters and it relies a lot on character development, which for me was a good breath of freshness. Main character for the first half wasn't one of my favorites, but on the second half that has been released he has risen to the new heights on my rankings. Basically all the characters considering of "villains" and side characters have managed to amuse me.
The Story of Tower of God can be considered as interesting, but what it's best at is it's excellent plot twists that raise the story and it's enjoyability into new heights. The story has lots of potential and it has managed to keep it's quality up: there wasn't any boring moments when I read all of the chapters through.
As for the art of Tower of God it was a new experience for me to read webcomic with colors, but I have to say that all the webcomics that I've read until this day this has had easily the best one. Sometimes the art can be a bit confusing, but mostly it relies it intentions very well to the reader. Sometimes the usage of colors truly bring the fights alive and that I liked very much.
8. Hajime no Ippo
Hajime no Ippo has been a long time on of my favorites. However the only reason that it has dropped to the lower part of my rankings is it's almost crap like story developments and focus on unimportant, uninteresting side characters past couple of years. Maybe the first (very rough estimate!) 500 chapters of Hajime no Ippo were so good that even words can't describe, but the quality of the story has fallen very much behind.
Characters of Hajime no Ippo are one of it's good sides: Ippo himself is likeable even though being a pussy. The likeability of him however comes from once again the excellent side characters such as Takamura. However as Ippo has great sidecharacter friend he also have previous villains like Vorg who's fight we've been following now unnecessarily long. Fights of Aoki and Kimura have been one of the uninteresting ones also: Author should have kept them more as a humourous side kicks, as they worked extremely well with that role. Villains of the series have managed to keep my interest up, so a plus for them.
Story of the Ippo isn't anything special. It's basically a basic shonen growth story where the most important part are the fights, character development and art. In this kind of series it's understandable that it's almost impossible to make seriously good twists.
Art of Hajime no Ippo is and has been excellent. The art brings the fight very much alive even though I remember the characters having sometimes a bit weird muscles and especially the noses but they are easy to get used to.
9.Vinland Saga
I recognize the trend of lots of mangas having a quality drop considering last couple of years. Vinland Saga is absolutely one of these: it had excellent story until the farmland saga and after that it couldn't be considered even as decent. So once again long time value is great, but short time value bad.
The characters of Vinland Saga in my opinion revolve more once again around the goodness of the side characters. There's nothing wrong with the main character Thorfinn, but he happens to be surrounded (like many other manga series main characters in my toplist) with even more excellent friends and villains around him. In example Askeladd is definitely one of my favorites considering the complexity and wittiness of an character. Truly an unique and great one, who I enjoyed to read of.
The Story of Vinland saga is one of it's weak sides however. I think that I pretty much don't even follow the general flow of the story nowadays, but everything that happened before farmland saga was good. Being historical manga it is somewhat limited in terms of story.
10. Liar Game
Liar Game is one of the mangas that rely almost completely on the psychological aspect of the story.
Characters of Liar Game aren't memorable and there aren't much good to say about them. The main character is a kind that I'm not fond of, but Akiyama managed to keep my interest piqued throughout all the released chapters so far. The series basically relies completely on Akiyama and his wittiness.
The story of Liar Game is complex, but it's general line of progress is very simple. The games that are played are usually more than they seem and the interest that is linked to this series is fully dependant on it's twists. Author has succeeded very well in making the twists very enjoyable throughout the series, but I have to wonder can he keep it up without lowering the quality of his work.
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