Do you consider all these recruitment episodes for the tournament to be "fillers?"

[MagmonKai]

Considering that the longest arc, which was Future Truncks/Goku Black arc, was 20 episodes in length, I'm sure we can't call these fillers. Besides that would mean the arc would only be about 10 episodes if you want to include the exhibition matches, and why does everything that doesn't involve fight automatically become "filler" ? All of this show is canon and none of it is filler to me. I would just call them boring SoL episodes. Besides by the time the tournaments starts we'll be 15 episodes in. Either the fighting will only be 5-10 episodes or something will happen to make it last longer. I can see them breaking away from the action to show Trunks and Goten fighting poachers on earth, etc.

[batistabus]

Almost certainly Toei padding/filler, but I'm enjoying it for the most part! It's giving some spotlight to these characters that haven't gotten it in a while, and the animation has been quite good for the most part.

[Acetona]

I agree with everything Cipher said.
The problem is, people is so blind by the whole "Toriyama is writing the new series" stuff that they consider everything Toei vomits on our faces. I'm barely interested in watching these episodes, because, as Chipher said, WE ALREADY KNOW THE OUTCOME. It's the pure definition of padding, it's stupid. Remember when Gohan got to recruit everyone for the 28th Tenka-ichi Budoukai? They had no reason to decline, much like this time.

At least here at Kanzenshuu there are people who at least see through this. Facebook (brazilian) groups and fanpages are extremely fanboyish, and I would probably be banned because of what I just said.

[precita]

Well the episodes aren't horrible. The only one most people don't like is the second 17 episode with the alien poachers, because that felt the most like a blatant uninteresting filler story.

These eps aren't much different than all the training episodes we got back in DBZ. A lot of people would rather see the training then it being off-screen.

[Eternal Super Saiyan]

Ignoring outliers such as #17, the characters are all close enough to Goku that there doesn't need to be a belabored reason for their participation. If two characters arrive at a warehouse, we don't need to see them parking their car and all that.

This isn't really an applicable analogy on these recent Super episodes. A few of the characters that are going to be getting parts in the tournament have either only been cameo appearances since early or mid DBZ, or have been relatively obsolete (quite heavily I may add). Another good reason to show these episodes is because most likely a Super fan will be like "wait wait, WHAT, why/how?" kind of reaction if they show Krillin, Roshi, and #17-#18 suddenly appearing in the Tournament of Power without even showing some sort of a background or a reason to include them. Buu makes more sense but that is a lot more self explanatory than the above, for numerous obvious reasons.

I also expected Universe 7 to go find Hit to help them in this tournament. It appears that is not the case. Most fans probably predicted that. This yet adds another reason to include these episodes. And I just recently mentioned that this part of the arc would have felt pretty rushed if they weren't included. Rushing an arc would further make things feel sloppy. That we don't need. Of course if it's too slow that's another issue, however I don't feel that way about this arc. If every arc were like the middle of the Chimera Ant arc in HxH (for those who know what I'm talking about) those are grounds for legitimate complaints right there. DBS right now is a middle ground of that example, yet still is getting criticized.

The "parking of the car" in this case may be necessary for a proper explanation of what we're about to see in Super. This also goes partly into further character development as well. I'd rather it not just purely be the conclusion without a lead up at all. Heck, like Great Saiyaman, that was development too. Why not this particular development?

The relatively small roles of some of the cast within Super as a stand-alone series might be a compelling reason to include these episodes in the anime. Then again, plenty of Super already relies on knowledge from previous series, so it isn't something that feels completely demanded.

I'm sure more than 90% of Super viewers have previous knowledge seeing DBZ and/or DB. It doesn't automatically grant an obsolete character access to a risky tournament 100 million times ahead of them in power level, and without an explanation.

[Eternal Super Saiyan]

I agree with everything Cipher said because, as Chipher said, WE ALREADY KNOW THE OUTCOME.

Of course everybody knows the good guys beat the bad guys. Nevermind anything in between all that. Then why do we continue watching hundreds more episodes of Dragon Ball material?

[Cipher]

The "parking of the car" in this case may be necessary for a proper explanation of what we're about to see in Super. This also goes partly into further character development as well. I'd rather it not just purely be the conclusion without a lead up at all. Heck, like Great Saiyaman, that was development too. Why not this particular development?

I think this was brought up earlier in the thread, but the Saiyaman material (which I love) has the benefit of telling its own stories. There's no future event teased to which it acts as build-up; its events aren't ones to which the reader could assume the conclusion. It's just Gohan doing his thing, and we have no idea what form his adventures will take each week.

The issue with something like a Kuririn recruitment episode, in comparison to that, is that the drama of that particular episode is staked from square one on a foregone conclusion. Will they recruit Kuririn? Yes. Will he learn to overcome his fears or prove himself for the umpteenth time (already a rather artificial conflict introduced and solved within the span of individual episodes of Super?) Maybe, but that isn't something we need to see yet again. That's less progress and more spinning wheels.

You're absolutely right when you touch on the idea elsewhere in your post that these episodes could be used to set up character payoff within the tournament proper. What we got this week with the Gohan episode kind of/sort of leaves room to do that. But the foot they got off to with the Kuririn episode indicated that wasn't going to be the case, and every week up to this one seems to have followed suit.

I'm sure more than 90% of Super viewers have previous knowledge seeing DBZ and/or DB. It doesn't automatically grant an obsolete character access to a risky tournament 100 million times ahead of them in power level, and without an explanation.

Why wouldn't they bring these characters to the tournament, though? I certainly wouldn't find myself questioning their inclusion in the team, perhaps #17 and Kame-Sennin aside, were they simply to show up. The conversation Gohan, Goku, Kaioshin and Beerus have shortly after returning to Earth does most of the work there.

The most justification I can see for these episodes is wanting to re-introduce the characters to new viewers, but that's a distracting meta-/marketing reason rather than one that feels narratively organic. You can't blame people for balking at the idea as viewers.

[Acetona]

I agree with everything Cipher said because, as Chipher said, WE ALREADY KNOW THE OUTCOME.

Of course everybody knows the good guys beat the bad guys. Nevermind anything in between all that. Then why do we continue watching hundreds more episodes of Dragon Ball material?

It's not the same case. While I didn't like FT arc, it at least had something to keep me watching it. These recruitment episodes have no substance. All of them are being basically the same: fight the guy, have some drama and now he's recruited. It's this and only this. If they really wanted to do all this drama, but not pad it into several episodes, I wouldn't mind it. It's just like the training fillers between Raditz and Vegeta, and the 10 days before Cell Games. Except back in the 80/90's they had to follow the manga and the padding is justified.

[precita]

I would say the ep plots are pretty varied.

Goku only really fought Krillin and 17, maybe Buu if you count that fight too but that ep was more about the Pride troopers. Piccolo/Gohan have a training match, the Tenshihhan/Roshi ep looks like a completely unique plot, and the first ep was about Bra being born.

[The gr]

I would say the ep plots are pretty varied.

Goku only really fought Krillin and 17, maybe Buu if you count that fight too but that ep was more about the Pride troopers. Piccolo/Gohan have a training match, the Tenshihhan/Roshi ep looks like a completely unique plot, and the first ep was about Bra being born.

Just a question,how do you view filler in this franchise, because​ I think the word your looking for this topic and op post is drawn out or dragged out

[PsionicWarrior]

Do you like the fact that Super is showing how Goku is recruiting everyone for the tournament, along with them training and powering up for it

HELL YES!!
This was cruelly lacking in Super and I am enjoying this very much.

So what do you think of these episodes? Are they essentially filler or not?

I would consider it more of a prologue than fillers.