Me and ramen had a discussion a while ago about the reasons OP may be more popular than Naruto in Japan, and not abroad. He thought that maybe in the west, the ninja theme was fairy new and untouched, unlike the pirate theme. I couldn't help but think that while that probably holds true, that maybe the reasons of OP's popularity from within Japan had less to do with the theme of OP. I wonder if a part of the reason for OP being so much more popular in Japan that Naruto is that readers know without a shadow of a doubt that One Piece, and all the characters in it, are Oda's. Maybe they felt that Naruto wasn't Kishi's story at some point (like he sold out or something), and it became less popular because of that?
I do agree to certain extent it does play into that. But how that would explain Attack on Titan, which is not far behind One Piece and it's already been two years after anime yet sold over 10 millions in a year. But back to that theory, I do believe it does contribute to the success, but it does need to be good in order to be successful.
Naruto was in fact good or really good by no stretch, but it was in the beginning and the first impression must delivered in order to win people that would later become fans. As time goes by, it can either get better, which is rare, stay the same mostly, or start to lose momentum. In this case, it's the third one. There has been many discussion on how Naruto sales was decreasing and some would blame on the arc itself, so by default, it's the worst arc ever to cause this problem.
It's very likely that's the case, where the fans start to see something going off and they later drop the series altogether, which is why you often see ads that Naruto is ending and ended up bringing everyone back to see how it all ends. Naruto is one series that I often hear constantly that people leave and moved on or stay but comment how much different it has become to the point you can poke fun of it more so than before, hence becoming a meme itself. I have followed the series' costs and popularity for a while, so yes, the series' popularity was declining. Whether what I said is true or not, it's up to you if you think the same.
Edited by NaruSaku4Life3g, 20 January 2015 - 04:16 PM.