There’s A Good Reason Behind All Of Boruto’s Filler Arcs

It’s the bane of some anime fans’ existence. Filler arcs are sometimes a “required evil” that fans roll their eyes at when a certain storyline appears that falls under its criteria. While there have been numerous anime that have examples of these arcs, none seem as prominent as the Naruto series. Hundreds of episodes can be qualified as “filler” for the series and its continued into the sequel series, Boruto. There may however be a good reason as to why these arcs exist in the recent ninja series.

The online pop culture site ScreenRant did a breakdown of their reasoning behind why filler arcs have become so prominent in Boruto.

To start, let’s give you a rundown of what constitutes as a “filler arc”. Basically, filler is essentially any material covered in an anime series that wasn’t explored in the the original manga. This includes past stories of Naruto such as the young ninja fighting against a martial arts ostrich or combating against a robot version of himself built by the nefarious Orochimaru. The quality of these “filler arcs” can vary but the main complaint that most anime fans have with them is the, seemingly, loss of progression.

Considering the filler storylines can’t make any major changes to the lives of our heroes, which may inadvertently step on the toes of the manga creators, Boruto, Naruto, and company seem to be spinning their wheels when it comes to these new challenges. For example, the current story line in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations isn’t following the main character at all, but rather the trio of Kakashi, Gai, and Mirai.

“Konoha Shinden” is a storyline that was originally created for a series of light novels that follows these three but doesn’t have any effect on the main story arc of the Boruto series. So while its interesting to see these characters in new locales and learn more about the young ninja Mirai, it does feel like something of a “detour”.

With Boruto, the fact that the anime and manga series started at pretty much the exact same time is the main reason as to why so much filler is being used as the anime needs time to be able to catch up with the events that are currently taking place in the books.

What do you think about the use of so much filler in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations? How have you been liking the “Konoha Shinden” arc so far? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.

Originally created by Masashi Kishimoto for Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, Naruto follows a young ninja, with a sealed demon within him, that wishes to become the leader of his home village. The series ran for 700 chapters overall, and was adapted into an anime series by Studio Pierrot and Aniplex that ran from 2002 to 2017. The series was popular enough to warrant a sequel, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations which is set several years after the events of the original Naruto story and features the children of many of its key characters such as Naruto and Hinata.