With over 1100 episodes, One Piece is one of the longest-running anime series of all time. The anime does its best to faithfully adapt Eiichiro Oda’s manga of the same name but, like most anime, there are filler episodes.
At its core, the One Piece anime still tells the same story as the manga, although it might take a bit longer to get there. Both manga and anime follow Monkey D. Luffy as he vows to sail the seas and become the king of pirates by finding the legendary One Piece. He acquires a crew (affectionately known as the Straw Hats, so called because of Luffy’s choice in headwear) and, while he has yet to find the One Piece, he’s getting closer with every arc.
We’ve established that the anime sticks pretty close to the manga but there are exceptions. Out of the many episodes of One Piece, just how many are filler?
There’s less than you’d expect
Out of the over 1100 episodes of One Piece, there are only 94 to 98 filler episodes in total (there is some debate on which episodes count as filler). That’s surprisingly low given just how prolific One Piece is; to put it in perspective, the first series of Naruto has 91 filler episodes out of 220 total.
Unlike other comparably long-running series, One Piece doesn’t have many filler arcs. Most One Piece filler takes place as additional scenes within canon episodes or original filler episodes, but rarely will there be more than a few filler episodes in a row. More often than not, One Piece will spend more time on canon moments rather than animating entirely new material for the anime (animating a couple of manga panels’ worth of battles over several episodes, for example). Some fans appreciate this approach but it has led others to criticize the anime’s pacing as too slow.
Regardless of how you feel about filler, watching the anime is a great way to experience One Piece.
