Naruto fillers were used to fill the airtime while author Masashi Kishimoto was thinking up the plot for new arcs. They do not make up the canonical storyline, although in some cases they supplement it.
A filler is an anime series that is not an adaptation of the original work (i.e., the manga). Fillers are based on the works of the animation studio’s screenwriters and may contain contradictory information.
For example, when Naruto went to Turtle Island to master the demon fox, their journey on the ship was not covered in Kishimoto’s view, but was shown in full in the fillers
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Why You Need Fillers in Naruto: Advantages
Naruto is a very popular anime, and many people don’t read the manga, so the animators benefit from keeping the anime afloat longer. Money, money, money. The fillers were originally made to keep the anime from catching up with the manga. The manga ended in 2017, and the Naruto fillers continue after that.
If at the time when Naruto first aired, fillers helped fans wait for new episodes, does it make sense to watch them now?
One: The merit of the fillers is that they expand the universe. The ones themselves, appearing only in them, don’t linger in the series, but the abilities they show in combat are unique and show what the shinobi of this world are capable of. For example, in episodes 144-151, the story of the biju six-tailed Utakata is revealed. Together with Naruto’s team, Utakata helps a girl with a forbidden jutsu sealed in her to escape her pursuers. At the end of the arc, he says goodbye to Naruto, and soon faces off in a battle with Paine. As for special techniques, in episode 313 of season 2, the heroes encounter children who can control the weather.
Particularly worth highlighting are the filler episodes 464-468 of season 2. They tell the story of the Six Ways Sage Hagoromo’s creation of the ninshu. Hagoromo sealed Kaguya and decided never to use chakra again. He went on a wandering journey and worked on building broken bridges. He soon found like-minded people who kept him company on his journey. Hagoromo shares his chakra with them, which soon spreads throughout the world. Deciding that he has paid his debt for the destruction his mother brought into this world, Hagoromo returns to his homeland and marries. He has two sons, Indra and Ashura. His eldest son Indra quickly mastered ninshu, and not only achieved mastery, but also began to create new techniques. People were now even more independent of outside circumstances. To make a fire, they had to put a few seals together. But one day Indra met Black Zetsu in the forest, who had faked the death of Indra and Ashura’s beloved dog. Indra awakened his sharingan. From this point on, he began to distance himself from his family, and this eventually led to a perpetual war between the Senju and Uchiha clans.
Second: Disclosure of constant characters. They get into situations that show different sides of their character. For example, in episode 156 of season 1, “Everybody Follow Me! A Test of Sweat and Tears,” the genii get their students to do a survival test. Naruto gets Konohomaru and his friends, Udon and Moegi. Due to Naruto’s lack of knowledge, the team quickly gets lost in the mountains, and now their main goal becomes survival, not victory. When they run out of food supplies, Naruto divides the leftovers among his students, leaving himself hungry. Aside from this series, the fillers generally reveal Konohomaru and Naruto’s relationship, which was barely given any time in the main storyline.
Also a good example of this merit are episodes 349-363, which tell the story of Kakashi’s youth. After Rin’s death, there are a number of changes in village life, including the election of a new hokage, Minato. To distract Kakashi from the death of his girlfriend, he invites him to join the ANBU. But during the attack on the village, Kakashi is too brutal with the attackers, and Minato removes him from the ANBU, entrusting him with another task – to protect pregnant Kuzina. After the attack on Konoha by Nine Tails, Sarutobi comes to power again, and Kakashi, at Danzo’s invitation, joins the secret ANBU root. But he quickly notices that Danzo has secrets. Kakashi sees a shinobi among the members of the root wielding a unique wood element that only the first hokage possessed. Searching for answers, he talks to Sarutobi. Together they realize that Danzo has conspired with Orochimaru, the man whose experiments resulted in the shinobi with the wood element, Yamato.
Third: Revealing the secrets of the main storyline. This is particularly characteristic of the filler series, where the viewer can see Kakashi without the mask that he appears in all the time. Naruto, Sakura, and Sai finally decide to find out what’s under Kakashi’s mask. This is where the Wanderer, who, in his journey, happens to be in Konoha, helps. The heroes fail to reach their goal. But the viewer will see at the end of the series how the mysterious wanderer washes off the makeup and the rest of the disguise, and turns out to be Kakashi himself.
Disadvantages of the Fillers
First: There are a lot of them. On television, they could take up half a year to air while Kishimoto comes up with another plot twist. And while back then you could spend time once a week watching a filler, now you can go straight to the episodes showing the main plot.
Second: Many of them turn out to be uninteresting and don’t even fit the overall Naruto concept. For example, the series from the arc of the journey to Turtle Island, where Naruto’s shadow clones rebelled and refused to obey him. They started claiming to be real, and Naruto himself was tied up and taken captive. In the end it turned out to be just a dream. But Naruto drew a conclusion from it, and decided that he would be more careful with his clones. But this won’t show up in any future episodes. Clones will also die en masse and be used for tactical moves. In addition, an important departure from the concept in the fillers is the deaths of enemies at the hands of Naruto. While in the main storyline he adheres to the idea of compassion and mutual assistance without killing anyone, in the fillers characters do die at his hands.
Are the Naruto Anime Fillers Worth Watching?
Some are definitely worth watching, such as the Sage of the Six Paths arc, the Kakashi arc and the Itachi arc. Some you can watch after you’ve watched the entire series. Don’t be distracted by thoughts of what’s coming next in the storyline, quietly explore the world of Naruto by getting to know the stories of biju three-tailed and six-tailed. The rest are worth watching only if you want to be more with the anime characters.
