Anime Filler List: What To Skip & What's Worth Watching (2024)

Anime has seen a significant rise in popularity over the last three decades, with major series like Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece becoming pop-cultural landmarks in their own right. While it's not reflective of the medium on a whole, long-running shonen anime have a bad habit of padding themselves out with filler.

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While plenty of great anime are devoid of filler – from Cowboy Bebop, to Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and Neon Genesis Evangelion – it's not unusual to run into a filler arc or have storylines broken up by individual filler episodes. Filler can be an insidious beast, but it's not all bad if you know how to manage and spot it.

What Is Filler In Anime?

The concept of filler predates the anime medium by several decades. Early programs employed short films and videos to fill the empty spaces between television broadcasts, although these fillers are radically different from those used in anime. What is filler in anime? By definition, filler exists to occupy narrative gaps created when a manga lags behind its anime adaptation. This could include standalone episodes or entire arcs. Filler episodes very rarely follow the original source material, but there have been a few exceptions to this rule.

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How Do You Know An Anime Is In A Filler Arc?

Anyone who follows both a manga and its anime adaptation can instantly identify when the latter starts releasing filler episodes. Even viewers who don't read manga can recognize filler arcs when the story undergoes a distinct shift from previous storylines. That said, the only way to properly confirm a filler arc is by looking online or on specific forums. Most popular anime have dedicated subreddits, where fans discuss, theorize, or simply engage in conversations about their favorite series.

Is It Okay To Skip Filler In Anime?

It's fine to skip filler in anime since the actual story will almost never reference filler material – some fandoms even strongly suggest skipping filler – but some anime handle filler well. Filler arcs in Bleach are eminently skippable, as they stray far from the original storyline. On the other hand, Dragon Ball Z's Other World Saga is an iconic and beloved filler arc. All things considered, watching or skipping filler comes down to the viewer's individual preferences.

Which Anime Has No Filler?

Hunter x Hunter, Attack on Titan, Haikyuu!, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Yu Yu Hakusho, and The Promised Neverland don't have a single filler episode. This feat is particularly impressive given the sheer number of episodes in each of these anime. In fact, the Hunter x Hunter anime has no filler despite the manga's many hiatuses.

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What Anime Has The Most Filler?

On the other side of the spectrum are anime with dozens of filler episodes, making up a large fraction of ther total episode count:

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Dragon Ball

What is filler in Dragon Ball Z? Both Dragon Ball and its successor have numerous filler arcs throughout the anime series. Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z together have six main filler storylines — the Solo Training arc, the Heavenly Training arc, the Wedding Dress arc, the Garlic Jr. arc, the Afterlife Tournament arc, and a revised version of the Great Saiyaman arc. According to Anime Filler List, 38 out of 291 episodes in Dragon Ball Z are filler. These arcs and episodes are worth a watch, however, as they help expand on storylines that went unexplored in the manga.

Dragon Ball: Every Filler Arc In The Anime (In Chronological Order)​​​​​​​

Naruto

Naruto and Naruto Shippuden are home to numerous filler episodes and arcs. Some of these include the Land of Tea Escort Mission, the Cursed Warrior Extermination Mission, the Buried Gold Excavation Mission, the Konoha Plans Recapture Mission, and the Menma Memory Search Mission. A few Naruto filler arcs are worth watching though, such as the Land Of Rice Fields Investigation Mission, the Kurosuki Family Removal Mission, and the Kaima Capture Mission. 90/220 episodes in Naruto are filler, but that number rises to 203/500 for Naruto Shippuden.

Boruto

Boruto chronicles the adventures of its eponymous protagonist, the son of Naruto and Hinata Uzumaki. Although Boruto and Naruto aren't exactly similar in terms of either temperament or upbringing, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

How much of the Boruto anime is filler?

Like its predecessor, Boruto has a decent amount of filler interspersed between its canonical storylines. As of April 2023, there are 33/293 episodes have been filler. Since the anime is still ongoing, it's possible there will be more filler episodes and arcs down the line.

Every Boruto Filler Arc (In Chronological Order)

One Piece

Eiichiro Oda's manga One Piece has been running since 1997, with the anime adaptation beginning in 1999. This series has over 1,000 episodes to date, making it one of the longest-running programs in anime history. As a testament to its enduring popularity, One Piece also holds the record for having sold the highest number of tankobon volumes, with over 500 million copies published as of 2022.

What parts of the One Piece anime are filler?

95/1,056 episodes are filler, a notably small fraction compared to other long-running anime. Based on IMDb ratings, the best One Piece filler arcs are the Uta's Past Arc, the G-8 Arc, the Marine Rookie Arc, and the Ocean's Dream Arc.

Sailor Moon

Sailor Moon is a shojo masterpiece, not to mention an iconic benchmark for the magical girl trope. In fact, many critics believe that Sailor Moon was responsible for popularizing the anime medium on a global scale, a feat it shares with Dragon Ball, Mobile Suit Gundam, and Pokémon. 98/200 episodes of Sailor Moon are filler, making up a whopping 49% of the anime. There are even major differences between the anime and the manga in terms of plot, which is why fans treat them as disparate narratives. Interestingly, the Sailor Moon Crystal reboot has zero filler episodes, although it only has 39 canonical episodes.

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Bleach

Bleach is notorious for its filler arcs, comprising vast sections of the anime. There are also numerous standalone episodes peppered throughout the series, most of which have no bearing on the manga narrative whatsoever. In fact, Bleach 'sfiller went out of their way to confuse audiences, incorporating subplots that effectively wreaked havoc on the main storyline.

Which seasons of Bleach are filler?

There are five official filler seasons: the Bount Arc, the Bount Assault On Soul Society Arc, the New Captain Shusuke Amagai Arc, the Zanpakuto Unknown Tales Arc, and the Gotei 13 Invading Army Arc. 163/366 episodes are filler — fans can skip all of them and miss out on nothing.

Every Bleach Filler Arc (In Chronological Order)

Black Clover

Black Clover is a relatively recent shonen series that began airing in 2017. The anime's fourth season concluded in early 2021. Although confirmed, fans have no idea when Season 5 of Black Clover is going to air. That said, there's an upcoming movie titled Black Clover: Sword of the Wizard King, which has been slated for a worldwide Netflix release on June 16th, 2023. Black Clover has only 17 filler episodes out of a total 170, all of which are spread across the anime's canonical arcs. The Elf Reincarnation arc contains 13 of these 17 filler episodes.

Every Black Clover Filler Arc (In Chronological Order)​​​​​​​

Other Franchises With Lots Of Filler

Several other franchises have tons of filler episodes and arcs. These include Shugo Chara, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Inuyasha, Black Butler, Rurouni Kenshin, Ranma ½, Detective Conan (Case Closed), Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Saint Seiya, Beelzebub, D.Gray-man, Fairy Tail, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Filler arcs aren't always worth watching, but some deserve just as much attention as canonical storylines.

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NEXT: 10 Best Anime Filler Episodes Actually Worth Watching