And why are they sometimes necessary?
So…fillers. Feeling angry yet? But jokes aside, we can’t deny that this type of episodes might be very important although quite annoying. So why are they so common in series, and what can we do about that?
Let’s start with the definition of a filler. This is an episode of an anime that doesn’t do much for the series plot-wise. Such episodes don’t move the story forward and these parts of content are often not even in the original source, but made by the people adapting the series.
When fans are speaking about fillers, one of the first series that comes to mind is Naruto. This anime is said to have so many filler episodes that you can stumble across various articles giving you tips on which parts of the story you can easily skip to save your time. We are not talking about 1-2 episodes only, sometimes good 10 episodes in a row can be omitted without any harm done to your watching experience. So what’s up with that?
The thing is that most anime are based on manga, and if an anime is getting released on a regular weekly basis, the creators are destined to run out of the source material. Since the episodes have to keep coming out, the studio responsible for the adaptation is forced to think of something. That’s how fillers are made and that’s what happened to Naruto.
Fans say that the situation is getting much better since most series are seasonal now, and the creators have time to take some rest between the seasons and wait for more manga chapters to come out. One Piece fans, you probably don’t know what we’re talking about now, but just take our word for it.
One Piece and Naruto are not the only series famous for that. Fans say that if we’re speaking about the percentage of filler episodes, then Bleach is far ahead of these series. They say that this anime is about half filler.
The most annoying thing about the One Piece fillers for the fans, though, is that they are unskippable. It’s easier with Naruto and Bleach since you can just ignore such episodes without it influencing your experience, but it’s impossible with One Piece.
Nevertheless, there are still some good things about fillers. They may not add a lot to the overall story and may annoy you to no end sometimes, but they provide more content with your favorite characters and give you more details about the world. Moreover, they help protect you from finding yourself missing your beloved series during an endless hiatus.