Buu Saga Kai

[Naruto6583]

they did do that with the original naruto it was called naruto shounen hen it covered the first 135 episodes in hd and new opening/endings minus the filler

[El Diabeetus]

they did do that with the original naruto it was called naruto shounen hen it covered the first 135 episodes in hd and new opening/endings minus the filler

Isn't that a fan production though? Haven't kept up with the Naruto anime since the huge amount of filler between Naruto and Shippuden. Not all filler is bad, but when the series is already long. Eh, rather not have it.

[Naruto6583]

Na it was the only way japan could show the original naruto since they're not allowed to show reruns they had to air it under a different name

[Blade]

One Piece fans run a similar project known as 'One Pace'.

Not that I'm advertising or advocating an illegal, unlicensed cut of the show or anything.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

they did do that with the original naruto it was called naruto shounen hen it covered the first 135 episodes in hd and new opening/endings minus the filler

Did they cut the filler from the "canon" episodes, or they just aired the whole thing without the filler episodes?

[Flame Dragon]

Filler wasn't Z's problem. Good filler can enhance a story's characters and its worlds.

The problem is that it was made with the mindset of "slow down as much as we can for the manga" instead of "how do we actually adapt this material and make it a good show." Because it did this, it could never establish a continuous flow for long, which made enjoying the show very very hard.

I haven't seen Kai for a while, but as I've said before, I have to wonder if its lazy approach somehow cancels out Z's lazy approach and makes for a better show.

They could have had long filler arcs insted of stretching out the manga's story

Please no. For god sake, no!

I prefere slow pacing like One Piece and DBZ than having a buttload of useless filler arcs that bloat the whole product down
and only serve as a waste of time.
Try to watch Naruto weekly. You will give up after a few months.
It's good for watching a finished series since you can watch just the canon episodes with better pacing, but if you actually follow it weekly it's a nightmare.

I gave up on the Naruto manga and anime altogether because of many reasons, but filler definitely pushed me away from the franchise.

It gets REALLY FUCKING TIRESOME to have a crappy filler arc or episode every ten-twenty canon episodes. Really kills the mod and the pacing. Especially since the filler arcs have really shitty writing and only create plotholes.

Try to watch the two year filler hell at the end of Naruto first series. You will not make it.

It got so bad that Kishimoto started rushing the manga because he knew the anime fillers would cover what he didn't. Even important stuff like 4th Ninja fights (the Swordsman of the Mist fights made in filler are terrible) or his main characters backstories. (Yeah we needed anime filler to develop important stuff like the Akatsuki creation or Kakashi ANBU backstory)

Also it makes buying DVDs really horrible... For example since 60% of Shippuden is fillers (without fillers, it would be 130-140 episodes instead of 330 now) basically only 40% of the price tag is worth it. If i have to watch it on DVDs i have to skip the freaking filler and change disc so often it just becomes a freaking mess.

It's much better to have something like DBZ or One Piece, at least i'm still watching something related to the canon arcs, and i don't need to skip episodes as much if i am marathoning.

In the end, filler sucks in both forms, so it's more like choose your poison, but i'd rather have DBZ and One Piece format.

[penguintruth]

How about between padding canon material and adding episodes of original filler material... NEITHER?

[Blade]

How about between padding canon material and adding episodes of original filler material... NEITHER?

That would make the most sense and be the most economical option - as it would mean producing less material, but given the pressure (or contractual agreement) for anime adaptations of these long running serialised mangas to air every week, it's a trade off between elongated pacing or filler material.

In an ideal world, though, I'd like to see companies like Toei produce 26 episodes of a show like One Piece a year, as opposed to the current 48 - 52, and air it in two batches of 13, one in spring and one in fall - thus ensuring a better quality, faster paced result free of filler - giving plenty of time for the manga storyline to pull ahead.

[Flame Dragon]

Or maybe Japanese television should finally create shows divided in seasons... like everybody else in the world, ya know.
I don't see Breaking Bad or any other American series creating 100 filler episodes because they don't want to lose their time slot. Only Japan does this stupid practice.

Face it, filler is a plague of the industry, an horrible practice that only lowers the quality of the end products for customers, a practice that should be gone.

Edit: Technically the Buu Saga could be considered the second season to Kai i guess.

[Blade]

Face it, filler is a plague of the industry, an horrible practice that only lowers the quality of the end products for customers, a practice that should be gone.

It doesn't have to be, it just has to be handled better. Why can't it be more written more imaginatively? Why can't more care be taken over how it's implemented into the storyline?

There's an ingrained herd-mentality of hate towards any 'filler' in anime, as though the very concept of original plot-lines outside of the scope of the manga is sacrilegious. This had led to the point where companies like Toei don't really bother with it anymore because they know how badly it goes down with the fanbase, which in turn leads to a snail-paced plot that's incredibly hard to persevere with.

I mean, there's a number of predominant opinions about why filler usually turns out to be so bad - but the conspiracy theorist in me believes that it's intentionally under-written, as to not detract from the main storyline or make the original author's ideas appear poor in comparison. Knowing Japanese corporate attitudes and inner politics as to how delicately things are conveyed publicly, I believe there's reasonable grounds and evidence to support my opinion, but there's still undoubtedly an element of laziness towards the production of filler that weights heavily in the end result.

Honestly, I hope the Buu arc of Kai does retain some of the filler later on, because as far as episode pacing goes, the Buutenks fight and Vegetto are going to suck if portrayed exactly as they are in the manga without a little padding out.

[sintzu]

Filler wasn't Z's problem. Good filler can enhance a story's characters and its worlds.

The problem is that it was made with the mindset of "slow down as much as we can for the manga" instead of "how do we actually adapt this material and make it a good show." Because it did this, it could never establish a continuous flow for long, which made enjoying the show very very hard.

I haven't seen Kai for a while, but as I've said before, I have to wonder if its lazy approach somehow cancels out Z's lazy approach and makes for a better show.

They could have had long filler arcs insted of stretching out the manga's story

Try to watch Naruto weekly. You will give up after a few months.

I gave up on the Naruto manga and anime altogether because of many reasons, but filler definitely pushed me away from the franchise.

It gets REALLY FUCKING TIRESOME to have a crappy filler arc or episode every ten-twenty canon episodes. Really kills the mod and the pacing. Especially since the filler arcs have really shitty writing and only create plotholes.

Try to watch the two year filler hell at the end of Naruto first series. You will not make it.

That's because the filler itself is bad but if they got writers that know the series and can write good stories then it wown't be a problim plus they can ask toriyama what they can and can't do so they wown't effect the manga's story in any way

[Flame Dragon]

Because even if the writing were superb, fans would be like "not in the manga, never happened".
But filler is always destined to be crap, it will never be as good as canon by definition.

- Characters will learn nothing from filler adventures, or if they do, this character devopment will vanish from the next canon arc. This because the author of the manga doesn't take account of filler in his writing, since it's just... made to fill time. Unless it's something like Battle of Gods and Road to Ninja where Manga Author and Anime Team work together.
- If a character learns a new move or attack in filler, he will never use it in canon. So even "training filler arcs are pointless". Was there ever something written by Toriyama were Goku used the Dragon Fist? Don't think so.
- Nobody is allowed to die on filler arcs, except original characters created for that filler arc. So no drama at all most of the times.

As such filler arcs are reduced to random missions in random city/random village to help random person/city/village who/which we will never see again. And that's the worst filler, so fucking boring.
Even with good writing, it will still feel like a waste of time, because filler will never affect anything.

The only good fillers are extended fight scenes and humor episodes done well (the driving school episode is awesome).

[sintzu]

I hope the Buu arc of Kai does retain some of the filler later on, because as far as episode pacing goes, the Buutenks fight and Vegetto are going to suck if portrayed exactly as they are in the manga without a little padding out.

From the trailers it looks like they aren't cutting the fights down

[Blade]

Because even if the writing were superb, fans would be like "not in the manga, never happened".

That's a problem of closed-mindedness within the fandom, it doesn't necessarily mean that filler has to be bad because of the predominant attitude towards it.

As such filler arcs are reduced to random missions in random city/random village to help random person/city/village who/which we will never see again. And that's the worst filler, so fucking boring.
Even with good writing, it will still feel like a waste of time, because filler will never affect anything.

Whilst it's true that filler plot-lines don't affect the events in the manga plot, I think there's still no excuse for unimaginative writing. I mean, what's the difference between a theatrical movie adaptation of an anime that isn't written by the original author and a filler arc? Apart from budget - nothing, and even then, budgetary reasons only tend to reduce production values, not script quality.

I love Dragonball Z: Movie 13, which itself operates outside of the manga plotline. I think it's entertaining and well written, so why couldn't something of that quality been produced as a filler arc as opposed to the Garlic Junior Saga?

[El Diabeetus]

I'm going to assume, they could if they really wanted to. But, Toei is notorious for cutting corners. Wouldn't surprise me if they did it for writing as well. Movie 13 was one of the better pre BOG films.

[B]

Wow, so Naruto had it's own Kai and I never knew it. I'm glad Toei saw fit to actually create new OPs, though; this version of Naruto just put new songs over the existing opening animations. I'd be interested in watching a handful of episodes of this, maybe.

I'm in total agreement that everything would be better if the concept of "seasons" were adopted. Of course, things would also be better if the writing teams were more ambitious and weren't deathly afraid of stepping on the author's toes.

[ChibiGoku]

Wow, so Naruto had it's own Kai and I never knew it. I'm glad Toei saw fit to actually create new OPs, though; this version of Naruto just put new songs over the existing opening animations. I'd be interested in watching a handful of episodes of this, maybe.

I'm in total agreement that everything would be better if the concept of "seasons" were adopted. Of course, things would also be better if the writing teams were more ambitious and weren't deathly afraid of stepping on the author's toes.

It's not really a "Kai", it's more of a rerun of the original series, just with new Opening and Endings. Not the first time a series has done this and it won't be the last.

[JulieYBM]

Yeah, the first 135 episodes of Naruto (2002) only used a five or six filler episodes and otherwise covered the first 238 or so chapters so it's easier to just watch them without editing them together.

Anyhoo, I love the original story arcs in these series, especially Bleach. It's where the Series Organizer finally loosens up a bit and plays with the characters and story ideas. Older ideas from earlier in the comic are mixed with more recent ones and some situations are revisted, but flipped on their head. I've watched the Bount arc of Bleach twice now and really love how the Ichigo and friends never quite managed to get the advantage on Kariya Jin and his forces. Most of that is just stalling on part of the Series Organizer (Shinoyama Kento and/or Sogo Masashi), but it made for an interesting experience. There was more team battles as two or three of Ichigo's friends would fight a single foe together. Perhaps my favorite aspect was Ichigo being unable to use Bankai for most of the arc. It kept him grounded and on his toes, especially considering how the upcoming comic arc would evolve his powers even further. The entire Bount arc is episodes #64-109, a good forty-five episodes. To top it off the events of the Bount arc were then worked into the early portions of the Arrancar arc, allowing for the Mod Soul trio to become recurring characters and Ichigo's rivalry with Kariya Jin to help inspire him during his training. It was a cohesive addition to the episodes that adapted from the original comic. That is good writing. I wish Bleach had continued to do that, especially after the Fullbringer story arc.

I also think this is what made the Garlic Junior arc so interesting, too. It presented new scenarios we couldn't see in the original comic and played with them relatively well. At least one of the episodes were not quite as good as the others, but for the most part it was a solid enough story arc. I wish the Afterlife Tournament had received more attention to care when it was being written, it could have lasted much longer had the characters been fleshed out and Gokuu's own disadvantages in the face of warriors with hundreds of years of training been the focus of the arc.

[Naruto6583]

they did do that with the original naruto it was called naruto shounen hen it covered the first 135 episodes in hd and new opening/endings minus the filler

Did they cut the filler from the "canon" episodes, or they just aired the whole thing without the filler episodes?

I think it was without the filler episodes

[Vegard Aune]

Actually i think the tint might actually help, if the previous comparisons are to be believed.


There are many moments in the Buu Saga where characters have really bad cases of sunburns, which always distracted me. Now they have really light skin and i found it much more pleasing to the eye.

That comparison is hardly convincing. I mean, yeah, Kai's version might have a more natural skin-color for Gohan, but I still think the colors in the Dragon Box shot are easier on the eyes overall. From what I can see the Boo-arc has basically gone from being "Kinda green" on the Dragon Box, to being "The Matrix" in Kai. Seriously Toei. Color-correction. Why you not do any? Or okay, the answer to that is fairly obvious...

Dear FUNimation: This would be one rare case where I would totally approve of you altering the colors for your own release. That is, provided that the home video masters of this series still end up looking as Matrix-y as they do here.

They could have had long filler arcs insted of stretching out the manga's story

Please no. For god sake, no!

I prefere slow pacing like One Piece and DBZ than having a buttload of useless filler arcs that bloat the whole product down
and only serve as a waste of time.
Try to watch Naruto weekly. You will give up after a few months.
It's good for watching a finished series since you can watch just the canon episodes with better pacing, but if you actually follow it weekly it's a nightmare.

...You know, both options have their issues of course, but I for one would much rather see them go the Naruto-route of having lengthy filler-arcs which can be completely ignored, rather than seeing each and every event dragged out to unbearable degrees. Like, you say it's a nightmare when following it weekly. Well... Don't follow it weekly then. Heck, when there's tons of useless filler-arcs... why watch them at all? I would much rather have lengthy filler-arcs that I can just skip outright upon rewatching the show, rather than having the canon content dragged out to the point where stuff like Kai or One Pace is actually warranted. Heck, I for one find watching the weekly One Piece episodes to be mostly pretty dull these days too... Though I blame that less on the pacing of the source material and more on the fact that Toei only seems to have one good episode director for the anime. (Seriously. All the particularly well received episodes from the past year were directed by the same person.)