Welcome back, Militia! Today we are going to chill for a few minutes and talk about something that has been on my mind a lot here lately. We are going to be discussing fillers!
What exactly do I mean by fillers? Well, I’m talking about those chapters and episodes in manga and anime that go into detail on either character background or side stories that put the central plot on stand still. We all know multitudes of anime and such that does this, and as a matter of fact almost every series has at least one chapter. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either! I love it when I am enjoying a story and I get an extra peek into why a character might behave the way that they do. Fillers are important and often necessary. But what happens when fillers become too abundant?
One of my all-time favorite manga is Kuroshitsuji by Yana Toboso. I’ve adored the manga for years and even love the anime (we don’t talk about Season 2 though… for obvious reasons) but there is one annoying problem with loving this series: the overkill of filler chapters. All right, before I get the inevitable hate mail, I understand 100% the importance of fillers in this series in particular, because much of the clues and plot is discovered in flash backs. But y’all. We can’t forget that we had an entire moment in the previous arc where O!Ciel’s gang had a J-Pop concert.
Right now in the manga we just overcame a long stretch of filler chapters where we went on a ride through Mei-Rin’s past and how she came to be employed at the Phantomhive estate. While it was interesting to see, I personally feel that it went on for much too long. And it isn’t just this particular set of fillers; there have been so many fillers throughout this series that make it difficult to keep up with the storyline.
Look, at the end of the day, I will forever adore Kuroshitsuji and will happily continue to support Yana’s creation because I am a fan. But at some point we can all agree that too many fillers make a story hard to get back into after a while.
So, what do you think? What is your opinion on fillers? Have another anime or series that uses the art of fillers a little too heavily? Comment below and let us know! ✌
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