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If there's one thing shonen anime fans of all shapes and sizes despise, it's filler. Filler has been called the bane of many anime fans' existence, with everyone having their own worst examples on hand. The fact that new-generation shonen anime like Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, and Chainsaw Man have little to no filler compared to their older and more infamous counterparts like Naruto and One Piece is considered a blessing.
But just how did that come about? How did the shonen anime space change from a filler-laden nightmare to going directly to the point, without anything to trim to make the story better, and is it necessarily a good thing?
Disclaimer: The following article will contain spoilers for the shonen anime discussed. The opinions, likewise, are exclusive to the author.
Answering why new age shonen anime don't seem to have filler like older anime
The first question is, "What, exactly, is filler when it comes to anime and manga?" The answer is that filler is anything not covered in the manga the anime is adapting, assuming there is a manga to adapt. Examples would include the G-8 arc in One Piece, the Curry of Life arc in the original Naruto, or the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc in Bleach.
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Anime catches up to their manga quickly, so the studios that make anime adaptations used to have to make up filler episodes and even entire arcs to fill in the gaps between major story beats. Filler doesn't mean slow moments where the plot doesn't progress or where there is no character development.
The definition has been twisted over the years, resulting in anime producers and fans demanding only the major story parts or just action be included without much time to breathe between important events. Even important character development is seen as "filler" nowadays by impatient fans.
Older shonen anime have plenty of filler
Dragon Ball Z had 44 filler episodes out of 291 and had two filler arcs in the Fake Namek story and the Garlic Junior saga. Naruto, combined with Shippuden, had well over 296 filler episodes out of 720 in total, with several filler arcs between the two. Case Close/Detective Conan has a record total of 493 filler out of 1095 episodes.
To bring back the prior point, this is because one episode (or several) of the anime could cover a large stretch of the manga and catch up fairly quickly. This wasn't considered a good thing, especially when certain anime would make up a different ending like the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist or repeat the same episode like Haruhi Suzumiya and the infamous Endless Eight episodes.
The new trend of anime movies being canon to their series has only existed as an overhaul over the past decade for shonen anime, with one of the prominent examples being Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods. Other shonen anime movies, including a majority of Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, and Dragon Ball, were considered one-shots rather than tie-ins to their series.
What happens when the anime dissolves into just filler?
A huge problem with older shonen, like Naruto, is that they can dissolve into meaningless, endless filler that is low quality and just bizarrely ridiculous. Naruto fans will recall filler where Naruto fights an android version of himself or fights an army of ostriches. Even Boruto isn't immune to this criticism, at least the anime.
Before the Thousand Year Blood War anime adaptation, Bleach had ended its anime run with a terrible filler villain fight. It became derisively known as "Dragon Ball Z with swords" for how long and padded everything was. There was also the Garlic Junior saga in the original Dragon Ball Z and "The Longest Five Minutes" during the Namek saga.
The point is that older Shonen anime fans absolutely hated the amount of padding and filler in their favorite shows, and they still do when they talk about it. The problem is that discontent has leaked over from the actual definition of filler to what would be considered padding instead. Now, everything that doesn't progress the plot is considered filler.
Padding vs. Filler
There are unique problems with padding in shonen anime. Padding and filler aren't necessarily equal. Padding is what people think of when they use the term filler: fluff that artificially extends the length of the series. There are a lot of examples of padding that are unavoidable, whereas filler can be avoided.
Padding consists of charging-up sequences in Dragon Ball Z, endless flashbacks in fight scenes in Naruto, long internal monologues in Bleach, and similar things happening in One Piece. Older shonen anime are laden with padding that extends certain scenes far longer than they have any right to be when the manga plays out quickly.
Filler at least gives audiences something to watch while they wait for more material to pick up. There are things considered filler that aren't, such as considering Bleach's entire introductory arc to be skippable or Jojo's Bizarre Adventure's first two acts. Both are introductions, yet some fans think it's okay to skip to the "good part," aka the Soul Society arc and Stardust Crusaders.
New shonen anime, new production types
The key feature of newer shonen anime like Demon Slayer, Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, and My Hero Academia is that they don't typically include filler. The prior three have zero reported episodes that could be under filler, whereas the latter has only two that are filler.
This is for several reasons, one of which is studios are willing to take breaks between major story arcs being completed. There aren't many OVAs being made anymore, and the amount of anime movies for certain new-age shonen has trickled down to bare drip-feed rather than the deluge that older, longer-running shonen anime previously got.
As a worker's rights issue, the studios taking a break between major story arcs has been seen as one level of avoiding the kind of crunch that plagues a lot of industries. Attack on Titan was infamous for its long hiatus between seasons 1 and 2. Season one ended in late 2013, and season 2 premiered in 2017 and was 12 episodes as opposed to season one's 25 episodes.
Audience reactions and a reversal on filler?
There's a problem, however, with the lack of slice-of-life moments in anime. Anime coming out now feels barebones because the world-building and characters feel shockingly shallow before the anime ends. It's a problem with seasonal anime and the ludicrous demands on creators to make more.
Filler can help show off characters that would otherwise never get the spotlight, fun little short adventures that show the audience different sides of characters, and even just show characters having some downtime. Naruto, One Piece, and even non-anime examples like Avatar the Last Airbender did this to great effect.
There's nothing wrong with liking the fact that seasons are now shorter and more to the point. In fact, that's one of the many reasons why shonen anime fans feel that the genre has improved over the last decade. But there's another side to that: when stories are artificially shortened by skipping over major plot points.
What happens when filler vanishes?
This is one of those double-edged sword questions. On the one hand, Dragon Ball Z: Kai was considered fantastic owing to cutting out a lot of the original Dragon Ball Z's filler, which was considered a waste of time for many fans. On the other hand, sometimes an anime with potential can be wasted by skipping through its story to get to the end.
Two particularly infamous examples of the latter are Akame Ga Kill! and the second season of The Promised Neverland. Akame ga Kill! skipped through a lot of plot points to squeeze a 77-chapter manga into a 24-episode anime and ended up with a vastly different ending that angered fans.
The Promised Neverland did the same thing for a major loss, skipping over 100 chapters worth of material to cram the anime into 24 episodes. This was seen as a bad move on everyone's part, as it skipped through major plot points and outright erased major characters.
Is filler needed, or slice-of-life moments?
This is more emblematic of a problem with anime overall, but it bears repeating: too many anime come and go nowadays that try to cram too much into a 12-episode timeframe. Even highly praised shonen anime like Chainsaw Man got roasted when the first season dealt with four arcs in 12 episodes.
This leads to another question on people's minds: do they really want filler back, or do they just prefer slice-of-life moments? Slice-of-life moments in shonen anime would be seen in comedies like Spy x Family, Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, and even in Chainsaw Man when Denji, Aki, and Power sit down to enjoy food.
To put this into perspective, most people agree the filler in older shonen anime served little narrative purpose taken in that context when it was airing. Afterward, however, the slice-of-life moments are more appreciated. It makes the argument that more anime need more time for themselves, with the working conditions and pay to be better as well.
Conclusion
As a final thought on why shonen anime nowadays has less to no filler at all and why it's a complex subject to broach has a lot to do with changing conditions and work structures. Some ongoing anime have filler, like Boruto or One Piece, but filler has largely ceased to exist in the shonen anime space.
This, however, isn't necessarily seen as a great thing, as too many seasonal anime are coming out at once, and many fans feel as though stories are becoming too short for their tastes. It's one thing that mangaka, like Demon Slayer's Koyoharu Gotouge, set limits for themselves; it's another when executives demand things be shortened.
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