Dragon Ball Super Filler: Why There Is Almost None
Super adapts no manga, so it has no filler in the usual sense. The between-arc stretches ANN's weekly reviewer called filler, episode by episode, and which are worth keeping.
Dragon Ball Super has almost no filler in the usual sense, because there was no manga ahead of it to pad against. Anime News Network reports that Toyotarō launched the Super manga in June 2015 as an adaptation of the anime, and that the two diverge; ANN's weekly reviewer Sam Leach put it plainly in his episode 101 review: "Super isn't adapting any source material." What the 131 episodes do have is stretches between arcs that work like filler, and two opening arcs that retell films.
This page is built from Leach's weekly episode reviews for ANN, cited below, and from his Blu-ray reviews of the earlier sets. It is not an episode-by-episode canon audit, and where the reviewer hedged, so does the table.
Episodes 1 onward: two films, retold
Super opens by remaking Battle of Gods and then Resurrection ‘F’ as television arcs. Leach's Part One Blu-ray review calls the first an "episodic remake of Battle of Gods" and complains that the 90-minute film "absolutely does not translate into a thirteen-piece arc". His Part Two review does not think Resurrection ‘F’ "a strong story in either form". These are not filler: they are the story, told a second time. If you have seen both films, the watch order explains why you can choose one version and move on.
The stretches that play like filler
| Episodes | What it is | What ANN's reviewer said |
|---|---|---|
| 68 to 70 | Shenron's contested wish, the Dr. Slump crossover, and a baseball game Champa proposes | "The Future Trunks arc is now behind us and now we get to deal with some filler shenanigans" (68); by 70 he calls them "little joke episodes" (70). |
| 71 and 72 | The assassin Hit comes after Goku's life | Opened as "the next dramatic story arc" (71), then: "If we're pretending that there's a difference between filler and not-filler with this series, then these last two episodes are tentatively “filler”" (72). |
| 73 and 74 | Mr. Satan's Great Saiyaman film | "A fun, filler-style episode" (73); the pair's role is "filler between more significant story arcs" (74). |
| 75 and 76 | Krillin's two-parter | One of the "pre-Universe Survival arc episodes"; 75 ends in "rote, paint-by-numbers filler writing" (75) and 76 feels "exactly like all the mediocre filler episodes" of the genre (76). |
| 83 to 95 | Recruiting Universe 7's ten fighters | "It took about thirteen episodes, but we're finally beginning the actual Tournament of Power ... this past recruitment mini-arc was serving a similar role to filler" (96). |
Episode 77 starts a new arc with a new opening (Leach's episode 77 review), and an exhibition match before the Tournament of Power follows. By his episode 83 review that match is over and recruiting has begun; counted from there, his thirteen episodes run to 95, and the fighting itself starts in 97.
Which of it to keep
The same reviewer is not asking you to skip all of it. He found himself "charmed" by the Dr. Slump crossover in episode 69, liked the Great Saiyaman premise, said of episode 75 "I really like this episode" before the two-parter's second half let him down, and in his episode 89 review singled out the first Android 17 episode as one of the recruitment run's gems. The Hit two-parter is the hardest call: it is self-contained, but Hit returns for the tournament (Leach's episode 111 review), and Leach himself would only call it filler "tentatively".
The practical summary
For the shortest route, watch the film arcs or the films, everything after them through episode 67, where Leach's next review marks the Future Trunks arc as over, then 77 to the end, sampling 83 to 95 rather than sitting through all of it; 68 to 70, 73 and 74, and 76 can go. Keep 69 if you know Dr. Slump, and 75 if you want Krillin's half of the story, the part Leach liked. Unlike the Dragon Ball Z filler list, none of this is "anime-original" against a manga, because here the manga adapts the anime rather than the other way around. If you want the manga's version of the same arcs, the Dragon Ball Super manga catalog lists the VIZ volumes.