Any long-running anime series is bound to have filler episodes, but Naruto Shippuden has a whole lot of them. Here’s a list of the Naruto Shippuden filler episodes, and a guide to which ones are actually good.
Some anime series are lean to the point where they leave fans hungry for more. Others are jammed with so much filler that fans struggle to keep going to the next actual plot-relevant episode. Naruto Shippuden falls into the latter category, with fans regarding about half of the series as filler.
Though filler is generally regarded as a negative, there can still be good filler episodes. Some expand upon the established story or give extra spotlight to characters that are otherwise left in the background. Still, it’s hard to blame anyone for wanting to avoid more than 4,000 hours of content that’s irrelevant to the main story before even discussing the Naruto movies.
So which episodes of Naruto Shippuden count as filler? Here’s a complete list.
Naruto Shippuden has a total of 201 episodes that are skippable filler. Alongside this, many more episodes have filler but also incorporate actual story-relevant content. Here are all the fully filler episodes of Naruto Shippuden:Â
The good news when it comes to Naruto Shippuden is that most of the extraneous episodes come in chunks. There are entire seasons of filler, making it easy to just skip forward in the episode list and roll from there. Though these episodes are filler, there are certain instances where they’re referenced in future non-filler episodes, but little is lost by skipping these episodes.
Some of the filler episodes are still worth a look.
There are some filler episodes that are worth watching even though they don’t necessarily affect major storylines. These can expand upon major story beats or fill in some of the gaps from the manga.
The first major filler arc worth watching comes with episodes 91-111. This arc centers around Orochimaru and the Akatsuki pursuing the three-tailed beast Isobu. The events shown in this arc happen off-screen in the manga, but the anime adds an extra bit of intrigue to this story. The only drawback is that the arc is 24 episodes long with 21 episodes of filler, so it’s a sizable time commitment.
For those who don’t want to invest quite as much time, another filler arc that’s worth looking up comes in the “Kakashi: Shadow of the ANBU Black Ops” arc. This delves into Kakashi’s past and role in a number of key moments from the Naruto backstory. It also explores the role of the ANBU, a covert ops group that several key characters were a part of. This arc runs from episode 349 to 361.
A short, punchy arc that’s worth checking out is episodes 389 and 390. This story revolves around Hinata and her sister Hanabi. The two characters are important but are generally underrepresented in the series, and these episodes help to remedy this.
Beyond these three, the filler arcs in Naruto Shippuden are generally decent. For those looking to take their time savoring Naruto Shippuden, it might be worth checking out a block of filler and then skipping if it doesn’t resonate.
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