Understand the meaning of the term “fillers”, popularly used among the anime fan community, Japanese animations
Anime, the famous Japanese animations, is a great global power. In Brazil, the productions became popular in the 90s — despite having been shown here since the 70s — and soon won the hearts of the public, making our country today considered the third largest market outside of Japan and Japan. China, as reported by G1.
Although it also features many original stories, many animes are adaptations of manga, popular Japanese comics. Due to this influence, animations also received classifications that divide genres, and which were borrowed from the comic book universe. Among them, we have:
- Kodomomuke: stories aimed at children, such as “Pokémon” and “Hamtaro”;
- Shoujo: action plots with female protagonists, usually with a school setting and magical elements, such as “Kiki’s Delivery Service” and “Sailor Moon”;
- Josei: similar to Shoujo, however, with older female protagonists, addressing maturation and adult life situations, such as work, universities and relationships. Examples: “Servamp” and “Honey and Clover”;
- Shounen: action stories starring teenage boys, such as “Naruto”, “Jujutsu Kaisen” and “Dragon Ball”;
- Seinen: similar to Shounen, however, with more adult stories, including themes aimed at older people, such as politics and war, containing explicit violence. As an example, we have the animes “Akira” and “Cowboy Bebop”.
In addition to classifications, it is common to find anime fans using terms that, for many, may be unfamiliar, such as the famous “filler”.
But, after all, what are “fillers”?
Basically, fillers are extra stories, with the aim of “rolling up” the anime, as explained by the Omelete portal. This is because, in productions that are inspired by manga, each episode is made up of two or three chapters from the comics.
Taking into account that both comics and animations are updated weekly, if anime only strictly followed the stories present in the manga, they would quickly catch up with the story being released on newsstands, running out of new plots to be adapted.
Therefore, to prevent this from happening, the animators started to create extra stories that are not part of the magazine, presenting some unprecedented event that doesn’t make much of a difference to the main plot, just to save time.
Also read: One Piece: What are the anime’s filler episodes?
Source: Recreio
