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

[sintzu]

Out of the 85+ episodes of Super so far, roughly 40 of them can be skipped over with little consequence. That's half the series.

That's really bad because it's not based off a manga so there's no excuse for all that to be skippable.

The episodes that are completely new (Champa's 14 episodes and Zamasu's 21) are a bit drawn out in some areas which makes things even worse.

Based on the finished arcs in both the anime and manga it's obvious that these stories could and should've been movies instead cause there's clrearly not enough content to fill an ongoing show.

[GodKaio-Ken]

This conversation has really devolved. 40 episodes can be skipped? I would wager one of two things is true:

1) That is outright false
2) The same could be said about any show.


Did Goku and 17 have to team up? No. Does that make it filler? Only if you aren't very intelligent and don't understand trying to give characters an intro to the arc.

[precita]

This conversation has really devolved. 40 episodes can be skipped? I would wager one of two things is true:

1) That is outright false
2) The same could be said about any show.

You can skip the 20+ movie adaption episodes by just watching the two movies. You can skip the 3 episode Purple Vegeta/superhuman water arc.

Then there's 10 fillers between the end of the Zamasu arc and beginning of this arc. And then as said, if people want, they could even skip these training episodes, or the earlier ones with Goku/Vegeta training against Whis. I wouldn't skip training episodes because I consider them important, but if you just watch the first episode of the tournament you'd basically wouldn't miss anything because you know the training happened anyway off-screen.

Altogether this does come around to 40 episodes.

[Akyon]

I really don't get how things like character build up, interactions and exploring the team's dynamics can be considered filler.

Is an episode only not considered filler if there's a bloody great fight against a major antagonist at this point?

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

No, they are not. They serve as a way to give the characters a reason(s) to participate in the tournament, plus show more the charactsr interaction and relationship that Toriyama superficially touched and that Toei has always excell at over him.

[JulieYBM]

These episodes don't effectively show what couldn't be developed even more effectively in more condensed scenes inserted throughout the actual storyline to highlight character moments. Every single episode is the same A-to-B, beat-by-beat storytelling pattern and is effectively killing any momentum, rather than building any.

[DHM211]

This conversation has really devolved. 40 episodes can be skipped? I would wager one of two things is true:

1) That is outright false
2) The same could be said about any show.

You can skip the 20+ movie adaption episodes by just watching the two movies. You can skip the 3 episode Purple Vegeta/superhuman water arc.

Then there's 10 fillers between the end of the Zamasu arc and beginning of this arc. And then as said, if people want, they could even skip these training episodes, or the earlier ones with Goku/Vegeta training against Whis. I wouldn't skip training episodes because I consider them important, but if you just watch the first episode of the tournament you'd basically wouldn't miss anything because you know the training happened anyway off-screen.

Altogether this does come around to 40 episodes.

If you watch the movies, Episodes 1 - 27 are skippable.
If you want to jump right from the end of the U6 arc to the FT arc, you can skip episodes 42 - 46.
I f you want to jump right from the end of the FT arc to the USA arc, you can skip episodes 68 - 76.
You can pretty much skip a total of 41/85 episodes, without the story being affected.

Never really realized that before. Wow.

[mute_proxy]

Yep, the previous episode with the space poachers was annoyingly pointless.

[TheMikado]

Depends on your definition of filler.

If filler is anything that isn't direct from Toriyama then I would say at least 50% if not more of Super is filler and might as well be GT.
If you consider the show the "original product" then everything in it is 100% canon and Toei controls that.

The producer of Super stated that Toriyama's "outline" is barebones and they have to flesh it out.

[Miracles]

Super is a complete continuation of Dragonball's original story.
Nothing that happens is "filler."

[LuckyCat]

Super is a complete continuation of Dragonball's original story.
Nothing that happens is "filler."

If the episode does nothing to move forward the main storyline and can be skipped without affecting the main story arcs, then you can consider it filler. Perhaps the better word would be "optional", though.

[Miracles]

Super is a complete continuation of Dragonball's original story.
Nothing that happens is "filler."

If the episode does nothing to move forward the main storyline and can be skipped without affecting the main story arcs, then you can consider it filler. Perhaps the better word would be "optional", though.

You can "consider" it "filler."
The fact is, it's not.

[Faisal Shourov]

If you watch the movies, Episodes 1 - 27 are skippable.
If you want to jump right from the end of the U6 arc to the FT arc, you can skip episodes 42 - 46.
I f you want to jump right from the end of the FT arc to the USA arc, you can skip episodes 68 - 76.
You can pretty much skip a total of 41/85 episodes, without the story being affected.

Never really realized that before. Wow.

Wow that's a lot of skippable episodes...

OT: Well I think DBS does not technically have fillers as it's not adapted from manga, but going by literal definition of fillers, yes the show have plenty of it. That's actually pretty bad since most modern anime are to the point and rarely have episodes that waste time. I do not consider these 'fillers' as plot development.

[Cipher]

You can "consider" it "filler."
The fact is, it's not.

The manga-to-anime adaptation fandom has this seriously pedantic approach to the term that doesn't match its broader usage: denoting content in fiction, primarily serialized, which pads the story out without substantially informing the audience's perceptions of events. In TV, that usually refers to events that don't inform the larger plot, but which maintain the time slot or help fill out episode orders.

It's one of the reasons I'm careful to use "anime-only" if that's what I'm talking about.

[LuckyCat]

You can "consider" it "filler."
The fact is, it's not.

Filler is material of lower cost or quality that is used to fill a certain television time slot or physical medium, such as a musical album. Source.

Dragon Ball Super contains entire episodes of lower cost or quality used to fill a television slot. Thus, Dragon Ball Super has filler. If your definition of filler is "material that didn't come from the original media" or something like that Super still has filler because it pads out the content of the original films, Battle of Gods, and Resurrection F.

It's one of the reasons I'm careful to use "anime-only" if that's what I'm talking about.

I like the the term anime-only too, but in this case it's misleading because both the new movies and tv show are anime. Because the word filler has a negative implication which doesn't cover Super per se, I went with optional material for lack of a better word.

[Miracles]

You can "consider" it "filler."
The fact is, it's not.

The manga-to-anime adaptation fandom has this seriously pedantic approach to the term that doesn't match its broader usage: denoting content in fiction, primarily serialized, which pads the story out without substantially informing the audience's perceptions of events. In TV, that usually refers to events that don't inform the larger plot, but which maintain the time slot or help fill out episode orders.

It's one of the reasons I'm careful to use "anime-only" if that's what I'm talking about.

You can "consider" it "filler."
The fact is, it's not.

Filler is material of lower cost or quality that is used to fill a certain television time slot or physical medium, such as a musical album. Source.

Dragon Ball Super contains entire episodes of lower cost or quality used to fill a television slot. Thus, Dragon Ball Super has filler. If your definition of filler is "material that didn't come from the original media" or something like that Super still has filler because it pads out the content of the original films, Battle of Gods, and Resurrection F.

I understand what "filler" and "anime-only" is.
When people use "filler" they usually mean non-canon.
Just pointing out not the case here.

[superfan2024]

No, not at all, especially now that Gohan has re-unlocked his mystic form.

[Eternal Super Saiyan]

Since these episodes are a great contribution to the arc, I'd say no. It also adds to a bit of character development.

If you scrap these episodes, this part of the arc would likely have felt rushed.

[JulianStyles]

For the most part no. The manga might skip over this. But it was very necessary to reintroduce characters and give them a reason to be power scaled up.

[precita]

For the most part no. The manga might skip over this. But it was very necessary to reintroduce characters and give them a reason to be power scaled up.

Without a doubt most of this stuff will be skipped in the manga, the only exceptions is probably Goku meeting 17 and maybe a brief scene of Gohan powering up to Ultimate again against Piccolo. But everything else and all the filler scenes are not going to be in the manga. They won't waste time drawing all that when they want to get to the tournament right away. The manga will fall way too far behind the anime again if it happens.