One Piece Filler List: All The Episodes You Can Skip

"One Piece" is one of the biggest anime shows on the planet, a series of legendary reputation (and episode count) with unparalleled worldbuilding. For 25 years, the anime has adapted the manga of the same name by Eiichiro Oda, which also follows the story of Monkey D. Luffy and his crew, the Straw Hat Pirates, as they venture around the world in search of a mythical treasure known as the "One Piece" (all the while constantly getting involved in government-toppling shenanigans).

As popular as "One Piece" is, the anime does have a couple of big things going against it. First of all, the show suffers from airing in a timeslot aimed at kids, meaning a lot of memorable scenes and images from the manga end up being changed for the anime's broadcast — like Zeff no longer cutting off and eating his own leg (or Luffy no longer stabbing himself in the face).

The second big problem with the "One Piece" anime has to do with the fact that it's a weekly release — meaning, "One Piece" generally airs one new episode every week of the year. Though great for fans who don't have to wait months or years before the next season, the downside of a weekly rollout is that the anime is able to burn through plot much faster than the manga.  Oda also notoriously takes too few breaks, while the TV schedule breaks for many different reasons throughout the year. Hence, when the anime catches up to the manga, we get filler. It's the same reason long-running shows like "Dragon Ball" have dozens of filler episodes.

So, whether you're trying to embark on the epic journey of catching up on "One Piece" before it finally reaches its inevitable end, or you've read the manga and are desperate for more Straw Hat adventures, here is a handy list of every filler episode on the show.

The question of what constitutes "filler" is not so clean cut. Many older anime shows like "Naruto" and "One Piece" adapt a single manga chapter per episode of TV — as opposed to two or three like modern seasonal anime shows like "My Hero Academia." This means that the series has to really stretch out the story to fit an entire episode, with long uninterrupted pauses, use of limited animation, or outright anime-original scenes. This leads to several episodes that are considered a mix of filler and canon. 

For the purposes of this list, we'll stick to the purely filler episodes of "One Piece." They are as follows:

Episodes 54-60 — "Warship Island Arc"

Episodes 98-99 and 102 — "Enter the Desert Pirates! The Men Who Live Freely!; False Fortitude! Camu, Rebel Soldier at Heart!"

Episodes 131-135 — "Post-Alabasta Arc"

Episodes 136-138 — "Goat Island Arc"

Episodes 139-143 — "Rululuka Island Arc"

Episodes 196-206 — "G-8 Arc"

Episodes 220-224 — "Ocean's Dream Arc"

Episodes 225-226 — "Foxy's Return Arc"

Episodes 279-283 — "Straw Hat's Backstories Arc"

Episodes 291-292 and 303 — "Straw Hat and Buggy's Adventures Arc"

Episodes 317-319 — "Post Ennies Lobby Filler Arc"

Episodes 326-336 — "Ice Hunter Arc"

Episodes 382-384 — "Spa Island Arc"

Episodes 406-407 — "Boss Luffy Arc"

Episodes 426-429 — "Little East Blue Arc"

Episodes 457-458 — "A Special Retrospective Before Marineford Arc"

Episode 492 — "Crossover between 'One Piece' and 'Tokiro'"

Episode 499 — "Luffy's Past"

Episode 506 — "Straw Hats Reaction"

Episode 542 — "Crossover between 'One Piece' and 'Tokiro' 2"

Episodes 575-578 — "Z's Ambition Arc"

Episode 590 — "Crossover between 'One Piece,' 'Toriko' and 'Dragon Ball'"

Episodes 626-628 — "Caesar Retrieval Arc"

Episodes 747-750 — "Silver Mine Arc"

Episode 775 — "Straw Hats Rescue Operation"

Episodes 780-782 — "Marine Rookie Arc"

Episodes 895-896 — "Cidre Guild Arc"

Episode 907 — "Romance Dawn Special"

Episodes 1029-1030 — "Uta's Past Arc"

Then there's something else. We also have "anime canon episodes." These are, in theory, not direct adaptations of the manga, but are still considered canon. For the most part these are episodes that expand on scenes from the manga, taking moments that were only briefly touched on in the source material. The anime canon episodes of "One Piece" are as follows:

Episode 50 — "Usopp vs. Daddy the Parent! Showdown at High!"

Episode 51 — "Fiery Cooking Battle? Sanji vs. the Beautiful Chef! "

Episode 93 — "Off to the Desert Kingdom! The Rain-Summoning Powder and the Rebel Army!"

Episode 213 — "Round 3! The Round-and-Round Roller Race!"

Episode 214 — "A Seriously Heated Race! Into the Final Round!"

Episode 215 — "Screaming-Hot Bombardment! Pirate Dodgeball!"

Episode 216 — "Showdown on the Cliff! Red Light, Green Light!"

Episode 418 — "The Friends' Whereabouts! The Science of Weather and the Mechanical Island!"

Episode 419 — "The Friends' Whereabouts! An Island of Giant Birds and a Pink Paradise!"

Episode 420 — "The Friends' Whereabouts! Bridging the Islands and Vicious Vegetations!"

Episode 453 — "The Friends' Whereabouts! The Weatheria Report and the Cyborg Animals!"

Episode 454 — "The Friends' Whereabouts! A Cheeper of Giant Birds and a Pink Showdown!"

Episode 455 — "The Friends' Whereabouts! Revolutionaries and the Gorging Forest's Trap!"

Episode 456 — "The Friends' Whereabouts! A Huge Tomb and the Panty Debt!"

Episode 497 — "Leaving the Dadan Family for Good? The Kids' Hideout Has Been Built!"

Episode 498 — "Luffy Becoming an Apprentice?! A Man Who Fought Against the King of the Pirates!"

Episode 499 — "The Battle Against the Big Tiger! Who Is Going to Be Captain?!"  

Episode 506 — "Straw Hats in Shock! The Bad News Has Reached Them!"

Episode 737 — "The Birth of the Legend! The Adventures of the Revolutionary Warrior Sabo!"

Episode 775 — "Save Zunesha! The Straw Hat's Rescue Operation!"

Episode 1084 — "Time to Depart – The Land of Wano and the Straw Hats"

Now, these episodes should absolutely not be skipped at any cost. Given how expansive "One Piece" is, and how many moving parts there are, anime canon scenes and episodes allow the story to dedicate more time to the smaller, in-between moments that fall through the cracks when moving to the next big thing. These scenes might not be present in the manga, but they add so much to the story and characters that they feel like something that should have been part of the source material in the first place. Much more than "filler," these are simply "anime original" episodes that flesh out the overarching narrative in substantial ways.

As for the pure filler arcs, they're not all bad. Take G-8 Arc, an entirely anime-original set of episodes, yet widely considered to be one of the best arcs in all of "One Piece." Indeed, filler arcs can result in incredible moments, and to dismiss them just because they're not in the source material is plain silly. Is the episode where Goku and Piccolo go to Driving School to earn their licenses necessary to the plot of "Dragon Ball?" No. Is it an absolutely hilarious and fantastic episode of TV? Absolutely.