Anime is a fantastic form of entertainment that’s able to engage in a wide variety of stories that feel like they’d be impossible to explore anywhere else. It’s incredible to see how anime’s prominence outside of Japan has heavily increased and the medium has graduated from a niche interest into a mainstream obsession.

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There are many acclaimed and anticipated anime series that make for must-see programming, but it’s a true shame when a strong series loses its goodwill by overstaying its welcome, whether that’s with hundreds of episodes or just a poorly planned or flawed structure.

10 Bleach’s Best Material Is At The Beginning & It Hits Diminishing Returns

ichigo kurosaki from bleach swinging his zanpakuto

Bleach is one of the most popular shonen series to come around, but it's also one of the biggest examples of an anime that doesn't just suffer because of filler, but outright dies because of it.

Bleach has over 350 episodes and it’s the first arc that’s the most rewarding with the rest slowly going downhill until the series is bled dry. Bleach’s Arrancar arc would have been a perfect place to conclude the story, but it soldiers on and becomes even more repetitive after this point. The biggest fights in the series get robbed of their weight.

9 Eureka Seven Would Work Better At Half The Length

Renton Thurston and Eureka from Eureka Seven falling in the sky while holding hands

Eureka Seven is a fairly unconventional take on the mecha genre that looks at Renton Thurston, the child of a legendary deceased outlaw, who struggles to live up in his father's name and uncover the new mystery that plagues the endangered planet.

There’s a lot to enjoy in Eureka Seven, but it bides its time with lazy filler during the stretch of middle installments. Eureka Seven is 50 episodes, but it’d be even better as a more focused series with the standard 25 or 26 episodes.

8 Ranma ½ Muddles Its Addictive Story Until It Crawls To The Finish Line

Anime Ranma Demon From Jusenkyo Attack

Ranma ½ is one of the most iconic shonen anime to come out of the ‘90s and it’s very much a product of its time, for better and for worse. Ranma ½ cleverly combines romance, comedy, and the supernatural with its action roots and builds an excellent story between the Saotome and Tendo families.

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There’s an excellent foundation to Ranma ½, but at 161 episodes it begins to get very repetitive. The same dramatic ideas continue to happen and Ranma ½ could be brilliant if it were to be distilled down to two or three 26-episode cours.

7 Black Butler’s Second Season Is An Unnecessary Addendum

Anime Black Butler

Black Butler is an anime that's immediately engaging because of its tense and unusual storyline. Ciel Phantomhive forms a precarious deal with a demon and sells his soul in exchange for Sebastian Michaelis' hand in revenge against those that killed Ciel's parents.

Ciel must trust Sebastian even though he's an inherently evil character and this dynamic is fascinating throughout the entire first season. Black Butler’s first season works as a conclusion, but unfortunately, there’s an unnecessary and convoluted season two that is a serious step backward. There’s nothing gained to justify these new episodes.

6 Dragon Ball Z Is Held Back By Filler & A Questionable Final Arc

Anime Dragon-Ball-Z-Mystic-Gohan-Kicks-Super-Buu

Dragon Ball Z is still viewed as an integral chapter that takes up the majority of the Dragon Ball franchise, but there’s no denying that it’s bogged down with filler, a lot of which weakens the impact of some of the series’ biggest fights.

However, it’d also benefit from ending early and foregoing Buu entirely. Dragon Ball Z Kai was specifically created to deliver the anime without the filler and it even considered ending after Goku’s death and Cell’s defeat. Kai even breaks up the Buu Saga as their extra Final Chapters series.

5 Nadia: The Secret Of Blue Water’s Popularity Led To Its Drawn Out Length

An image from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.

Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is a lovely adventure story that follows two young protagonists that find themselves pursued by a group of deadly jewel thieves. Curiously, it's the success of Nadia: Secret of Blue Water that ended up being its biggest detriment. The anime was supposed to be a regular length, but its popularity resulted in an extension to 39 episodes.

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The anime doesn’t handle this new content very elegantly and there are nearly ten episodes of empty filler with practically zero substance. It waters down what’s otherwise a very strong anime.

4 Detective Conan Has Run Out Of Fresh Ideas After 1,000 Episodes

Detective Conan Full Score Of Fear

Detective Conan, also known as Case Closed, is an institution in Japan that’s produced 1,000 episodes with no end in sight. Detective Conan is more consistent than one would expect, but it’s impossible for a series with this much content to remain as sharp as its earliest episodes.

Every single possible detective trick and twist that Conan has explored has been performed and repeated at this point. In its defense, Detective Conan is still entertaining, but it’d be stronger and less impenetrable at a fraction of the episodes. At this point, it’s hard to tell which ones are essential installments.

3 JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders Struggles With Its Pacing

Group photo in Stardust Crusaders after arriving in Egypt.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a very consistent series, but if there’s any chapter in the ongoing saga that overstays its welcome it's the third arc, Stardust Crusaders. The episodes send an older Joseph Joestar, Jotaro Kujo, and a group of Stand users to take out DIO in Egypt.

Stardust Crusaders is the longest of JoJo’s sagas and the only one to get two cours. The series decides to devote two episodes to each Stand battle, which is a serious mistake that gets rectified in the subsequent series, but it definitely slows Stardust Crusaders down.

2 One Piece Loses Sight Of Its Goal In A Sea Of Content

Hamburg, Foxy and Porche in the Adventure of Nebulandia TV special

One of the biggest problems that surround shonen series is that some of the most successful ones have been running for multiple decades and have hundreds, if not thousands of episodes. One Piece is not unusual in the sense that there’s plenty of filler, but it’s caused Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates’ adventure to take up over 950 episodes and a dramatic time skip.

One Piece is still running, but the large amount of episodes makes it intimidating to newcomers. It’s exactly the kind of series that would benefit from a condensed version like Dragon Ball Z Kai.

1 Naruto Dilutes A Powerful Ninja Narrative Into A Messy Journey

Naruto uses hand signs in Naruto Shippuden.

Naruto is viewed by many to be one of the most representative shonen series in the sense that Naruto Uzumaki's journey to becoming a master ninja and member of the Hokage is hardly unique. Naruto forms a strong story and entertaining cast of characters to accompany Naruto.

The biggest problem with Naruto and its follow-up, Naruto Shippuden is that there are over 700 episodes between the two of them and Shippuden alone is over 500. Naruto is overwhelmed with filler and its story continues to grow even now with Boruto: Naruto Next Generations.

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