Premier Alexander Romanov Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 For the past month, those that have been watching Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL have been forced to watch what are probably the worst episodes of the series so far. These episodes, which have incredibly lazy writing, one-dimensional characters, completely pointless duels, and only just barely advance the plot, have made me wonder something: Why does filler exist in anime? What is the point of having a side-story that diverges from the source material, or simply making episodes where nothing really happens, not even character development? Old-school Dragonball Z is infamous for this, stretching out fights by having the characters talk and not really do anything other than prepare to fight. Why do we have to suffer through these awful filler episodes? What is the point? Why can't we just advance the plot and have episodes that do such a thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Sage Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT1hHgwcKjs *shot* Meh, I find them okay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premier Alexander Romanov Posted November 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 Link doesn't work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Sage Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 Fixed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premier Alexander Romanov Posted November 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 I'm being serious, here. Why is there filler in television? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mecha Love Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 Football Duel.... meh. bad. FRUIT DUEL?! I WATCHED THE FIRST PART THEN RAGE QUITTED ANIME44! Totally agree with you Reina. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Sage Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 This is a forum for a card game played 75% by [s]small[/s] kids. Can't you be at least a bit silly while you're at it? On a more serious note: Money. They wouldn't get nearly as much money if they made every episode plot-relevant. Because that would actually require a long and intricate plot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burnpsy Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 Filler! Filler nigh-*shot* In any case the reason is simple. But, first off, let's make one thing perfectly clear. DBZ was not mostly filler. It was padding. Look at TV Tropes to understand the difference. As for [i]why[/i], adaptations that run at the same time as the original work have to make sure to not overtake said work, and the Japanese strongly object to reruns that are not clearly labeled months ahead of time. Add to that, these are series like ZEXAL, One Piece and DBZ that are cash cows. It would be against the interests of the businessmen to break the run of those anime into parts. Therefore, we get filler and padding. It's a combination of greed and Japanese norms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premier Alexander Romanov Posted November 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 But why do they have to be so boring and dull and stupidly written, containing one-dimensional characters and plot devices? Why can't filler and/or padding be good? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burnpsy Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 Because they have a limited budget. Fillers use as little of that budget as humanly possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brushfire Posted November 9, 2011 Report Share Posted November 9, 2011 Filler isn't always bad. It can sometimes be used for character development, and if it isn't then they are really wasting their times. A small amount of filler is good- if the story moves on too quickly you feel that the show is rushed and not enough was covered. But from the sounds if it, Zexal is doing a DBZ which is ridiculous and a complete waste of time. As someone said, they are just using the franchise as a cash cow. I hate that, and this is coming from someone who's watched every episode of the old (not Metal Fusion) Beyblade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burnpsy Posted November 9, 2011 Report Share Posted November 9, 2011 I should note that Filler can also be employed because they have an episode or two left to fill in the whatever multiple of 11-13 timeslots they reserved for the anime. They can't get the money back for that, so the studio will usually throw a filler episode in somewhere to actually make use of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sleepy Posted November 9, 2011 Report Share Posted November 9, 2011 During fillers, episodes are still being transmited and odds are, their regular audiences still watch them. Is more about bussiness. In the case of manga/anime, when an anime has catched up with the manga, it has two options: 1)Stop the show until there is enough new manga material to work with 2)Keep transmitting the show with a made up story while their sourse material is working on furthering the actual story. Of course not all shows have comic form to base themselves of, some fillers are deliberately made. Just for while they think on the good episodes to come. I've heard people saying "you should watch that season, it's an awesome filler" and phrases along those lines as You Tube coments. In my opinion, one or two occassional fillers are fine, and I mean it as in "one or two episode fillers" not "one or two seasons". The concept of full seasons becoming fillers is just something ridiculous that people have accostumed themselves to. While the story might not be bad on itself, they usually fail to give something to the main crew. For example, the Orichalcos saga of Yugioh. At the end of such season, all Legendary Dragon/Knights are gone and none of the characters exclusive to that adventure are ever seen again. Just like with the Noah episodes where even Kaiba blatantly states with a shout "Let's pretend none of this happened and forget about it. We have our finals to take care of" or something like that. As an exception exclusive to Yugioh: The characters' Decks improved out of nowhere once those seasons were over, like Jonouchi getting his Gilford after the virtual world (out of nowhere). It's sort of a transition. Fans tend to value quality over quantity, but as fans, a good portion still is willing to watch (and some even enjoy) the fillers. The companies that make the shows obviously want to keep earning money (which is understandable too). There the agreement. I'm obviously going to get shot repeated times for this but: "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" is awesome. They are an example of when fillers aren't used. They occasionally will delay their episode transmitions for one or two weeks, but when the episode finally airs, it's worth it. Granted that, it's more of a "slice of life" show and "filles" are probably not even possible in it, but the thought of "quality over quantity" just jumped into my head Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resident Fascist Posted November 9, 2011 Report Share Posted November 9, 2011 [quote name='Brushfire' timestamp='1320804311' post='5627536'] Filler isn't always bad. It can sometimes be used for character development, and if it isn't then they are really wasting their times. A small amount of filler is good- if the story moves on too quickly you feel that the show is rushed and not enough was covered. But from the sounds if it, Zexal is doing a DBZ which is ridiculous and a complete waste of time. As someone said, they are just using the franchise as a cash cow. I hate that, and this is coming from someone who's watched every episode of the old (not Metal Fusion) Beyblade. [/quote] Oh god don't remind me... Anyone remember that episode where nothing particually interesting happens? The one where Tyson is just practicing for the entire episode under the bridge while he wins Ice Cream off Kenny every time the Beyblade hits the top of the wall. Well, It's not entirely filler because it introduced Max, but still. ohbtw Tyson vs Ray should've gone on longer tbh. Pretty much the entire battle goes like this 1)Ray owns tyson 2) Kenny comes along with a [s]Dues ex Machina Plot device[/s] Stronger Balance disk for no reason 3) STORM ATTACK TIGER CLAW STORM ATTACK TIGER CLAW STORM ATTACK LOOLOLOLOLOL 4) Ray loses which reminds me, I need to watch the rest of it, I only watched up to episode 8 and I wanna see the rest of it... I only have 2 of the Dubbed DVDs. The dub is suprisingly good, tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghoulish Posted November 9, 2011 Report Share Posted November 9, 2011 There's already a topic called "Naruto"? Also Filler is the worst, I think however Bleach does okay when it comes to it, because they don't make random 1 episode long stories, they'll do complete Arc's eg: Invading Army Arc, which is better then like 30 one time stories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Cakey Posted November 9, 2011 Report Share Posted November 9, 2011 [quote name='Holy Descent' timestamp='1320880764' post='5629230'] There's already a topic called "Naruto"? Also Filler is the worst, I think however Bleach does okay when it comes to it, because they don't make random 1 episode long stories, they'll do complete Arc's eg: Invading Army Arc, which is better then like 30 one time stories. [/quote] igeddit Naruto has done filler arcs as well, although Bleach has pretty much established it as a system, to such a degree that you can usually guess how long the arc is going to be. Of course, Bleach does do random 1 episode stories, but not as often. I remember at the end of the battle with Aizen, there were a series of "character episodes" and it was so mechanical people knew which character would be featured next. "Yep, next one's the Hitsugaya episode". Filler exists because executives hate fun and puppies and want the fans to suffer.* *Not really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brushfire Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 [quote name='Shard' timestamp='1320855980' post='5628431'] Oh god don't remind me... Anyone remember that episode where nothing particually interesting happens? The one where Tyson is just practicing for the entire episode under the bridge while he wins Ice Cream off Kenny every time the Beyblade hits the top of the wall. Well, It's not entirely filler because it introduced Max, but still. ohbtw Tyson vs Ray should've gone on longer tbh. Pretty much the entire battle goes like this 1)Ray owns tyson 2) Kenny comes along with a [s]Dues ex Machina Plot device[/s] Stronger Balance disk for no reason 3) STORM ATTACK TIGER CLAW STORM ATTACK TIGER CLAW STORM ATTACK LOOLOLOLOLOL 4) Ray loses which reminds me, I need to watch the rest of it, I only watched up to episode 8 and I wanna see the rest of it... I only have 2 of the Dubbed DVDs. The dub is suprisingly good, tbh. [/quote] I honestly was not expecting this reply, I was pleasantly surprised haha. Oh yeah, that's episode 3 of the first season. I sometimes wonder how I managed to watch it all, there was so much filler in it that it was unbelievable! And yeah, it should, that's a game between two main characters and like you said, a dues ex machina comes and saves the day. I actually watched all 150+ episodes, all three seasons. Lmao. I also watched the dub, but for nostalgia rather the quality, I have no idea how it compares to the subs. I did start writing a new series fanfic for Beyblade actually, I wouldn't mind getting back to that and posting it, but I don't know where I'd post it as I'd write it in screenplay format... YCM doesn't like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DARKPLANT RISING Posted November 12, 2011 Report Share Posted November 12, 2011 In cases like Naruto and Bleach and Yugioh etc. where the anime is pretty much immortal due to immense load of fans, they can't really move on the plot so easily; otherwise the show'll end quickly, and the creators will lose money. So they use fillers. I consider fillers in the above type of anime acceptable for that reason. It's a necesarry evil. Others like Death Note and Evangelion have little, or even no fillers. This is because unlike the above they were given a limited time schedule from the start; they couldn't afford spaces for fillers, and thus moved on with the plot. In Death Note's case, the writer wanted to make it a masterpiece, so he cut all fillers on purpose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burnpsy Posted November 12, 2011 Report Share Posted November 12, 2011 Death Note's anime also had the benefit of starting after the manga ended. The chances of catching up and thus needing filler to delay things then became exactly 0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DARKPLANT RISING Posted November 12, 2011 Report Share Posted November 12, 2011 [quote name='burnpsy' timestamp='1321081254' post='5634380'] Death Note's anime also had the benefit of starting after the manga ended. The chances of catching up and thus needing filler to delay things then became exactly 0. [/quote] True. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shradow Posted November 12, 2011 Report Share Posted November 12, 2011 Filler's necessary. Without filler, things end up like the first FMA anime (though that may be a good or bad thing, depending on your preference). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burnpsy Posted November 12, 2011 Report Share Posted November 12, 2011 The first FMA anime was a request by the writer of the manga and is therefore largely irrelevant to this. Sure, the motivaion for doing so was that it would have caught up and ended up in a huge bog of filler, but that was the writer's decision. Nowadays, rather than doing that, they'd just split the anime into seasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shradow Posted November 12, 2011 Report Share Posted November 12, 2011 I know it was a request, but if that request hadn't been made, it either would've ended up with reruns or filler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sleepy Posted November 12, 2011 Report Share Posted November 12, 2011 [quote name='Βlack Knight' timestamp='1321082314' post='5634385'] Filler's necessary. Without filler, things end up like the first FMA anime (though that may be a good or bad thing, depending on your preference). [/quote] Except for the last bit of the first FMA anime (the parts that don't belong to the manga), I actually liked that anime more than Brotherhood. or they can get the third choice, leave it on standby for a while just like Saint Seiya did for about a decade or so..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burnpsy Posted November 12, 2011 Report Share Posted November 12, 2011 [quote name='Βlack Knight' timestamp='1321083702' post='5634393'] I know it was a request, but if that request hadn't been made, it either would've ended up with reruns or filler. [/quote] Or, like I said, the current standard of "break it into seasons". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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