Fillers...

[2cool4serebii]

Here are my thoughts on them that I posted back at the Naruto Club.

1.They are made to stall the anime while the manga progresses. This is done so that the anime doesn't catch up to the manga and end up overlapping it. The problem with these "fillers", however, is that they are generally pretty much crap where the cast just wander around with no particular reason, and doesn't end up helping the plot progress one bit. Not to mention that because they were not created by the original creator, they often contradict a lot of things that were put in stone earlier in the story, or have not happened yet. An example is that whole "Itachi died" commotion, which never happened. (he is still alive and well damn you!!) I have yet to see a filler and enjoy it, and each and every time I do, I develop a type of eye cancer, which takes forever to heal. They have ruined once-decent shows such as the legendary Dragonball series, Inu-Yasha(which was pretty mediocre from the beginning but whatever.), Bleach, and just about every other anime including Naruto. Basically, go and pick up the manga instead of wasting your time with this trash.

 

[Juputoru]

Depends on the filler. Some are GOLD(the Claydol ep in Pogeymanz comes to mind, as does the Warehouse 13 ep in FMA), while many are neutral(after watching most of Pokemon AND Detective Conan(I could probably get a good example of each type of filler from this series alone, and it'd be more relevant to the topic since DC *is* a manga-based anime XD Of course, DC fillers are less likely to seem irrelevant since it IS a detective series, so as long as they don't pull out eps where there is no case, fillers won't seem completely out of place), you become just a *tad* numb to most fillers. The few fillers I've seen so far in One Piece are mostly less-than-5 episode deals that don't go either way on the how-good-is-it scale, although that one filler arc early on was just...the bad kind of "eh".), and then there are the horrid ones.
As for large chunks of fillers eps such as those plaguing the Naruto anime as of...a while ago...those do get old after a while, although there's no law stating that drawn-out amounts of filler eps HAVE to suck(even though they tend to after a while. Guess who got bored with Inuyasha and the Naruto anime after wading through too many eps where no story advancement occured?).

 

[Chris]

I haven't seen too much of the Bleach filler arc, but so far it's actually tollerable and still seems believable, unlike Dragon Ball Z's Garlic Jr. arc. Nor does it seem like they'll stretch it out to unbelievable lengths like Naruto's filler arc.

Fillers don't exactly ruin a show in any way considering it's just that. Filler. Doesn't effect the overall flow of the show, nor the story. The only thing they ruin is continuation from time to time and the possibility of entertainment for people in the sense that not all fillers will be good.

Do remember that there is SOME filler in the Dragon Ball trilogy that does focus on the main matter at hands and does indeed play into the story such as the training for the Artificial Humans. We actually see a little Bulma x Vegeta development, while everyone else is training. The Afterworld Tournament gives us some kind of idea of what Goku has to go through while he's been dead for the past few years, considering Toriyama was extremely vague in explanation and simply wanted to get the manga done as quickly as possible.

So not all the time are filler bad. Currently, Naruto is the one anime that has the most horrendous fillers that everyone is dying to see vanish.

 

[Satoshi]

Ah, fillers are okay sometimes. Some of them are actually entertaining (even though some fillers create plotholes in the later canon storyline) and could give some time for the manga to be created, so they won't go ahead of the manga and have to create their own storyline for it, which I believe is far worst from filler. Straying out from the overall story and heading to their own is by far worst, which I've seen from some of my favorites (Rurouni Kenshin ring a bell? It had a good adaption from manga to anime from the beginning on to the Shishio arc, but then they had to make their own storyline....which was utter crap and leaving the Enishi arc never created). I'd say making filler and stalling time for the manga to finish is much better than them running a clear adaption, with the same storyline and then have nothing left to do if the manga is still in production, leaving them to make a new story of their own. Plus, seeing the same exact thing you see in the manga all the damn time isn't all that fun, isn't it? Since you're basically know what's going to happen and all, you need some anime-exclusive things in order for you to see something new in the anime, but that's just me.

They even give some spotlight to characters that hardly ever see the light of sun, but some never do that and choose to shine some more light on a character. Take the Yuugiou DOMA arc for example, they choose to make Yuugi's soul be captured just so they can have ol' Yami no Yuugi save the friggin' day like always, when Yuugi is the main character, but hardly ever gets any spotlight. They could've made Yami no Yuugi's soul be held captive to make Yuugi have a chance to shine, but they chose not too. Overall, some fillers I hate, some fillers I don't.

But currently, Naruto is the only anime that I'm hoping to see the end of the never-ending filler.

 

[Shadow the Hedgehog]

Can't really give an opinion. It depends on the filler.

 

[Ralts Master]

Straying out from the overall story and heading to their own is by far worst, which I've seen from some of my favorites (Rurouni Kenshin ring a bell? It had a good adaption from manga to anime from the beginning on to the Shishio arc, but then they had to make their own storyline....which was utter crap and leaving the Enishi arc never created).

iirc, Kenshin didn't so much go off in its own direction as it got axed before they got back to canon...

 

[Silver Ryu]

Fillers, huh? Well, it depends. A lot of them are dumb and boring, but sometimes you get some real gems. Just because it doesn't contribute to the main plot doesn't mean it can't be good. I've seen plenty of good fillers. I've also seen plenty of bad ones. (Your average Pokemon filler comes to mind) It's just when there are too many bad/average fillers in a row that it gets to be a pain.

Oh, and I agree with Satoshi on that Yu-Gi-Oh thing. It's been bugging me for a long time how despite that he was supposed to be the main character, he still didn't get too much attention. (Though despite the fact that that arc was filler, that was still pretty good. Sure kept me interested.)