Naruto Fillers

About

Naruto Fillers refers to criticism against the TV animated series Naruto and its sequel, Naruto Shippuden for its over reliance on unnecessary fillers and reused footages under the context of flashbacks. The practice is mainly done to detract from the main storyline so that the manga can catch up with providing the latest chapters without the need for the anime to take any breaks.

Origin

The anime began airing on October 3rd, 2002, and was produced by Studio Pierrot. After certain episodes, the anime faces issues involving the plot reaching where the manga is currently at. To get around this without the need to put the anime on hiatus, the series will often employ fillers in the form of creating side arcs which have no real impact to the main story or by adding flashback scenes into the main story to slow down the pacing. The practice has since been heavily criticized by the anime community as it often detracts the main story too much which in turn degrades the overall quality of the show. The side arcs have also been criticized for its lackluster plot and animation.

Spread

On April 15th, 2006, a page was created on Baka-Raptor titled “Naruto Filler is Bullshit” which heavily criticizes the practice. The page gained 15.690 views in 9 years^[1]. On June 20th, 2006, Newsground user bumwolf uploaded a video titled “Naruto Filler Hell” which gained over 386.500 views and a 4/5 star rating in 8 years^[2]. On October 1st, 2009, Urban Dictionary user Stuntmanjd submitted an entry about Naruto Flashback Syndrome^[3].

Discussions regarding Naruto Fillers can be found is sites such as 4Chan^[7], Anime News Network^[8], Tv.com^[9], IGN^[10], and MyAnimeList^[11]. Anime Filler List has listed episodes from both Naruto and Naruto Shippuden that are considered canon and filler^[4]^[5]. On January 15th, 2015, The Daily Fandom published an article which criticizes the anime for using fillers on its current run even though the manga official ended back in 2014^[6].