It looks like they're going to use the filler charachters to fill up time in the episodes so they don't catch up to the manga as fast. While this is a good goal it's somewhat annoying to have to see them running around acting all crappy in the middle of everything.

I liked that they emphasized Ishiins partial white cloak more in the anime though, there were many discussions in the manga forum about it looking similar familiar to something we've already seen.