Overheard two guys at a con talking about how filler arcs are actually better than manga canon now

I was waiting in line for the restroom at Anime Expo and these two dudes were arguing that filler arcs in modern shonen have better pacing than the source material. One guy pointed to a specific 12 episode stretch in Boruto that apparently fixed a lot of plot holes. Has anyone else noticed filler getting legitimately more watchable lately?

2 comments

2 Comments

faith68425d ago

Oh man, you're totally right about that Boruto stretch. I had the exact same feeling when I finally watched it after hearing the buzz. My friend kept begging me to skip it because it was "filler" and I was like nah, let me see what all the fuss is about. Ended up binging the whole thing in one night and honestly it made more sense than half the actual plot lines they try to cram into the main episodes. The pacing was just so much cleaner, like someone actually sat down and thought about when to breathe instead of just rushing to the next big fight. And you mentioning the Rainbow Mist episodes in One Piece is spot on too, those old filler arcs were clunky as heck but lately they've been sneaking in these little character focused stories that the manga just doesn't have room for anymore. Makes me wonder if the anime teams are just better at writing normal human interactions than the original authors at this point.

parkera2225d ago

That Boruto stretch you mentioned actually had a lot of fans buzzing. I've seen people rewatch that whole 12 episode block because it gave Sarada way more personality than the manga ever did. The pacing thing is Real too, I just caught up on One Piece filler and those Rainbow Mist episodes actually had a tighter story structure than the Wano arc at some points. Manga authors are so rushed by deadlines now that anime studios have to step in and fix their dropped plot threads. Honestly, filler used to be a joke but now it feels like the shows care more about character moments than the source material does.