Is filler necessarily a bad thing?

Realtalk: the filler episodes of DBZ were the best episodes because they were the only ones that had decent pacing and plot instead of 15 minutes of watching people stand around getting ready to fight
you know something was fucked with dbz when the “summary of last episode” at the beginning would cover the entire previous episode in 30 seconds *and not leave anything out*

Ya know what series needed some chilled out comedic filler? Yu yu hakusho. For a 90s shonen the series has next to no filler, hell they even skipped a bunch of the chapters where yusuke went around helping people as a ghost

Saiyan arc filler was good, Fake namek was garbage, the pre android filler was good, and the Other world tournament was good.

>teach us more about the characters
Even then you run the risk of developing characters' personalities contrary to the source material.

And Bleach
But really Naruto amped it up to 12, there was NO REASON they had filler WHEN THE FUCKING MANGA ENDED! Like what the FUCK Pierrot?
If you wanted your fucking Gaiden, what if shit wait until Naruto is done then you can on making these What Ifs actually good.
I mean the Hagaromo/Himura arcs and Asura and Indra arcs being fleshed out and not just 'OH LOOK AND THESE LOOK AT THESE PARALELLS TO CHARACTERS THAT *WE KNOW*
But no. You fucked it all up and then just went right into Boruto.
Fuck

Only if they are fanfic-tier.

Filler with actually nice plots are fine however.

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>instead of 15 minutes of watching people stand around getting ready to fight
I liked these it built suspense. Especially that episode where they juxtaposed Trunks powering up to SS Grade 3 and Goku explaining the form's weakness.

It did not build suspense when 5 minutes until Namek explodes took 10 episodes. It tested patience.

>the five minutes meme.
Of course the battle that the entire arc was building towards would take a while. Sure it was a bit longer than what it should have been but it wasn't offensive

Most of the time. The fact plot and characters can't develop during filler already means it has less room to work than canon stuff.

Not necessarily, but Fumoffu is probably the only instance I can think of where it could actually be called good.

Sometimes less is more. You don't have to build up to a long fight, you have to build up to a good one.

The Asgard arc in Saint Seiya is fucking great to the point it's better than some canon arcs.

Usually, yes. All anime's should just do seasons that follow the manga exactly. None of this continuous bullshit that we have now.

BUT user THINK OF THE MONEY THOSE RICH FAT CATS UP TOP WILL HAVE TO SPEND TO GET TV AIRTIME BACK!
WHILE THEY'LL PROBABLY HAVE TO ORDER ONE LESS STEAK THAT WEEK!
PLUS THINK OF THE ANIMATORS! WHAT WILL THEY DO WITH THEIR LIVES IF THEY CAN'T ANIMATE FOR 16-18 HOURS!? NEXT YOU'LL SAY WE SHOULD ACTUALLY *PAY* THEM!

When its done for the purpose of being funny or giving characters more screentime.
Usually when its story heavy it sucks.

The reason is actually incredibly simple as to why they had all of 2017 be filler seasons back to back: the anime ended a month before Boruto started airing. They wanted to coast out the franchise success as much as possible and then keep the money train rolling near-immediately with as little hold-ups as possible.

>5 minutes until Namek explodes
Goku himself pointed out that it was a bluff, and Frieza didn't actually want to be on Namek when it blew up so he tossed out a fake estimate to try to throw Goku off his game.

driving school is the apex of filler

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>Is filler necessarily a bad thing?
come on, don't ask it while posting the best filler episode ever, not even beach/onsen episodes can top Goku and Piccolo getting a car license kek

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>driving school is the apex of filler
So good it's becoming a side quest in the new DBZ game

Not when the main plot moves at a glacial pace. What's the difference between filler and another week on Namek?

I liked how naruto did it in part 1, it works better when everything is resolved, though they did filler in between manga arcs and it was pretty stupid as it fucked up the flow of the manga content.

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>Is filler necessarily a bad thing?
No. It can have some purposes, like fleshing out concepts or characters. You can't progress the story in a filler, but you can do plenty of lateral movements. The problem is that filler is invariably done poorly. Rather than try to flesh out a character, instead the writers will regurgitate canon material in a worse way, for example.

no, as long as it's not taking too much episodes. And it's only a filler from time to time in an arc.

Shippuden:
>2 filler arcs
>1 canon arc
>Rinse/repeat

Naruto:
>more than 5 years of filler before continuing with Shippuden

>80 eps
>5 years
wat

Filler is fine when it happens between arcs and it's just a couple of episodes
Filler is bad when it happens during the arcs or even worse, when it's a filler arc

>climactic battle happening in One Piece, shit going down, emotions and tensions running high
>have a random special episode of the characters playing baseball, or a filler arc of an alternate universe where everyone's in a feudal japan setting, that have nothing to do with the plot of anything and only exist to pad out arcs

It’s bad if it fucks up the pacing of the anime or retcons shit

Sailor Moon anime lives and breathes on it's filler, the character development and world building helped make the 90's anime the most beloved version of Sailor Moon.

Depends. Some manga have bad pacing or scenes ending abruptly due to their release schedule.
Fillers done well can fix minor problems.

>you can drive cars in the new dragon ball game

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i unironically wish one piece had more filler instead of the drawn out, snail paced episodes we've had for a decade. the strawhats are entertaining enough on their own as characters that you can throw them in some random situations and strike gold like the G-8 arc or the movies. it should only happen after major canon arcs though. (except for that zoro movie where he is out of character as fuck, that was kind of dumb.)

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depends, if they are bad fanfic tier no

If done well, with a fun little side story? I think filler has a place, if they are being transparent as fuck that they are just buying time then yeah its pretty bad. Though nothing compares to Naruto's 70%+ filler

It's bad because when the story starts again 100% of what happened in filler is irrelevant and never mentioned ever again so it's like you're essentially just watching a "what if" until then.

One Piece barely has any filler

Has there ever been a bad baseball episode?

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I know for a fact it has a bunch, but Idk if it's good or not cause I skipped it

I think that bleach arc with the swords becoming enemies was decent.

No, not always. I think it's important to have downtime unless the anime is meant to be especially fast paced.

I think a good example of this is episode 9 of Gakkou Gurashi. Yes, this is the classic pool episode, but this is in an anime where it feels like the characters are in danger. There is a good deal of suspense and anticipation of something bad happening in the episode, but it never happens. The episode allows you some time to breathe, and then it hits you with more tragedy in the next episode.

not always. its a good chance too show off lessor not so important charecters giving them some spotlight. its when it gets overblown is were it becomes a problem. looking at the filler hell that was naruto (how long did it last again? two years?)

What is the best filler episode of all time?

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One Piece has had some nice filler episodes overall, and Toei luckily isn't Studio Pierrot with 24+ fillers between canon arcs, they are much more organized.
I remember when they placed one or two feudal Japan filler eps in the middle of Enies Lobby'(I think during Chopper's fight?) and that was pretty anticlimactic.

Pic related at first existed only in the anime of Inuyasha, but the mangaka grew fond of the character and she acknowledged her existence in the manga as well.
Has this ever happened in other works?

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Goku and Piccolo learning to drive in DBZ is probably the most loved filler episode ever.
G-8 in One Piece is the only filler arc I never heard anything bad said about it

i think bleach that with the main girl from the first movie

U6 v U7 baseball is fun too. You get to see Yamcha somewhat jobbing, again

Tori's mechanic design is the shit
i wish we have DB's Mario Kart version

Thanks Naruto.

I think small filler arcs can work, 1 or 2 eps long.

Classic Saint Seiya is a masterpiece in general.

G8 filler was great. Must watch.

What you just posted is one of THE biggest examples of filler done right. No, a filler episode doesn't have to be boring.

>So good it's becoming a side quest in the new DBZ game
Maybe I will actually consider buying Kakarot then.

The Slayers episode where Lina wants to eat a dragon, and she isn't letting anything get in the way of that.

Asgard is nice, but not better than canon. And the following Neptune arc is crap.

Filler is, in and of itself, not a bad thing.
But most Filler in practice is poorly written and poorly animated.

The problem is if it be something that is plot-arc based that one watches for said plot which can't be elaborated upon in fillers of course.

I liked the small expansions they did, unfortunately the only one I can remember is right now is Naruto do sennen goroshi on ebisu after he is knocked out to see if he's really out of it. It's technically filler, it doesn't take away from the pacing and I don't have to watch the backstory of someone with a wonky hat.

>Tfw we will never have a slice of life Sailor moon sequel about 16-17 year old Usagi where Mamuro can actually get character development

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>Bleach inserted filler arcs right in the middle of canon ones without any transition. Literally, at one moment we were going to rescue Orihime, and then we teleport to Karakura like nothing happened
>Naruto had 100 filler episodes in a row
Only in cases like those or being objectively bad episodes.

>>Naruto had 100 filler episodes in a row
This is a joke, right?

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Nope. After the Rescue Sasuke Arc, the show went to have 100 or so episodes of pure filler, except for the last minutes of the last ones with Naruto and Jiraiya leaving the village.

It's exaggeration.
It's like 80 episodes in a row.

My mistake. Still, felt like an eternity.

No.

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Even 80 episodes feel like an absurd amount that shouldn't be tolerated, what the hell. Were they so ahead of the manga at the time that they needed 80 weeks of original content?

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Why do studios not adapt manga one arc at a time?

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Kishi take 6 month break

They were so behind on the manga at the time that the fucking video game had an ending before Shippuden did.

>is literally 70% filler
how did they get away with this?

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Did anything in Naruto actually matter after Naruto went to train with Jiraiya?

From the top of my head I can think of at least a few filler arcs,anime original or not.G8,millenium dragon rescue,those few W7 episodes at the end,Breed's circus and more.

Because they have a time slot to use.

some pre-shippuden filler from the filler hell(the 80 episodes) were okay/good.

Naked Hinata dance comes to mind.

my pubescent wiener was ravaging.

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