Dragon Ball Z Filler: What to Skip and What to Keep

Dragon Ball Z ran for 291 episodes, from April 1989 to January 1996, according to Anime News Network's encyclopedia. Staff-written filler guides from Screen Rant and Game Rant list the same eleven anime-original blocks, though they draw three of the boundaries an episode apart. Screen Rant puts the total at 38 episodes, roughly 13 percent of the run, and says that count leaves out episodes that drag out canon material with original content.

If you have not started yet, the Dragon Ball watch order recommends Dragon Ball Z Kai instead, which settles the filler question before it starts. This page is for anyone watching the original Z.

How this list was checked

The two main lists are Screen Rant's filler guide (Jason Hon and J.R. Waugh, updated April 22, 2026) and Game Rant's (Ritwik Mitra, updated February 25, 2025). Both outlets belong to Valnet, the same group that owns CBR, so their agreement is not two independent checks. Where we could, we matched the episode numbers against the Japanese titles in ANN's episode list. Nobody on this site compared the episodes against the manga panel by panel, and the table says where the two lists draw a boundary differently.

Use the Japanese broadcast numbers. Older English releases counted differently: Funimation's Garlic Jr. - Vanquished DVD numbers "Extreme Measures" as episode 99, which is Japanese episode 114 in ANN's list, while both filler guides place the Garlic Jr. arc at episodes 108 to 117.

The filler, block by block

Episodes	What it is	Notes
9 to 16	Gohan's training and Goku's trip along Snake Way	Screen Rant notes that episode 11 also carries some canon material with Goku.
39 to 44	The fake Namek detour	Screen Rant's table stops at 43, but its own text and Game Rant include 44, which ends the detour and starts the canon landing on the real Namek.
100 and 102	The Goku and Frieza fight, extended	Both lists.
108 to 117	The Garlic Jr. arc	ANN titles episode 108 "Terrible Happenings in Heaven!! Garlic Jr. to become Kami!?"; 118 returns to Frieza and his father.
124	Training before the androids arrive	Both lists.
125	Goku and Piccolo's driving test	ANN's title: "License Mastery? Goku's Newest Trial".
170, 171 and 174	The week before the Cell Games	Both lists.
195 to 199	The Other World Tournament	Both lists.
202 to 204	Great Saiyaman episodes	Screen Rant's table says 202 to 203; its text and Game Rant add 204, which Screen Rant says also contains canon material.
274	A rescue mission late in the Buu saga	Screen Rant calls it slightly extended from the manga rather than wholly new.
287 and 288	The closing celebration	Game Rant lists both; Screen Rant's table lists 288 alone.

The ones the guides tell you to keep

Filler here is not uniformly disposable, and the sources say so. Screen Rant argues that the Gohan and Piccolo training in episodes 9 to 16 gives a later moment between the two more emotional weight than the manga managed, and both outlets single out the driving-test episode, 125, as a comedy worth the time. So does a source outside that group: Anime News Network's Lynzee Loveridge put it, under its English title "Goku's Ordeal", on a 2017 list of fantastic filler episodes, though she counts as filler any episode that is mostly a diversion from the main plot, not only material absent from the manga. CBR calls Goku's duel with Pikkon in the Other World Tournament "one of the most amazing fights in the franchise", while noting that the saga "isn't canon".

The block most often named for skipping is the Garlic Jr. arc. CBR's retrospective calls it a non-canon arc that covers episodes 108 to 117, says Garlic Jr. is never brought up in Z again, and judges its fights well below Toriyama's own. ComicBook.com, outside the Valnet group, also treats it as filler, one that "Toei Animation was forced to create once they had reached a stalling point." The villain comes from the film Dead Zone, which Screen Rant also notes, so the arc assumes you have seen a movie the series never shows you. Game Rant and Screen Rant are both blunt about the fake Namek episodes: Screen Rant says they provide "nearly nothing" to the story.

What a filler list cannot fix

Screen Rant's 13 percent excludes episodes that stretch canon material with original content, and it is open about that. Screen Rant's filler-arc feature describes the filler as removed from Dragon Ball Z Kai entirely, which is why Kai is the shorter route to the same story.

The practical summary

Watching original Z, skip 39 to 44, 108 to 117 and the scattered one-offs if you want the shortest route, and keep 9 to 16, 125 and 195 to 199 if you want the parts the guides themselves defend. Where the two lists disagree by an episode, at 44 and 204, Screen Rant says the episode also contains canon material, so watch them. 287 appears only on Game Rant's list. For the series order, films and GT, see the watch order; the same treatment for other long shonen runs is at Naruto, One Piece and Bleach.