Pointless episodes

dark-water-dragon · Post by **dark-water-dragon** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 7:41 am

Over the last couple of years I have expanded my range of anime I have been watching. There have been a lot of great shows, but I am starting to get aggravated. More and more I am watching shows with pointless episodes or episodes that spend the first half of it explaining what happened in the last episode and the last half on content that has nothing to do with what is going on. I am not sure if this is a way for producers to keep a show going or to just try to make more money. Bleach has been to one lately to piss me off in this way. I watch it on CN and over the past couple of weeks I have spent the first few minutes recaping the last 10 episodes the next five to ten minutes on the last episode, the next eight minutes wondering where this is going and the last two minutes getting in depth in the plot just to see the to be continued having me scream wtf. I know DBZ was one of the worst shows in prolonging episode but a least there was content. I really liked both those shows but it gets so aggravating.

darksuzaku · Post by **darksuzaku** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:23 am

That's the bad thing of popular shows like Bleach, Naruto, DBZ and similar......

If a series is popular the producers will do EVERYTHING in their hands to milk the cow completely. The way they do it is what can make people more or less angry.

In my case i hate a lot those who spend 5 minutes or more to recap what happened on the last episode. I don't like either how they do filler arcs in series like Naruto, but at least in this case i can disconnect from the series until it's over.

beatrush · Post by **beatrush** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:44 am

In the case of Bleach (I don't watch Naruto so I cant speak for it) and some other long running series is that the Anime can cover multiple chapters of a Manga in one episode. A Bleach episode can cover 2-5 chapters usually in the Manga.

This leads to the anime catching up to the point where the Manga is. Usually in this case, the producers will create filler episodes and seasons to allow the Manga to pull ahead of the Anime. The reason they do this is because they want you to watch the anime and buy the magazine the manga is in.

I suspect the same thing happens with DBZ as well. But now there is DBZ Kai which strictly follows the Manga with no filler episodes (which brings it down to 110 or so episodes instead of 250+).

Recaps usually are mainly used for 5 reasons:
1 - Sum up what has happened last season at the begining of a new season
2 - Filler
3 - For people who are jumping in midway into a series due to increasing popularity
4 - Reduce the amount of time new footage is used in the episode to space out the series longer
5 - Some countries have different laws in terms of how much commercial time a show is allowed to have per 30 min block. In the case of Canada, we have a strict laws about this, it is something like 5-7 mins allowed per 30 mins for children's programing and 7 for regular shows. Some shows which ran short had to fill the episode time with recaps or something else (the 80s Astroboy has trivia games at the end of the Canadian broadcasted episodes).

beatrush · Post by **beatrush** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:44 am

ack double post.......

Post by **sensei** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:25 am

Chobits was one of the worst offenders. Every fourth show, IIRC, had some kind of frame where the characters sat down and said, "Gee, there have been some interesting things going on lately," and then we'd fade into clips from the previous three episodes. Then there was the infamous "We're tired of advancing the plot, so let's all go to the beach today" episode.

That was a similar situation to Bleach: the studio, pumped after the success of CCS, at once snapped up the rights to CLAMP's next two mangas, Angelic Layer and Chobits. Angelic Layer was episodic and predictable enough that it didn't much matter if the shows caught up to the manga. But Chobits was a complex enough story that the writers really didn't have a clue about how it was going to end. So they dithered and dithered and finally wrote a bizarre ending of their own to finish off the series.

CCS had its share of fillers, but they often were pretty good, thanks to ongoing script supervision by Nanese Ohkawa, the story specialist for CLAMP. Still, there are dreadful lows, such as the Strawberry Picking Field Trip (ep. 38) and the Killer Grand Piano (Ep. 49). And the full list of broadcast shows includes a number of fillers that were not included on the commercial DVDs. Example: "Special Program 'Battle Costume Awards ~ Aim for it! Tomoyo!'" which was, according to a list I have, broadcast in the second season between Eps. 39 (The Dizzy Fever Day) and 40 (The Dream Episode). These "lost fillers" have, I'd guess, been rightfully consigned to the studio's archives.

Interesting topic!

dark-water-dragon · Post by **dark-water-dragon** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:45 am

I understand the concept of recaping because to series has started a new season, but I don't like them recaping something that has nothing to do with what is going on now. For example a fight is going on and the episode ends at the climax. The next episode recaps that fight and goes on to something else, then four episode later it recaps it again to show you 30 seconds of what is going on, goes onto something else, then 2 episode later it recaps most of the fight and finally finishes within the first ten minutes. Just a waste. Filler episode are not that bad sometimes when they give you history of about characters or when they give you a little brake between big plot shifts. Its just when I can watch the first half of one episode and the first half of the next and I have not missed anything in a story that is a problem to me.

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:45 am

Can you think of another example?

Belldandy16 · Post by **Belldandy16** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 12:51 pm

I think plain and simple theyre all starting to run out of ideas. lol

duotrouble · Post by **duotrouble** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 5:33 pm

It's just like beat said. The main reason they run recaps is for people who didn't see the first couple of episodes to get caught up. It's a marketing tool to draw more new viewers in while holding their regular captive audience. And if they do it well, the crowd already following the series don't mind as it's usually at least a week inbetween watching new episodes.

Captain Haddock · Post by **Captain Haddock** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 3:23 pm

I kind of would't mind filler if the producers could kind of weave it in better (I'm talking mostly about Bleach in this instance). The Bounts and that whole new captain story arch were just superfluous, whereas the latest filler arch isn't so bad because it kind of fits into the Bleach lore a bit more. If they just spent time fleshing out more of the Bleach world I think that would be better, I mean it worked for Tolkien how long did the blinkin Mines of Moriah drag on for? About a third of the first book if I recall.

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 3:23 pm

Let's wait and see what they do.

Keropi · Post by **Keropi** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:01 pm

Yeah, I don't like those episodes where it feels like the show is being stretched. When I see too many of those it's time to stop watching the show.

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:01 pm

You never know what to expect from life.

moonrabitt · Post by **moonrabitt** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:17 pm

I stopped watching Shugo Chara because of that....they "unlocked" too many hearts when I was just feed up...
Don't get me wrong, the story is lovely, but at this point I think 50% of the series is filler, since the manga is not even that far out yet.

I'm at least glad Inuysha stopped where it did, and that they are now continuing the story...

There is such a thing as "milking" a cow too freaking much, because at some point even the best fans will be angered...

I don't think that DBZ's fillers bothered me that much (maybe because they amused me) but now the fillers for other shows are just boring...

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:59 pm

moonrabitt wrote:I stopped watching Shugo Chara because of that....they "unlocked" too many hearts when I was just feed up...

Shugo Chara has become nothing more than a tool for some tween idol group. The new episodes feature introductions and games staring the group. I think there's about 15 minutes of actual story now, and the last few episodes have all been filler.

I enjoyed the anime too, but now it makes me wretch. There's only so much I can watch Shugo Chara Puchi Puchi...

Popular series, unfortunately, will always have some sort of filler episodes. Sailormoon was full of many forgettable episodes where Usagi and her friends go somewhere, are attacked by some equally forgettable monster, transform(and making sure to show the entire sequence so as to waste more time) and have a good laugh at the end of the day. In the SuperS season, Toei created three "specials", one of which was a review of all of Sailormoon's greatest battles. And let's not bring up the "Hero Club" VHS tapes that were released several times per season featuring clips of Sailormoon's heroic exploits.

Sadly, the bottom line is how much yen a company (and its creator) can make with a certain property. And filler episodes such as the infamous "Everyone goes to the beach!" ones are what generate the cash flow - what otaku doesn't want to win the pillow of the hot anime chic in the UFO machine?

I think the only way to minimize these episodes is not watch these episodes. Companies pay for their items to be marketed during the commercial breaks of these successful shows and if no one watches, these companies will lose a lot of money.