How many episodes of Bleach are there without filler? You’d better sit down. I’m afraid I have some bad news.
The Big Three of Anime are known for their filler. For the series with the most episodes, One Piece shockingly has the least amount of filler. Only 10% of the series is filler, if you can believe it. As for Naruto? That number climbs higher to 40%. Naruto has entire seasons of filler. All that stuff that happened after Naruto’s battle with Sasuke in the Valley of the End? Filler. But that’s not the worst of them.
The worst of them all, I’m afraid, is Bleach.
Bleach fans have calculated that a staggering 50% of Bleach episodes are filler. HALF. Why so much useless stuff? Because the anime was stalling while the manga was still coming out. That’s how these things go. Ever wonder why Dragon Ball Z fights take an entire season? Stalling. Why Naruto shows you that f***ing sad orphan on the swing scene over and over again? Stalling. The animation studios are simply trying to buy time for themselves. It’s unfortunate, but you can’t rush greatness.
The good news here is that of the Big Three, Bleach is the shortest series. It only clocks in at 366 episodes. Naruto is in the 700 range. One Piece? A thousand and counting. The even better news? Many fans of the series actually recommend that you watch the filler arcs in Bleach. Like in One Piece, the filler fleshes out the universe and actually manages to tell interesting stories. I wish I could say the same about Naruto. That Ninja Ostrich episode is 20 minutes I’ll never get back.
