One of the most dreaded aspects of long-running animes is filler. More often than not, it is harmless and does not affect the overall story, but with some attempts to add non-canon material to extend the episode or the arc itself, the directors of the filler end up creating lots of inconsistencies and characterization errors.
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One Piece, being an anime that has run for over 1000 episodes now, has had its fair share of filler episodes and arcs, with the most popular one being the G-8 arc, praised as possibly the best filler arc in anime history. That said, not all filler arcs are made equally well. The vast majority are, to put it simply, not good enough. However, the quality of the story told in those fillers isn’t the main issue; it is the additional non-canon content that can, at times, be inaccurate and confuse the watchers.
7Hancock’s Strength
Boa Hancock, the beautiful Pirate Empressleading the Kuja Pirates, is possibly one of the most powerful characters in the story. Her Mero Mero no Mi has proven to be an extremely powerful Devil Fruit with the ability to turn anyone and anything into stone. This, when coupled with her capacity to use all three types of Haki, makes her a tremendous pirate.
Leading to the release of theOne Piece:Stampede, Toei released the Cidre Guild arc filler, where Luffy teams up with Boa Hancock to defeat the bounty hunters, Cidre Guild. In this filler, Hancock’s strength is extremely underplayed and she is shown as an almost incompetent fighter, having to rely almost solely on Luffy.
6Zoro Cuts Steel
One of Zoro’s most essential character traits is his determination towards becoming stronger. His goal is to, someday, become the World’s Strongest Swordsman in order to fulfill his promise to his childhood friend, the deceased Kuina.
Zoro has had to progressively learn how to use and master his swords better. One of his notable character progressions took place when he learned how to cut steel. Canonically, he only learns this skill after a hard-fought deadly fight against Mr. 1 during the Alabasta arc. However, anime watchers had already seen him cut steel chains prior to this in episode 59, during the Warship Island arc.
5Alabasta’s Poneglyph
Poneglyphs made their way into the storyduring the Alabasta arc. According to the story’s author, Eiichiro Oda, there is only a single Poneglyph in Alabasta. However, a lot of fans remember seeing another poneglyph in this arc in a filler.
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During their stroll in Alabasta, Luffy, Zoro, and Chopper travel across a desert and stumble upon an underground Poneglyph. Since none of them could read it, they simply left it and it was never brought up in the story again. Needless to say, this decision was bizarre in itself.
4Oven’s Devil Fruit
During the Ice Hunters arc,the Straw Hat crewwere met with a group of Pirate Hunters, and among them was a character named Don Accino, who was the user of the Atsu Atsu no Mi.
Later on in the story, fans met Charlotte Oven during the Whole Cake Island arc, who was revealed to be the user of the Netsu Netsu no Mi. While one could say that Oven’s fruit is simply the superior version of Don Accino, they’re still technically quite similar in application.
3X Drake’s Living Chances
X Drake and Hawkins, two of the Supernovas andthe Worst Generation members, were both involved in the most recent Wano arc and carried intriguing plot lines. X Drake was deen betraying Kaido, while Hawkins remained loyal to him.
Hawkins’s special ability was especially put to use to make predictions with his tarot cards during the Onigashima section of the arc. In the manga, Hawkins predicts a certain man’s survival rate to be just 1% come the next day. In the anime, Hawkins referred to Drake as this individual. However, in the manga, it was eventually revealed that the figure was none other than Hawkins himself.
2Sanji’s Characterization
Black Leg Sanji’s most memorable personality trait is his strong determination to never hit or hurt a woman. However, in some of the most recent filler in Wano, specifically Onigashima, a very questionable scene surfaced where Sanji was seen enjoying thoughts of sexually harassing some of Black Maria’s underlings by tugging on their kimono and undressing them.
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This, however, had never occurred in the manga, and while Sanji is often perverse in nature, it’s impossible for him to actually partake in such a crude action towards women. Protecting women is the most important value that Zeff instilled in him during his childhood. As such, Sanji going out of his way to disrespect women in Wano simply went against his entire character and is, thus, very bad characterization.
1Shanks' Arm
Shanks is one of the most popular charactersinOne Piece,despite his infrequent appearances in the series. As such, he makes every one of his appearances impactful and memorable. With little canon content, to begin with, it’s no surprise that the anime tried to add on some non-canon material to quench the thirst of some of his avid fans.
One such scene was shown to the fans during the Marineford arc, during Portgas D. Ace’s flashback. In this flashback, Ace, who was 17 at the time, went to meet Shanks. Oddly enough, Shanks was seen having two arms during this scene. Fans know Shanks lost his arm while protecting Luffy long ago so the fact that he had both his arms intact in the flashback has to simply go down as an animator error.
