Why does nobody talk about how much filler ruins the pacing in classic anime

I just finished rewatching a 90s series and skipped 12 episodes of filler this time. The main story only has 50 episodes of real content, but the bloated runtime adds 20 more that do nothing. I noticed most people complain about modern shows having slow arcs, but older ones are just as bad with pointless beach episodes or tournament arcs that drag on for 5 episodes too long. My buddy argued the filler builds character, but I timed it and the plot moves faster without all that extra stuff. How do you handle filler when you rewatch something from back then?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_viola3h ago

The "beach episode" thing didn't really start until the 2000s though, your mileage may vary. In the 90s, most filler was stuff like extended training montages or drawn-out fights that killed the pacing, not slice of life stuff. I've watched my share of old One Piece and Naruto, and the early filler arcs actually follow the manga story pretty close, they just add extra monsters or side characters that don't matter. Tournament arcs are a whole different beast too, they're often canon but just padded to hell with reaction shots and slow motion. Personally, I look up filler lists online before a rewatch and skip anything that's not from the source material. It's not perfect but it saves me a solid 15-20 hours on longer series.

lee6892h agoMost Upvoted

Yeah but do you feel like skipping filler messes with the flow of the show at all? I tried that with Bleach once and suddenly characters I'm supposed to know show up and I have no idea who they are. @the_viola I'm curious if you ever ran into that problem or if the filler lists usually let you skip cleanly.