'Bleach' Has Way More Fillers Than You Realized

Shonen fans know that filler is just a part of life. Sure, fans may like to complain about them, but filler episodes are what make non-seasonal shows work. Over the years, dozens of anime have dabbled with filler arcs to keep them afloat, but none have abused the system like Bleach.

When you do the math, Bleach has way more filler episodes than you realized.

Bleach may have ended a few yers back, but the franchise remains a popular one amongst fans. The supernatural title turned heads when it arrived, and Tite Kubo's series got even more love when its anime debuted under Studio Pierrot. The action-packed title rolled out nearly 370 episodes before it ended, but fans always lamented how many of them were considered filler. However, you might not have realized just how much of the anime was, in fact, non-canon.

All you have to do is some math to figure out how bad Bleach's canon problem was. The show had 366 episodes total; A whopping 160 of those episodes are filler. After doing some simple division, fans will find that 43.4% of Bleach was non-canon. So, yes — about half of the anime was made up on the fly.

Of course, there are fans who will wonder if Bleach's insane filler rate is the highest of anime shonen. The answer to that is yes. While Naruto and One Piece are also filler-friendly, they do not come near the 50% mark. When you combine all of the Naruto episodes, you get 640 total and only 238 of them were filler. The whole franchise is just 37.2% filler, and One Piece has an even lower rate. That anime is less than 20% filler. So, you may want to think twice before you compare Bleach fillers to One Piece fillers unless you want Monkey D. Luffy to school you on math.

For those unfamiliar with Tite Kubo's Bleach, the series follows the young delinquent Ichigo Kurosaki, who had the ability to see spirits. He soon obtains the power of a Soul Reaper - one meant to usher lost souls to the afterlife - and now has the duty to defend the living world from monstrous dark spirits known as Hollows.

Did all of Bleach's fillers get under your skin? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!