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I can see their reasons for sticking with filler if the ratings stay good. I just wish that they'd moved on earlier. They have plenty of manga to do 100+ episodes (at the pace they went through the manga previously, they could probably do it in much less if they crammed it), and if they needed to do more filler, I'd MUCH prefer they tag in filler post-time skip, such as elaborating on the team Guy fights, or throwing in post-skip arcs with a similar style to the current filler, but using the post-skip versions. I'm just tired of the younger versions, and think the filler really dillutes from the arc that Naruto was on pre-filler.

The mangas are excellent... and I agree with the point of making more money in the end. Also Naruto isnt the center of animes in Japan so it doesnt hurt them to make the fillers, they dont care that we Americans who most of download it anyways dont like it.

Another point about loving an anime no matter the fillers. I disagree with that. I use to love Naruto, 1 through about 135... then the fillers kicked in and I forced myself to watch til about 150 and stoped. I picked it up at about 185 until the so called "ending of the fillers". I watched 3 episodes after that and now I haven't watched the last 2 episodes of Naruto and dont plan to until the fillers end.

You cant make comparisons with Bleach though, the fillers of Bleach is VERY good, just because its not in the manga does not mean it cant be good. Its got a story, characters, action, doesnt drift far off from whats going on. The quality of the fillers is as good as the first 60 episodes I think, at least not far off like Naruto.

free2slap wrote:

once someone is addicted to an anime, fillers or not don't apply. that person will always cherish it and the same goes for me with bleach because the fillers won't ever make me hate this show. however i should add that the naruto fillers are the most annoying i've ever seen ,so it's possible for people to change heart.

Fillers do apply. The current Bleach filler arc has not been totally horrible, though it has had a few ugly spots. The Naruto filler has been absolute crap. I watched as far into it as the noodle ninja episode, & I couldn't take it any more. I keep up with the manga & wait for the show to get back on track. I'm doing the same with Bleach, reading & the manga & waiting, but at least I'm able to watch the filler.

Seeing this got bumped, and reading the posts, I have a very interesting question.

If and when Viz get's to the point of releasing the fillers in the USA, would the relase be commercial suicide or "Oh, another season of material to release to the little brats on Toonami?"

Abarenbo Shogun wrote:

If and when Viz get's to the point of releasing the fillers in the USA, would the relase be commercial suicide or "Oh, another season of material to release to the little brats on Toonami?"

I doubt anyone care outside of the hard core Narutards. But hey, if Viz and/or CN wants to speed, I have not probelm. Not cut the whole XX amount out, like running 2 per night or something. Razz

Abarenbo Shogun wrote:

Seeing this got bumped, and reading the posts, I have a very interesting question.

If and when Viz get's to the point of releasing the fillers in the USA, would the relase be commercial suicide or "Oh, another season of material to release to the little brats on Toonami?"

Personally, I think Viz is going to go for the filler on Toonami. I don't think there's a reason not to as long as the response can remain consistant. Plus, the first few filler stories were pretty decent.

At the very least, I can see the filler airing with the new Naruto series as a "Naruto flashback" or something. I think I expect all of the filler to air on Cartoon Network, at least eventually.

Im not so sure that Toonami will go for that. They are notorious for delaying new episodes for a long series like Naruto. I mean they just got to episode 64 and they've been sitting on this series for more than a year now. Plus they didn't show all of One Piece either. Toonami skipped whole arcs according to my friends that keep up with One Piece's subbed version. So they may skip through Naruto' fillers once they get that far.

Okay, getting back on subject....

deepon05 wrote:

Im not so sure that Toonami will go for that. They are notorious for delaying new episodes for a long series like Naruto. I mean they just got to episode 64 and they've been sitting on this series for more than a year now. Plus they didn't show all of One Piece either. Toonami skipped whole arcs according to my friends that keep up with One Piece's subbed version. So they may skip through Naruto' fillers once they get that far.

My understanding is 4kids hacked a season and numerous episodes in order to attain a "manageable" season, so don't immediately blame CN for that. After all, they not only have to contend with their suppliers, but also US Law.

I think the One Piece thing was that they were trying to get Chopper in the show ASAP (since he's in the opening), but it was to the detriment of the show since they skipped the entirely Little Garden arc, whcih actually comes back up again much later in the series, and was a fun little arc.

Ataru wrote:

Abarenbo Shogun wrote:

If and when Viz get's to the point of releasing the fillers in the USA, would the relase be commercial suicide or "Oh, another season of material to release to the little brats on Toonami?"

I doubt anyone care outside of the hard core Narutards. But hey, if Viz and/or CN wants to speed, I have not probelm. Not cut the whole XX amount out, like running 2 per night or something. Razz

There's a factor you forgot to take into account.

No matter how little you care about the fact that it is filler, watchers WILL soon start wondering why exactly the story is not progressing at all. Where is Sasuke? What is Orochimaru doing? Why the hell isn't Naruto training?

Ehehehe...

Now... Why are so many here still watching fillers? Some have given up them completely (me), some people endure and some people actually enjoy them. But... There IS no alternative. There is no way to simply start watching Part 2, because at this point it does not exist aside from the manga.

A lot of people will be hesitant to read the manga because they believe it will spoil them. Maybe you're starting to realize what i'm getting at here.

When the US Naruto dub (which is excellent, i might add) reaches the filler, the japanese anime will already be into part 2... This means that there IS an alternative...

Suddenly those questions above can be answered simply by downloading the Naruto eps instead of following it on television. Suddenly a lot of people will know what fillers are because as the series grows more popular this information will spread to schools as well.

I'm pretty sure they will lose watchers.

Ganryu wrote:

No matter how little you care about the fact that it is filler, watchers WILL soon start wondering why exactly the story is not progressing at all. Where is Sasuke? What is Orochimaru doing? Why the hell isn't Naruto training?

If you had asked way back when I was Dragonball Z and asked me if I thought Garilic Jr. Arc was a part of the Dragonball Z story, I would have said sure. I didn't have the manga to go off of and the US manga wasn't up there yet, so I won't know if Garlic Jr was a part of the story or not.

I'm sure some people will notice something is up a couple of episodes in to the fillers that none of it is covered in the US manga version. But the only real question is if they want to keep watching the show becasue it's not covered in the series. Like I said, unless they are really hardcore about the series, they won't care. But with some of the episodes in the filliers... yikes.

Atleast one good thing will come from Viz airing the filliers, the manga, both in SJ and graphic novel form, will catch up.

The Garlic Jr. saga was actually the first part of DBZ I saw, but it wasn't up to snuff with the rest of the series. Had I been watching it up to that point I think i'd have realized that they were phoning it in by that point. I wouldn't mind the Naruto filler nearly so much if it didn't suck nearly so much. For example the G-8 arc of One Piece was filler, but it wasn't that bad at all so I didn't mind it. The "Peter Pan" arc, on the other hand, was painful.

Ataru wrote:

I'm sure some people will notice something is up a couple of episodes in to the fillers that none of it is covered in the US manga version.

At this point, the U.S. anime has pretty much caught up with the U.S. manga, and the anime will probably finish the current story arc before the manga. Unless they do reruns instead of showing new episodes, that divide will only grow. So by the time the fillers come up, the manga will probably be a good deal behind. As such, people won't have the manga to compare it to (unless they are using scanlations).

Quote:

But the only real question is if they want to keep watching the show becasue it's not covered in the series. Like I said, unless they are really hardcore about the series, they won't care.

Maybe, but I think those people would be in the minority. The first few filler arcs are decent, but it seems to get progressively worse (I gave up around 158).

Quote:

But with some of the episodes in the filliers... yikes.

Yeah. I thought Naruto taking the young kids on a camping trip was bad (you really have to worry when the fansubbers stick "There is nothing worth watching in this episode" in it), but it seems that it gets worse. Something about characters peeing on each other...

I could be wrong, of course, but I think it would be a mistake to air the fillers in the U.S. The Naruto ratings have been fairly consistent in Japan, but anime is more mainstream there and the main audience is probably a bit younger. CN could probably do alright with the first 15-20 filler episodes, but after that, they would probably start to see the ratings decline. And they would probably get worse and worse as the fillers went on. Even if the ratings somehow stayed about the same, most fans would probably realize that the filler wasn't worth spending money on, so Viz would probably lose a lot of DVD sales as a result. But if they didn't air them, they could release the filler episodes as "lost episodes".

But you know that if CN did skip the Naruto filler-ins, some Narutard out there will use that as "proof" that the edited dub sucks because "OMG, they skipped an entirely worthless season!" Rolling Eyes