Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation

[Kraco]

I don't know what was in the manga and the novel, but just for your information: people call something "filler" even if it's canon, when it's insignificant. For me, this episode was more of the latter. Although Darth is rigtht about the demon king's introduction being of significance. (btw. wtf, THE demon king just casually showing up at school, what's with that).

Haa... Back in the good old days filler meant the material anime kept adding to the source (be it manga or novel), to be able to keep running infinitely, when the anime was nearing the current latest chapters of the source material. Like the infamous Naruto or One Piece filler arcs. If you say filler is anything any individual watcher feels doesn't contribute enough to the main story, then pretty much anything can be filler and the word loses all meaning.

[MFauli]

Haa... Back in the good old days filler meant the material anime kept adding to the source (be it manga or novel), to be able to keep running infinitely, when the anime was nearing the current latest chapters of the source material. Like the infamous Naruto or One Piece filler arcs. If you say filler is anything any individual watcher feels doesn't contribute enough to the main story, then pretty much anything can be filler and the word loses all meaning.

Are you serious? You've never seen people use "filler" that way?

[Buffalobiian]

Are you serious? You've never seen people use "filler" that way?

That's like... the actual meaning and use of the word filler.

DBZ made fillers "popular" because stretching out a Namek fight for years was deemed worse off, so other stories did filler arcs instead when they ran out of material.

edit: wait, misread that as ""I've never seen people use filler that way"

[Kraco]

Are you serious? You've never seen people use "filler" that way?

I have. I have also tried to correct their use of the word before.

While I also do think this academy season could have used a little bit of compression, and the whole depression arc could have been dealt with in a single episode, this is still how the author intended to build the characters and the world. Adaptation authors/directors face an incredibly tough decision in trying to figure out how much to keep, how much to cut. Anime might be an especially tough field because the rabid otaku are big BD and merchandise buyers, but they typically worship their favourite series and wouldn't want to see anything cut. However, the large audience would rather see things move forward. I like this series and the characters enough not to mind the slow parts, but I still think the manga did some things better, such as throwing the whole depression arc into a spinoff. So, if you wanted to see what happened to Rudeus before this academy arc, you needed to read it from a totally different, short manga. I reckon the manga author could see the depression arc would rub more casual readers the wrong way. The anime director decided to do the opposite.