Thread: Filler Episodes - Are they important?

A major topic of discussion around here seems to be that of fillers. What are your opinions on these types of episodes? Are they necessary, or are they just a waste of space? Do they offer anything of importance to the show? Discuss.

I'm not a fan of them, but if they're as fun and entertaining as the Litwick episode, I'll love them.

But quite a few fillers feel like a chore to watch. I know they have to debut Pokemon, but even a little bit of plot would be nice and make it fit seemlessly into the story.

Many of them are wastes of space, with not only nothing really plot important happening, but with many of them following a set formula. There's a reason Johto is hated in the fandom. That's also part of the reason why I stopped watching the Anime.

If they create importance and/or development to at least 1 of the characters traveling, yes. Otherwise it's trash, not given a mention to the further episodes either.

Originally Posted by Karamazov

But quite a few fillers feel like a chore to watch.

But to be perfectly fair, a lot of the "important" episodes have that same problem.

Originally Posted by Dogasu

But to be perfectly fair, a lot of the "important" episodes have that same problem.

*coughcoughBW030cough*

I don't see why they can't use fillers to develop (or at least show off) the characters a little more. The Archen filler gave us Tranquill, Emolga, and Roggenrola, for example.

I think fillers are important, not as important as episodes that drive the story but important to still be there every now and then. Without fillers there's no break from the main storyline and while storyline episodes are important I do like a break once in a while. Especially with Pokemon which is based around capture Pokemon, train and battle gym over and over and over.

A good deal of episodes that are my favourites are fillers.
While plot driven episodes are important and I do have favourites in there aswell I still think it's only part of the reason I watch the show. The amount of episodes that are my favourites that are fillers (or what i like to call fun episodes) are another reason I watch Pokemon.

Yes there are boring fillers but in my opinion there's also boring plot driven episodes aswell.

To me I don't usually split filler from plot driven however. I had to look up episodes and work out which was filler and which was not while posting this particular post to work out where my favourite episodes land just so I have my opinion on this particular topic. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered since to me an episode is an episode. If it's boring it's boring and if it's fun, it's fun.

Both are important in my opinion. It's up to the writer to write the episodes to make them fun and interesting. Bad writing can happen in both types of episodes (filler and plot driven).

well in the games there is time you have to train which is no fun. so i think fillers are ok in the anime

I don't mind a filler as long as it's entertaining....so yeah, they can be important..as long as they don't suck..

Originally Posted by Eitaroo

I don't mind a filler as long as it's entertaining....so yeah, they can be important..as long as they don't suck..

this.

some of the BEST EPISODES EVER are fillers, some of the WORST EPISODES EVER advance the plot.

entertainment value is all i need, really. in between episodes that advance the plot, of course.

fillers that show off other Pokemon = also awesome

like i'm sure no one will disagree with me when I saw that BW029 is one of the best episodes in BW even though it's "filler" in that no pokemon are capture, released, trained, etc. and the plot isn't advanced.

I rather have some fillers. There be people complaining if there is no fillers. Some of the fillers are comedy relief, while others are there, just to be there. I get tired if there are 6 or 7 capture episodes in a row.

My absolute favorite episode ever of the show is the Ponyta episode from kanto, where really nothing important at all happens, just because when i was a kid I found the race to be really exciting. On the other hand the Aqua/Magma climax was terribly poorly written and wasn't really worth being the climax by any means.


I don't think anyone sees it as just black and white, and that every plot episode is great and every filler is crap. It's a matter of the writing of the episode. Throwing a bit of plot into every episode, if done correctly, wouldn't ruin them, but having them slightly interconnected would alleviate their filler status. The show would be better off with better writing, but not necessarily with fewer fillers.

I am somewhat neutral on fillers. While it would be really nice that they could plot out a much larger continuous storyline, I am okay with fillers as long as they have at least some thought put into them.

In moderation, they have their uses. Too many of them, and the overall plot gets slowed down.

I can't see any difference between a "filler" to a "plot" episode... they both can be good or bad... what's important to me if a certain ep entertained me or not, and not if it was "important" or not