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Should you skipOne Piece’sfiller? Not really, no. (Well, there you have it! Don’t read beyond this sentence; you’ve got your answer!) But no, seriously, we wouldn’t recommend doing so. One Piece isalmostworth watching in its entirety. We’ll explain the exception while we make our case for all this.
Before we dive in, we’d like to emphasize something pretty basic. No matter what you decide to do about the filler, watch One Piece. It’s a terrific anime. Don’t let the length deter you, or if youdoend up deterred, keep an eye out for the upcoming remake series which may well shore up that intimidating length to something more manageable.
We’re avoiding spoilers to the best of our ability with this list. We firmly believe you won’t be spoiled on anything, as it’s written quite broadly.
How Many Episodes Is One Piece?
As of this writing, there are1,115 episodes of One Piece and counting.Hopefully, you won’t read this article so much later that our count has jumped by leaps and bounds. But, importantly,the One Piece anime has entered its “Final Saga”,albeit with the disclaimer that there have only been 11 sagas to-date; they encompass vast portions of the show, and this last saga is only in its earliest stages right now.
There are also several movies and more. This is why we’re bringing up the episode count ahead of going more in-depth on whether you ought to watch the filler;the movies tend to feel a bit less “canonical” asthey’reside stories that can be broadly slotted into generalized time frames, but are very much their own thing.
So, Where’s The Filler, And Why’s It Worth Watching?
In a sense, our above explanation for the films rather casts a light on them as “filler.” And yet,the movies are pretty good.It is our belief (and the beliefs of many more fans) that they’re worth watching on their own individual merits. This is partly the beauty of One Piece. The quality is relatively consistent across the board.
So, yeah. Watch the movies. And what about the filler in the anime? There certainlyissome, as one would expect with a show so long-running. But One Piece is… how best can we put this?One Piece’s ensemble character writing and fascinating world are arguably bigger draws than the overarching arc plots themselves,which isn’t to say those plots are uninteresting.
Rather, it’s the cast and settings that make it so especially captivating. And that’s the thing.One Piece’s filler episodes often do cool things with its characters; even if those things are ultimately far less “consequential”, they still get to deepen our appreciation of each spotlight character.
There have been 16 filler arcs thus far, which… isn’t as bad as it sounds. Youcanskip them. But they’re not bad - we promise! For one thing,the filler arcs are often just a few episodes in length,with the longest of them clocking in at 11.
The G-8 arc is particularly excellent,so even if you decide to skip the rest, we must insist you give that one a whirl.
Okay, But You Said There Are A Few Things Worth Skipping
There sure are! Namely,the recap special episodes. If you bump into these, we do advise you give them a skip. These are pretty rare for a long time. (Weirdly, there’s a recap a mere six episodes into the anime, but then you’ll only see a couple of them until the1000th episode.) But in more recent times, they’re kind of frustratingly common.
Thankfully, if you’re watching on Crunchyroll, they’re very easy to recognize ahead of time. They’llbe marked as “SP”, signifying “special”, and you can absolutely skip themunless you really, really want a summary of things you’ve just recently watched.
If you should happen to run into any One Piece episodes with titles that begin with“Episode of”, followed by the name of a specific character in each instance,you can go ahead and skip these, too.On Crunchyroll (at least, the US-based version), these are specially marked separately from the seasons. They’recondensed retellings of entire arcs, sometimes with some reshuffling, and with newer animation. That last part is kind of cool, but… nah.
Don’t watch these as replacements for the actual arcs. You’re just going to end up missing so much of the beautiful characterization that makes the show (and manga) so great.
