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I see people complain about filler a lot and use it as a pejorative term but it can be good too! I think episodes that are about your favorite characters messing around are a lot of fun, and sometimes the people making the show understand what makes the characters and material appealing to fans better than the creators do. That's why I made this thread; to discuss the artistic merits of filler and also filler that we've really enjoyed watching. For the purposes of this thread filler is any anime original content in an adaptation of a manga, book, light novel, game etc. It doesn't mean an episode you don't like where the action doesn't move forward. For example, the episode of Dragonball Z where Goku and Piccolo learn to drive is filler, while the episode of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure where they eat pasta is not. It doesn't have to be a super strict definition beyond this, I think people should feel free to post about anime original endings they really liked and original movies as well! I also think anime adaptations that basically left behind the source material and did their own things with the characters are fair game too. If you're not sure if something is filler but you loved it just post it anyway! That's all that can be said in the opening post.
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Aug 22, 2018 05:13
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actual filler that meets the definition of filler for stuff like shonen loving sucks 90% of the time. Driving episode is an exception and original DBZ would be far more tolerable if they did more stuff like that.
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Aug 22, 2018 05:23
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RevolverDivider posted:actual filler that meets the definition of filler for stuff like shonen loving sucks 90% of the time. One of my favorite filler arcs is the Asgard Arc in shonen battle anime Saint Seiya. It's proof that the people making the show really understood what made the series enjoyable to begin with; mathematically perfect pacing, absurdly dramatic backstories and lots of blood. Every stereotype about characters people joke like how Shiryu loses his shirt every fight about shows up at some point and the main characters are written in their ideal form. It also looks absolutely wonderful, with lots of crazy pastel and neon watercolors making everything pop. The antagonists were all a whole lots of fun as well, some with crazy backstories like the guy raised by the man who killed his parents to kill the man who killed his parents and some who are just plain villains like the guy who can turn people into skeletons with amethyst. It's a summation of everything great about Saint Seiya and proved that the anime team knew what they were doing. As the next two arcs would show, they knew how to make an enjoyable battle story more than the original creator, who dragged the series into an meandering and insanely dialogue heavy operatic mess. It's also memorable to me because it's the point in the show where my bootleg subs went from being machine translated gibberish to an approximation of the French dub which leads to brilliant moments like these:    
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Aug 22, 2018 05:25
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boruto is mostly an original anime but the original content is way better than the boruto manga. heck, i'd say it is better than most of the non-filler original anime. it's super weird since all previous original content in naruto was absolutely garbage filler, including the movies.
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Aug 22, 2018 06:00
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Filler keeps the production staff employed. One Piece is a national jobs program dedicated to producing 5 episodes from each page of a chapter.
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Aug 22, 2018 06:13
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Do movies count because that One Piece movie about how much working at Ghibli sucks is good.
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Aug 22, 2018 06:18
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G8 is one of the best and funniest One Piece arcs.
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Aug 22, 2018 06:53
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GorfZaplen posted:I see people complain about filler a lot and use it as a pejorative term but it can be good too! I think episodes that are about your favorite characters messing around are a lot of fun, and sometimes the people making the show understand what makes the characters and material appealing to fans better than the creators do. That's why I made this thread; to discuss the artistic merits of filler and also filler that we've really enjoyed watching. The entire 1995 Ghost in the Shell film op 
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Aug 22, 2018 07:02
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the episode of mushiuta where a rich executive gets the top of his car cut off and then he just pulls out a cell phone and calls his secretary to tell her to buy him another limo, casual as can be, while a sword fight happens on top of his vivisected car
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Aug 22, 2018 07:06
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Slam Dunk's one of most memorable episodes in Latin America and maybe Japan I don'0t loving know is a fun episode where the Captain of the basketball team, Gori, teaches the dumbass delinquent main character a "killer technique" to defeat everyone in the court (because he thinks basketball has shortcuts like that, and Gori is annoyed and wants it to stop). The technique of "killing with a look", aka glaring at someone until you go cross-eyed to throw them off their game. It's forgotten in two episodes (it works once, against a bunch of delinquents), when the protagonist realizes it doesn't work on actual players and he was just being hosed around with. And even though it's completely pointless like that, it's one of the most beloved episodes for a lot of people I know who are into the show.
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Aug 22, 2018 07:19
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Mulderman posted:G8 is one of the best and funniest One Piece arcs. The one piece anime got a lot worse when they decided to cut any meaningful filler
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Aug 22, 2018 08:36
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Someday in the Rain is incredibly good, even more so because of how different it is compared to the rest of the show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4ozzV-kY4M&t=4095s
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Aug 22, 2018 10:41
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Not exactly filler in the traditional sense but something I always felt was strangely interesting about the Rurouni Kenshin anime is that it took a story arc from the manga where this big swole dude who bragged about murdering a ton of people, but was a fraud and a wimp who never killed a single person and Kenshin didn't even have to unsheathe his sword to beat him. And in the anime they decided you know what, let's make him an actual murderer and also now he's such a badass swordsman that he can dodge bullets. Was it a better result than what happened in the manga? No, but it's fascinating to me that they decided to make such drastic changes (and it's not a major arc in the grand scheme of things so it doesn't hurt things down the line).
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Aug 22, 2018 11:07
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Zanpakuto rebellion arc in Bleach was pretty good. It was a cool arc with some awesome designs but also fleshed out the zanpakuto's a bit. The story was pretty good. The weapons that the characters have been using all this time are fighting against them now.
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Aug 22, 2018 11:59
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Phimose Knight posted:Slam Dunk's one of most memorable episodes in Latin America and maybe Japan I don'0t loving know is a fun episode where the Captain of the basketball team, Gori, teaches the dumbass delinquent main character a "killer technique" to defeat everyone in the court (because he thinks basketball has shortcuts like that, and Gori is annoyed and wants it to stop). The technique of "killing with a look", aka glaring at someone until you go cross-eyed to throw them off their game.
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Aug 22, 2018 12:11
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Strange Quark posted:The one piece anime got a lot worse when they decided to cut any meaningful filler Yeah, you can really tell the moment things went downhill. Also not every filler arc was a winner, but many at least were entertaining. And it's always fun to see the main cast interact with each other. Filler often has a bad rep, but used correctly, it can be a massive asset to a series. For example, I freaking LOVE Slayers (Next) Even though most of it is basically filler.
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Aug 22, 2018 13:54
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I have always, and will always, object to using "filler" for any purpose other than "Spinning wheels with non-canon material while we wait for the source material we're adapting to get far ahead enough that we won't outpace it" Like, when people refer to anything that is non-plot progression oriented as filler, it makes me want to tie them down and make them marathon a bunch of bad One Piece episodes. And while I suppose that there might be good filler out there all I see in my head is the pacing of OP being stretched beyond the point of breaking and poo poo like the Garlic Jr. returns arc in my head. I don't know, maybe it's just because I'm more of a comic person than a TV person. Sakurazuka posted:Do movies count because that One Piece movie about how much working at Ghibli sucks is good. Which one is that? If all the filler was more like the GOOD movies, then the One Piece anime in general would be MAGNITUDES better
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Aug 22, 2018 14:58
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Sakurazuka posted:Do movies count because that One Piece movie about how much working at Ghibli sucks is good. They do
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Aug 22, 2018 15:07
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OnimaruXLR posted:
Baron Omatsuri
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Aug 22, 2018 15:11
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Wark Say posted:I remember that episode! The VA for Sakuragi was the bomb (I think he still voices Vegeta in current Dragon Ball?) Yep, the LA voice actor does the voice of Vegeta still, and the JP seiyuu voices Trunks in current Dragon Ball too
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Aug 22, 2018 15:25
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Another good Dragon Ball filler is the baseball episode in Super. There is a lot of fun filler episodes in Super, but baseball is the cream of the crop.
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Aug 22, 2018 16:29
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Most of K-ON! season 2 is anime-original, and it turns out the fine folks at Kyoto Animation are better at writing nuanced characters and comedy beats than the manga author was. Calling it "filler" would just feel wrong.
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Aug 22, 2018 17:00
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Doesn't Kyoto Animation do this for a lot of the Light Novels they publish/get animated? Like I swear I read somewhere that like half of the Chu2 Club Members / Main Characters are straight-up Anime-Original characters for the Anime? So yeah, I think that's pretty cool. 
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Aug 22, 2018 17:09
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Sefal posted:Zanpakuto rebellion arc in Bleach was pretty good. Came here to post this. It had a pretty sweet OP too (the second one, not the creepy first one). I also liked how one of the zanpakuto characters showed up in the last comic arc. I. M. Gei fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Aug 22, 2018 |
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Aug 22, 2018 17:15
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I think filler episodes are not a big deal but filler arcs are way more difficult to pull off and if they don't welp, enjoy having to wait months to get to the good parts again.
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Aug 22, 2018 17:35
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I'm surprised nobody mentioned the original Sailor Moon anime series-there are a ton of monster of the day episodes that dont do anything to move the plot forward, but they give the characters room to interact with each other, developing them more than their manga counterparts. Not to mention that even if there isn't significant progress in terms of the plot, "filler" episodes can serve as great comedy, breather episodes, or even set up for later events. I do agree that I generally view filler episodes more favorably than filler arcs, primarily because the status quo can't change, so it becomes hard to get invested into a story line for weeks, if not months, on end.
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Aug 22, 2018 19:32
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Julias posted:I'm surprised nobody mentioned the original Sailor Moon anime series-there are a ton of monster of the day episodes that dont do anything to move the plot forward, but they give the characters room to interact with each other, developing them more than their manga counterparts. Not to mention that even if there isn't significant progress in terms of the plot, "filler" episodes can serve as great comedy, breather episodes, or even set up for later events. This is why the 90's version of Sailor Moon still remains my favorite incarnation of that franchise (though the live action version is a close second), sure it was filler heavy and cut/changed some stuff from the manga but it also gave actual development and focus to characters not named Usagi, Mamoru or Chibiusa (granted, Rei is almost the polar opposite of her manga counterpart but I actually kind of prefer the anime version to be honest). About the only points where I believe the original manga was actually superior was in the final two arcs and overall ending. Mulderman posted:Yeah, you can really tell the moment things went downhill. I would almost prefer Naruto levels of back to back filler arcs at this point over the way the One Piece anime is currently set up (not even counting the fact that starting from Enies Lobby, it takes about 5-10 minutes or so before each episode properly begins). Speaking of Naruto, there was (very rarely) some decent filler content in there as well (for one thing they made Tenten into an actual character instead of a glorified prop like she was in the manga). Speaking of Slayers, have they exhausted all the content from the original novels already? Because if not I wouldn't mind seeing that show come back again one day. Larryb fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Aug 22, 2018 |
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Aug 22, 2018 21:11
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one piece filler is bad, but the lack of filler means the anime has such incredibly awful pacing that it loses all appeal. single chapters do not translate to single episodes!
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Aug 22, 2018 21:23
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The garlic Jr arc in dragon ball z is seminal
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Aug 22, 2018 21:33
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The buu saga in dbz actually had some good looking anime original fights(Though half the time they didnt really mesh well with the logic of the show). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihxV4tKBLWA Also Hokuto No Ken 2 is mostly superior to the manga arcs it covered.
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Aug 22, 2018 21:46
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Stairmaster posted:Also Hokuto No Ken 2 is mostly superior to the manga arcs it covered. What was different? I didn't get very far in that part of the manga but I'm curious
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Aug 22, 2018 22:35
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The Urusei Yatsura anime kept Lum's Stormtroopers around as a regular part of the cast instead of being a bunch of one-off characters like they were in the manga. Without them not only would there be a few less characters around to antagonize Ataru, but Beautiful Dreamer wouldn't open up with the class making a Nazi Cafe for the festival.
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Aug 22, 2018 23:52
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GorfZaplen posted:What was different? I didn't get very far in that part of the manga but I'm curious It mostly punched up the imperial army arc by adding some extra mini-bosses for kenshiro to dunk on. I think there was some other stuff but it's been a while. Also there's two consectutive episodes where he fights crustacean men(who are completely unrelated). Also I forgot to mention the greatest bit of filler which was in hokuto no ken 1 when in juuzas final fight against raoh they get to the part where he dies in the manga and he proceeds to take his freebird attitude to the ultimate level by fighting on several minutes past that. He even does a quasi-aside to the audience. edit: the whole juuza fight is great. They even homage it near the end of Dragon Ball Super. Stairmaster fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Aug 23, 2018 |
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Aug 22, 2018 23:57
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I actually liked some of the Naruto filler. It was cool when it fleshed out characters like Anko, Ibiki, and Kurenai, who didn't get enough focus in the manga. The Land of Tea arc also affects the non-filler storyline in a way, since the filler villain's defeat of Sasuke puts him back in the hospital for the beginning of the Sasuke Retrieval Arc and gives him a bit more motivation to accept power from Orochimaru. I also like the broad strokes of the Kakashi backstory arc (not the canon Kakashi Gaiden, the other Kakashi backstory arc), like Kakashi recruiting Yamato out of Root, even if I'm not a fan of some of the details (it makes Hiruzen and Danzo both a bit dumber than necessary, for example). Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Aug 23, 2018 |
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Aug 23, 2018 00:35
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Srice posted:The Urusei Yatsura anime kept Lum's Stormtroopers around as a regular part of the cast instead of being a bunch of one-off characters like they were in the manga. Without them not only would there be a few less characters around to antagonize Ataru, but Beautiful Dreamer wouldn't open up with the class making a Nazi Cafe for the festival. The Stormtroopers are great and honestly any opportunity we can get for Shigeru China to play somebody should be embraced. Kimagure Orange Road has a lot of original content, it plays up characters that are one off in the manga and gives them more episodes and excises some major characters altogether or moves them into the OVAs, and I think they made the right choice. The character they moved to the ovas is pretty one note and kind of vicious in a way that doesn't fit the good-natured tone of the anime, while the baby cousin that shows up only once in the manga is hilarious and full of comedy potential and they explore just about all of it.
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Aug 23, 2018 00:36
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Stairmaster posted:It mostly punched up the imperial army arc by adding some extra mini-bosses for kenshiro to dunk on. I think there was some other stuff but it's been a while. Also there's two consectutive episodes where he fights crustacean men(who are completely unrelated). I want to watch the final arc.of the show sometime because it sounds even better than the manga. I'm also nervous about it though because a lot of characters don't sound how I imagined them at all
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Aug 23, 2018 00:37
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Silver2195 posted:I actually liked some of the Naruto filler. It was cool when it fleshed out characters like Anko, Ibiki, and Kurenai, who didn't get enough focus in the manga. The Land of Tea arc also affects the non-filler storyline in a way, since the filler villain's defeat of Sasuke puts him back in the hospital for the beginning of the Sasuke Retrieval Arc and gives him a bit more motivation to accept power from Orochimaru. I also liked the added backstory about Kaguya and her sons and grandsons, which made Kaguya and the grandsons seem a bit less tacked-on than they were in the manga. Plus we got to see some of Naruto's peers get actual fights (especially Hinata, who I believe never actually wins a fight in the manga but is pretty badass in the anime). Don't get me wrong, much of the Naruto filler is bad, but this isn't the thread for that.
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Aug 23, 2018 00:49
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RevolverDivider posted:actual filler that meets the definition of filler for stuff like shonen loving sucks 90% of the time. Driving episode is an exception and original DBZ would be far more tolerable if they did more stuff like that. Dragon Ball Super has some really good episodes that many consider filler, even though the series is entirely anime original, filler has pretty much evolved into also meaning "anything that's not part of a larger story arc." In-between the Future Trunks and Tournament of Power arc there are some great episodes. First, there's the one where Goku wants to wish King Kai back to life, but every time he gets ready to wish another character ambushes Goku and demands to make their own wish. This results in all the recurring characters arguing and a short journey to the Earth's core until there's no time left to wish and the dragon dissipates. Right after that is the episode where Champa and Beerus have a baseball match between the show's characters, resulting in Yamcha winning it in a pose reminiscent to that of when he was killed by the saibamen in DBZ.
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Aug 23, 2018 01:16
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Srice posted:The Urusei Yatsura anime kept Lum's Stormtroopers around as a regular part of the cast instead of being a bunch of one-off characters like they were in the manga. This is the thread for good anime original stuff.
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Aug 23, 2018 02:08
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Also a good filler scene was Deen showing the offscreen battle between archer and berserker in Fate/Stay Night.
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Aug 23, 2018 02:22
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