Fillers

[doghouse]

I've just finished ep. 64 and I understand the story picks up again in the early 110's. Are their any important blocks or single eps. in between that are important to the story?

[Kangaroo Rat]

Yes and no. If you've been following the Manga, then there's really no reason you shouldn't be able to skip the Bounto arc and go on to 110 or whenever the real arc started again.

However, keep in mind that as with most long-term fillers, they do in some respect affect the story. You must be warned that there is a certain amount of character development that lends itself to the current Arrancar arc. Also, even in the few new episodes, there have been a number of references to the Bounto (filler) arc.

My advice is this. The filler (as with all filler) gets a bad name because people enjoy being Manga purists. I rather enjoyed the filler, and it does lend itself to the story in some ways. Unless you're in a time crunch, just go ahead and watch it.

[HitokiriShadow]

It's not an issue of being a manga purist. The filler was mediocre (better than the Naruto filler, but that's not much of a challenge), but it wasn't particularly good, especially compared to the manga material. It also really drags in middle portion only for the last bit to feel a bit rushed in comparison.

Go ahead and give it a chance, but if you lose interest, skip to episode 109.

[Siendra]

I would actually say the Bleach filler loses to the Naruto filler. Not becuase it was worse. It was much better. Instead, it loses because Naruto's animation, music, pacing, and core production values didn't stay in filler mode when they got back into cannon material.

Skip the filler unless you want to actively watch the production values go to hell.

[HitokiriShadow]

I would agree that Naruot wins in that department. That was part of what made the filler hard to watch in Bleach even though it was decent.

[Pure_Venom]

Its not vital to the story but there is character development (especialywith Ishida) but if you dont realy care about that then just skip it. I watched it an thought it wasnt bad. But the manga storyline is much better.

[goddessofanime]

Storywise, outside of Ishida's character development and relationship with one of the Bountou, it's just another, 'Ichigo beats the bad guys of the week' scenerio..

[doghouse]

Thanx for the input guys. I guess I'll give em a try. If they turn out to be like a certain other series' fillers than they'll certainly be skipped. Again thanx for the responses.