Fillers of Animes - Unnecessary Episodes - Meaning

Do you know what a filler is? This word literally means filling, but it is used by anime fans around the world to define the episodes or arcs of an anime series whose plot is not based on the manga or the original work. It can also refer to boring and unnecessary episodes that add absolutely nothing to the story.

Why do Fillers Exist?

This usually happens when the studio developing the anime needs to stretch things out to avoid catching up to the manga in a few episodes or simply because it wants to prolong the work. Some tend to use a lot of flashbacks and extend battles and journeys to stretch the story. This adds nothing to the story and is generally of lower quality both visually and narratively.

Many animes that are based on short mangas need to resort to fillers to maintain 12 or even 24 episodes. This means they can be present in closed works, both in short animes and long ones.

Some can be cool and improve the original story of the manga, while others can really be annoying and boring, especially when the anime is long and has over 200 episodes. With that in mind, let’s share a list or guide on how you can avoid boring fillers from various popular animes.

The word comes from English, derived from the verb to fill which means “to fill.” Literally, an “episode that fills” a space, gaps, and time.

Different Types of Fillers in Animes and Series

Fillers can happen in any work, whether Japanese or not; it can be anime, dorama, movies, and even games. It all depends on whether the work you are consuming has other original material or not. There are different types of fillers, and we can list some below:

Canon filler – This is not present in the original work, but was written by the original author of the manga or light novel, serving most of the time as real material for the fans of the work. Canon comes from the word canonical. This often happens when the anime gets close to the manga.

Semi-filler consists of a certain part of the original work (manga and novel) and a certain part is created. The invented part is not present in the manga. This makes the anime longer and slows down the main story.

Flashbacks – Many authors and directors of animes use character flashbacks to create fillers, adding things that are not even present in the original work. Repeated flashbacks and things that happened in the past are placed between scenes to add more time to the episode and keep it a bit distant from the current original material.

Filler endings – Some short works decide to create an original ending different from the manga, which most of the time tends to be worse or terrible. Some animes with known filler endings include Gantz,

Anime to stretch things out – Some animes are entirely fillers and are made just to succeed based on the name of the work. Some such animes are Dragon Ball GT and Boruto, which has a manga but is still a filler.

Fillers - Skipping these unnecessary episodes

List of Filler Episodes from Major Animes

Bleach Fillers – 33, 50, 64-109, 128-137, 147-149, 168-189, 204-205, 213-214, 227-266, 287, 298-299, 303-305, 311-342, 355;

One Piece Fillers – 50-51, 54-60, 93, 98-99, 101-102, 131-143, 196-206, 213-216, 220-226, 279-283, 291-292, 303, 317-319, 326-336, 382-384, 406-407, 426-429, 457-458, 492, 497-499, 506, 542, 575-578, 590, 626-629, 747-751, 775, 780-782, 801, 807;

The animes Bleach and Naruto are considered the kings of filler animes with over 40% of their episodes being filled with fillers.

Fairy Tail – 9, 19-20, 49-50, 69-75, 125-150, 202-226, 246, 256, 268;

Katekyō Hitman Reborn! – 56, 97, 119, 142-153, 178-189;

Sailor Moon – 2-7, 9, 11-12, 15-18, 20-21, 26-32, 37-41, 43, 47-59, 62-67, 69-71, 78-80, 89, 94-100, 104, 107-108, 114, 116-118, 127, 129, 131-132, 134, 136-142, 144-147, 151-157, 159, 175-178, 183-186, 192;

Digimon Adventures – 9-11, 25, 33

Saint Seiya – 16-22, 26, 33-34, 54, 63, 74-99;

Sakura Cardcaptors – 5, 12-15, 19-24, 27-34, 36-38, 40, 43, 53, 55-58, 60-64

Rurouni Kenshin – 13-18, 22, 25-27, 63-95.

Inuyasha – 59, 63-65, 68, 72, 75-79, 89-101, 127-130, 133-140, 162-163

Detective Conan – 6, 14, 17, 19, 21, 24-26, 29-30, 33, 36-37, 41, 44-45, 47, 51, 53, 55-56, 59, 61-62, 64-67, 71, 73-74, 79-80, 83, 87-90, 92-95, 97, 106-109, 111-112, 119-120, 123-127, 135, 140, 143, 148-152, 155, 158-161, 165, 169, 175, 179-187, 196-198, 201-204, 207-211, 214-216, 225, 232, 235-237, 245, 248, 251-252, 255-257, 260-262, 264-265, 273, 276, 281-283, 294-300, 303, 314-315, 318-322, 328, 337, 342, 348-349, 352-353, 357, 360, 363-365, 368-370, 373, 376-380, 384, 388-389, 392-393, 397, 403-405, 409-410, 413-414, 418-420, 423-424, 426, 433-434, 437, 439-442, 448, 450-452, 456, 459, 461, 468, 471, 475, 478, 480, 483, 486, 489, 512, 518-520, 527, 536, 539-541, 544, 547-548, 553-556, 562, 565-567, 570, 577, 582, 588, 591, 594-596, 599, 602-607, 629-631, 634-641, 658, 663-666, 669-670, 677-680, 686-689, 692-698, 707-709, 716-721, 726, 729-730, 733, 735-737, 742-743, 750, 753, 757-758, 761-762, 767-769, 774-778, 784, 789-791, 794-807, 813, 816-821, 824-826, 829, 833-835, 838-842, 845-846, 851-852, 855-860, 865, 868-871, 875-877, 880, 883-884, 891-893 (It’s a bit unfair not to watch the episodes since this anime is an investigation of 1 to 3 episodes).

Fillers - Skipping unnecessary episodes from Animes

Pokemon – 8, 19, 32-33, 37-39, 44, 46, 49, 51, 54, 57, 59, 64-67, 70, 85-89, 93, 95-97, 100, 105, 116, 118-119, 123-124, 129, 131, 133-136, 144-146, 149, 151-152, 158-160, 162-163, 166, 168-169, 173-176, 180-182, 184, 186-189, 191, 193-194, 197-203, 207-208, 210, 214-215, 225, 228-230, 235-241, 244-245, 251, 278-279, 290, 298, 306, 311, 314-315, 318, 326, 334, 344-345, 355, 357, 363, 365, 373, 375-376, 381, 405-406, 408-410, 413-414, 433-434, 436, 441, 452-453, 456, 483-484, 499, 502-503, 515-518, 529, 562, 574-575, 583, 593, 606-607, 616, 631, 657, 675, 678-679, 684, 702-704, 715, 737, 744, 747-748, 774, 776, 778, 781-782, 787, 799, 805-807, 809, 817, 819, 836, 839, 841, 862, 873-874, 877, 880, 886-889, 899, 902, 908, 914-915, 938, 943, 948, 955, 960-961, 988-989.

Gintama – 1-2, 50, 57, 75, 82, 100, 106, 111, 114, 120, 124-125, 135, 137, 150, 155, 164, 166, 171, 173-174, 176, 185, 189, 209, 252;

Yu-Gi-Oh! – 13, 33, 41-45, 80, 98-121, 136, 144-198, 233, 237-244, 247, 262, 264, 266-267, 271, 278, 284, 287-288, 290, 295-305, 309-310, 314-316

To find more filler episodes from animes, we recommend the site: https://www.animefillerlist.com/

List of Filler Episodes from Naruto

Naruto – 26, 97, 99, 101-106, 136-220

Naruto Shippuden – 28, 45, 49, 57-71, 90-112, 127, 144-151, 170-171, 176-178, 180-196, 213, 223-242, 257-260, 271, 279-281, 284-295, 303-320, 327, 347-361, 376-377, 386, 388-390, 394-413, 416-417, 419, 422-423, 427-457, 460-461, 464-469, 480-483;

Boruto – 16-17, 33, 40-50, 52, 60, 67-92, 96-97

Filler Episodes from Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball Z – 7, 9-17, 20, 39-44, 100, 102, 108-117, 124-125, 170-171, 174, 195-199, 202-204, 274, 288;

Dragon Ball – 29-33, 42, 45, 79-83, 127-132, 149-153;

Dragon Ball GT – 1-65;

Dragon Ball Super – 1-2, 15-17, 42-46, 68-76;

Anime Fillers - Unnecessary Episodes - Meaning

Video Discussing Fillers

I hope you enjoyed the article, now that you know what it means, are you ready to avoid them? If you liked the article, don’t forget to share it with friends and leave your comments. To finish, I will leave a video that talks about this subject: