That guy at the con who said Dragon Ball Z has no filler

I ran into this dude at Anime Expo 2023 while waiting in line for a panel. He was loud, telling everyone that DBZ is perfect because it skips filler. I just stood there and said, what about the Garlic Jr. saga or the whole Namek fight stretching forever. He got defensive, called me a casual. But I kept it cool and reminded him that filler defines the pacing for a lot of fans. He finally admitted he skipped those arcs. Now I ask people if they actually watched every episode before they trash talk filler. Has anyone else had a DBZ fan ignore the obvious filler?

2 comments

2 Comments

verac407d ago

Wait wait wait, "skips filler" and then he admitted he skipped Garlic Jr.? That's like saying you love pizza but you throw away the cheese. Garlic Jr. is the most filler arc in the whole franchise, it doesn't even exist in the manga. And Namek taking like 30 episodes to blow up? That's textbook padding. I bet he also calls himself a "purist" but has never seen the Other World Tournament arc either. People like that just wanna sound hardcore without actually sitting through the slow parts.

grace_perry447d ago

I read somewhere that the Garlic Jr. filler arc was actually written because Toei had to stretch time while waiting for Toriyama to finish the manga chapters for the Namek saga... something like 10+ episodes of content just from that one standoff with the Dead Zone. The pacing on Namek was brutal too, there's literally an episode where Gohan just sits in a cave for like 20 minutes staring at a rock. It's weird because people who skip that stuff miss some fun fights but honestly the show flows way better without it.