anime fillers are the most hated thing in the anime community it seems like its the
one thing every anime fan can agree on you know you have like the shonen vs slice of
life but whatever.
Fillers in anime are really important in fact some of the shows that we love wouldn't exist
without them or wouldn't nearly be as successful as they are.
so currently on youtube, there are so currently on youtube there are a lot of
videos already talking about fillers but this video will be more about the business side
of things and why a production company will choose to use a filler over maybe different
option that they have then we will also dive in a little bit to why specific long-running
shows vs you know short anime will change the type of fillers they use or the exceptions
to those fillers.
alright so lets first go over what is a filler, now I'm pretty sure most people know by now
what a filler is, however, some peoples definition of a filler varies a little bit so in my case
in this video we are going to be using filler as a episode/arcs that don't really contribute
to the main story you can skip these without any problem and you'll lose nothing.
Most people will use a different definition of the word filler they'll maybe say anything
that isn't canon or true to the manga however I don't like using this word this way because
then diverged anime like Tokyo ghoul would be considered filler or in any of these anime
and there are a lot of reasons why a studio or production company will opt in to use a
filler over different methods.
however so its mostly so the anime doesn't catch up with the original source which might
be a manga or short novel now like I said before there are a few exceptions to using
fillers however il talk about little bit more about that later usually fillers are the most
common in long-running anime like naruto and one piece and this is because you know they
have to be on air or they risk losing their timeslot il also talk about the different
business models and how necessarily that impacts how they use fillers in the anime there's
actually a bunch of ways that a production company can avoid using fillers and here is
some of them.
So the first exception is when a company goes on hiatus which means basically they take
a break the most popular show to actually implement this would-be hunter x hunter.
now they actually ended up going on hiatus twice to allow the manga to you know go ahead
so they have enough material to adapt so the pros of this method is that you know they
don't have to make fillers the cons of using this method is that you know they take a break
which means you can't watch your favorite anime even if it is fillers and for most long-running
anime this would probably be impossible because there is a chance they could lose their timeslot
and obliterate their earnings but we will talk more about their business model in a
second.
so the second exception to a filler would be to diverge the series now this is more
used in short running shows however it is used in some others like full metal alchemist
and this method actually isn't too popular and you won't find too many anime's actually
doing this another popular anime to use this technique would be Tokyo Ghoul root a now
a lot of people did not like how it diverged if you want me to go more in-depth about Tokyo
ghoul root a and exactly what happened and how its not exactly the directors fault you
should go ahead comment down below that you want the video to be made so the pros of using
this method is that they don't have to make fillers and for two they don't need to go
on hiatus and take a break the cons of this is that you know its really hard to actually
you know pull this off and most production companies can't actually do you know a good
job a lot of people complained about Tokyo ghoul root a and as well as other anime.
now lets talk about the third and last exception to using a filler now this is actually to
change the pace of the anime and not a lot of anime shows actually do this the only example
that I can actually make is one piece where they used a lot less manga chapters to actually
fill their episodes they also used it a little bit in dragon ball z how they would lengthen
the fights to you know stall out the episode so there are three pros of this one and you
already know it they don't have to make fillers they don't have to go on break and they don't
have to diverge the story and end up messing it up the cons of this though is that people
who are watching the first time and not weekly end up suffering a lot because you actually
skip these episodes because they have canon content in it but its lengthened out so it
makes it a living hell to watch me personally watching the dressrosa arc was a pain in the
ass.
so now we are at this part of the video where I'm going to be talking about how a different
business model that an anime implements will change how they use fillers or the exceptions
to fillers so first briefly ill go over the two most popular business models the first
one is for long-running anime like one piece bleach or naruto so for this their target
audience is usually like families or children and they air on Sundays.
specifically, one piece airing on Sunday morning now for these shows basically they have sponsorships
to allow them go on air as long as possible while their goal is to sell a lot of merchandise
so Justin sevakis is the founder of anime news network and writes a column called answer
man he talks more about this saying
“The merchandise makers sponsor the show through the TV network, the TV network pays
the producers, the producers pay the animation studio.
Everybody’s happy, and as long as the sponsorship money holds (i.e. the toys and stuff keep
selling), the show continues.”
now this already takes out the first exception to fillers because they need to air to sell
merchandise and they can't really risk going off-air and especially like animes like one
piece that have extremely attractive tv slots now lets do this for a case of black clover
where tv Tokyo actually did an offer to the manga company Shueisha.
now with this offer, they said that they would be giving black clover a really good time
slot so pretty much under no case it would be really hard for them to go off-air or go
on hiatus or break.
now the second really popular business model is kind of the short you know 12 episode series
that are seasonal and most of these anime take late night tv slots so I'm going to be
quoting Justin sevakis one more time because his articles are really informational,
“infomercials for for DVDs and Blu-rays of the show itself, its original manga, or
other related things.
Originally these late-night shows were aimed just at hardcore otaku, but once the business
model became established, it started being used for every kind of anime.”
now the biggest reason that an anime is seasonal is for money reasons that way the sponsor
of the show don't need to put up too much money upfront they can just pay for a season
of production.
then if it does well then they can keep making more seasons or if the show bombs they can
just pull the plug and they are not constantly in production of other episodes that just
need to be scraped now long-running anime don't usually have a production committee
I was actually wrong in my video talking about black clover when I tried to say their production
committee but for those like short seasonal anime that have 12 episodes that are you know
usually have the late-night time slot those usually have a production committee because
those more chances to bomb then a long-running show that everyone thinks will you know be
a hit.
so in most cases you won't see really fillers in the short 12 episode anime and a big reason
that the studio actually uses a filler would be to meet up their contract demands and that's
why you get a lot of those beach episodes thanks for watching this video if you have
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