In the same way “LARPing” morphed into the internet’s latest misused go-to insult for calling someone a poser, “filler” has leaped from anime lingo into a mainstream catchall for any episode of a show like The Boys or Invincible that folks don’t vibe with. While I won’t hold it against the minority of folks using the term correctly, I can’t help feel we’re losing the plot when “filler” gets tossed around as a synonym for a bad episode when they have a history of being vital to the canon journey a show’s characters are on.
In contrast to how “filler” is thrown around online to describe slow, character-focused episodes without plot-propelling fights, actual filler refers to original storylines created for an anime so the manga can catch up to ongoing arcs. This used to happen all the time, especially with the Big Three, which had entire filler seasons. The worst of these infamously included Bleach dealing with vampires; Naruto's canon-filler arc preluding the exact inciting incident of Sasuke and Naruto’s falling out, but worse; and the Straw Hat Pirates’ early anime-original excursions woven into their canonical adventures on the Grand Line in One Piece. Their existence is why entire forum pages and fan-made recuts exist to carve out hundreds of hours of filler from anime-onlys' watchlists.
Mercifully, filler seasons have gone by the wayside. Outside of a few slimmer episode-count seasons due to a manga’s hiatus caused by a creator's health, anime releases now follow a seasonal schedule with upwards of 12 or 25 episodes, giving animators more breathing room between manga arcs. Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped the discourse around “filler” from persisting today. Should an original episode of an adaptation—be it anime, cartoon, or live action—dare to deviate from a side-by-side comparison with its source material, it gets labeled “filler” as a derogatory term.
Having endured the dark ages of shonen filler seasons and fanservice beach episodes, I can honestly say I don’t mind anime filler. In fact, I kinda love it. On the best days, anime filler serves as a narrative playground that expands a show's tone, character dynamics, and worldbuilding, adding texture to the show’s overall vibe. But mostly—especially in big marquee shonen series—it pumps the brakes on shouting and punching and gives me a much-needed break with my favorite characters.
Granted, not all filler is created equal. So here’s a shortlist of my favorite filler episodes from big marquee shonen shows that, if released nowadays, would be called terrible, even though they’re great.
One Piece
One Piece has a unique “problem”: so much of its early filler is stitched directly into canon events that the anime’s opening stretch can feel like a slog to get through. It's such a well-known phenomenon that the series is getting a Wit Studio remake designed to streamline the dauntingly long anime series for newcomers who discover the franchise after checking out its live-action series. And sure, between One Pace and endless Reddit posts there’s an entire cottage industry built around telling One Piece fans which episodes to skip. While One Piece filler gets a bad rap for stalling an already long odyssey with non-canon detours, the G-8 Arc is widely considered to be the greatest anime filler arc of all time.
Set immediately after Skypiea, the G-8 Arc drops the Straw Hats straight into the heart of a Marine stronghold—basically their Fort Knox—for eleven tightly written episodes. Instead of rushing through their inevitable great escape, the crew splinters off and goes undercover as Marine grunts trying to reunite on their trusty dirigible, the Gong Merry, and pull off a Shawshank-style prison break. Folks, G-8 is peak One Piece comedy.
Throughout the arc, we see Nico Robin selling out Usopp while impersonating a general, Sanji being Gordon Ramsay in the Marine kitchen, and Luffy doing the funniest shit possible while sneaking around low-ranking Marines on security sweeps. But what makes the arc genuinely special is how it reframes the anime’s moral compass. By centering the Marines as the protagonists and the Straw Hats as the intruders, the arc further highlights the moral gray that defines Eiichiro Oda’s deeply political world. The Marines aren’t faceless bad guys; there are people with duty, pride, and their own sense of justice. And by the end, the Straw Hats don't just escape; they earn the respect of the base’s hard-ass general, who recognizes Luffy as a genuine freedom fighter, even though they’re on opposing sides.
Bleach
As a hanger-on Ichiruki shipper, the Bleach filler episode I hold close to my heart is episode 342. “Thank You” sees Ichigo Kurosaki come to grips with his soul reaper powers going away in the aftermath of his fight with Sosuke Aizen in the Arrancar Arc. Rather than the events corresponding to a couple of pages in the manga, ending with him and Rukia saying their goodbyes, the episode extends their farewell by showing the two hunting demons together, as in the old days. But more importantly, it shows the two going on an ice-skating date.
While the entire episode haunts my daydreams as further proof that the two should’ve wound up together (I’ll never get over it, sorry), the filler episode effectively expanded on the big sads they and I felt seeing them part ways. Deadass, it's the only Bleach episode I bought on Google Play when I was in high school for that very reason.
Naruto
There’s some real Looney Tunes bullshit that happens in Naruto filler. Some stretches of episodes saw the knuckle-headed ninja delivering hot curry that makes you drunk, trying not to laugh at a funeral, or Itachi whipping up some eggs with his Sharingan. But my favorite Naruto filler episode is the most low-stakes spectacle of all time. It's the episode where Kakashi and Might Guy compete in a footrace.
Throughout the series, the show kept dropping moments in which the rival jonins kept referring to their win-loss records against each other. While it's served as a cool shorthand for creator Masashi Kishimoto to tease how deep the two’s friendship goes, manga readers never got to see any of those cool matches take place.
If Naruto as a whole is the Star Wars equivalent of Anakin and Obi-Wan prattling on about all the cool adventures they went through before Attack of the Clones, then Naruto Shippuden episode 241, “Kakashi, My Eternal Rival!”, is its Clone Wars expansion showcasing all the fun adventures the two went through. The episode sees the two dash around a reconstructed Leaf Village like a couple of idiots. It’s pure, unadulterated filler anime whimsy at its finest.
Dragon Ball Z
Last—and certainly not least—is Dragon Ball Z episode 125, “Goku’s Dilemma.” Coming right after the Garlic Jr. zombie nonsense filler arc and wedged between the canon events of Trunks turning Frieza into mincemeat and the Z-fighters gearing up for the Android Saga, this episode should be the kind of filler that would make contemporary anime fans mad over all the nothing happening in the most fighto fighto anime of all time. However, it stands the test of time as filler anime gold.
After weeks of Chi-Chi putting up with Piccolo and Goku’s nonsensical training while she slaves away carrying all the protein in the world across mountains to cook for them, she has finally had enough. Momma needs a car and either one of her meathead freeloaders to get a license to drive to and from the grocery store to pick up their dead weight around the house. So the absurdist filler episode commits to the bit by having Goku and Piccolo don civilian garb and enroll in a driver's ed course to get their licenses. Naturally, being lifelong rivals, things get out of hand behind the steering wheel, and mayhem ensues.
The episode doesn’t just coast on the bit of Piccolo wearing clothes Goku’s wife picked out for him. It dovetails out of its own ridiculous premise by having the two actually do hero work, rescuing a bus full of passengers trapped in a rainy gorge, turning the funny-haha episode into one of the rare examples of viewers seeing its heroes directly help the people of Earth outside of cataclysmic battles.
DBZ’s drivers' ed episode stands shoulder-to-shoulder with a shortlist of other iconic series filler detours that’d probably get shit on nowadays. Chief among them are Gohan moonlighting as a Kamen Rider knockoff in the Great Saiyaman Arc (which I wouldn’t have minded if it had just been the show instead of the Buu arc) and the slow-burn filler episodes where Bulma and Vegeta caught feelings for each other (which happened off-page in the manga).
Stories aren’t a race designed to sprint from one essential event to the next. And by the same token, filler episodes are more than dead air wedged between those events. At their best, filler episodes can deepen your love for a show’s cast, enrich its world, and strengthen the source material by adding texture in all the places the main story blows past.
Sure, there are case‑by‑case reasons to critique filler, but treating any deviation from the source material as innately awful feels like a pretty joyless way to watch television. If a show’s writing is already solid, I’m never going to turn my nose up at a silly little filler detour—especially if it means I get to spend more time hanging out with my favorite characters.
