Let’s be real for a second. Watching a long-running shonen anime is a massive time investment. You’ve got hundreds of episodes, movies, and OVAs staring you in the face. When you’re trying to catch up to the heavy hitters in My Hero Academia, the last thing you want is to realize you just spent twenty minutes watching Deku and the gang do something that literally never happened in Kohei Horikoshi’s original manga. It’s frustrating.
But here is the weird thing about My Hero Academia fillers. Unlike Naruto or Bleach, where you might hit a wall of fifty episodes about a random ninja cat, MHA handles its non-canon content differently. Most of it is actually... okay? Some of it is even great. But there are definitely spots where the pacing drags because the studio was waiting for the manga to get ahead.
If you’re a purist, you probably want to skip every single frame that isn't in the source material. If you’re a superfan, you might want every scrap of Class 1-A content you can get. Honestly, the "correct" way to watch usually falls somewhere in the middle.
Why My Hero Academia fillers aren't like other anime
Most long-form anime struggle with "filler hell." This happens when the TV show catches up to the comic book it's based on. To avoid stopping the show entirely, studios invent side stories. Studio Bones, the powerhouse behind MHA, takes a more surgical approach. They don't usually do year-long filler arcs. Instead, they sprinkle in a standalone episode here or there, often to promote a movie or to flesh out a specific character who didn't get enough screen time in the manga's breakneck pace.
Take Episode 32, "Everyone's Internships." In the manga, we mostly just see Deku training with Gran Torino. The anime decided to show us what Tsuyu Asui (Froppy) was doing with Selkie on a coast guard ship. Is it vital to the plot? Not really. Does it make the world feel bigger? Absolutely. It’s a "soft filler"—it fits the vibe so well you might not even realize it’s not canon unless someone tells you.
The episodes you should definitely skip (The "Recaps")
I’m going to be blunt. The worst type of My Hero Academia fillers are the recaps. These usually happen at the start of a new season.
Take Episode 39, "Game Start." It’s basically a pool episode. It’s fun to see the kids hanging out, sure, but it’s 80% clips from previous seasons. If you’re binge-watching the series back-to-back on a streaming service, these episodes are a total waste of your time. You literally just saw those scenes an hour ago.
Similarly, Episode 58, "Special Notes: Save the World!" serves as a tie-in for the first movie, Two Heroes. It’s a weird, locked-room mystery where the students participate in a training exercise that feels very "filler-y." If you aren't planning on watching the movie right that second, you can skip this without losing a single beat of the main story.
Then there's the "Longing for Heroic Studies" episode (Episode 104). It’s another one of those "let's look back at what happened" moments. In a world of seasonal anime where we wait a year for new episodes, these feel like a slap in the face to fans who want the plot to move forward.
When filler actually makes the story better
Sometimes, Studio Bones uses filler to fix the manga’s pacing issues. During the Provisional Hero License Exam arc, there are several moments where the manga breezed past Class 1-A’s battles to focus on Deku or Todoroki.
Episodes 54 and 55, "Shiketsu High Lurking" and "Class 1-A," actually add quite a bit of original content. They show more of Momo Yaoyorozu, Shoji, Jiro, and Tsuyu using their quirks creatively to survive the exam. In the manga, these fights were basically glossed over in a few panels. Here, the filler actually serves the characters. It gives them agency. It makes them feel like a cohesive class rather than just "Deku and his background dancers."
The Movie Tie-ins: A Mixed Bag
We have to talk about the movie promos. My Hero Academia has three major films: Two Heroes, Heroes Rising, and World Heroes' Mission. Before each film drops, the anime usually airs a filler episode to set the stage.
- Episode 32: Selkie and Froppy (Good for character fans).
- Episode 58: The "Save the World" exercise (Skippable).
- Episode 89: "All Hands on Deck! Class 1-A" (Very light-hearted, mostly fluff).
- Episode 104: The Endeavor Agency internship tie-in (Adds a bit of flavor but not essential).
If you are a completionist, these are fine. If you are trying to reach the "Paranormal Liberation War" arc as fast as possible, delete these from your watchlist.
The "Non-Filler" Filler: OVAs
Then you have the OVAs (Original Video Animations). These are standalone stories like "Training of the Dead" or "UA Heroes Battle." These aren't part of the main episode numbering, so they are technically all filler.
Honestly? "UA Heroes Battle" is actually a blast. It’s just the kids playing a card game based on their own hero personas. It captures the "high school" part of My Hero Academia that often gets lost once the series turns into a dark, gritty war drama in the later seasons.
How to watch MHA without the fluff
If you want the "Lean Cut" version of the show, here is how you should handle My Hero Academia fillers:
First, identify the episode type. Is it a recap? If you see "Special" or a lot of flashbacks in the first five minutes, turn it off. You won't miss anything.
Second, check the source material alignment. The show stays very close to the manga chapters. Most filler occurs during the transitions between big arcs. For example, right after the Stain arc or right before the School Festival.
Third, decide how much you like the side characters. If you don't care about the minor students in Class 1-A, you can skip almost all the original content Studio Bones added to the License Exam.
The Nuance of "Canon" in MHA
There is a debate in the fandom about whether the movies and their tie-in fillers are "canon." Horikoshi has stated in interviews and in the "Vol. R" booklet that he considers some movie elements—like the character Melissa Shield—to be part of the world's history. This makes My Hero Academia fillers more complicated than something like Dragon Ball Z, where the movies clearly take place in an alternate dimension.
In MHA, the filler might be referenced later. A character might pop up in a background shot of a massive battle. If you skip a filler episode, you might miss a three-second cameo of a hero like Selkie later on. For most people, that doesn't matter. For the hardcore theorists, it’s everything.
Actionable Steps for Your Rewatch
Don't just blindly click "Next Episode." If you want the best experience, follow these steps:
- Skip Episode 1 of almost every season. Most of them (especially Seasons 3, 4, and 5) are recaps disguised as "new" episodes.
- Watch Episode 32 if you like Tsuyu or want to see how Pro Heroes actually work in the field. It's the best standalone filler in the series.
- Ignore Episode 58 unless you are about to watch the Two Heroes movie. It feels very disjointed from the surrounding episodes.
- Engage with the OVAs separately. Treat them like dessert after you finish a season. They are meant to be light and fun, not part of the high-stakes narrative.
- Focus on the "War Arc" (Season 6 onwards). The filler virtually disappears once the stakes get high. The show stops playing around and sticks strictly to the manga because there is simply too much plot to cover.
Ultimately, MHA has a very low filler percentage—roughly 5% to 7% depending on how you categorize "mixed" episodes. Compare that to Naruto's nearly 40% filler rate, and you realize we actually have it pretty good. You can safely skip the fluff and you won't lose the heart of Deku's journey. Just keep your finger on the fast-forward button when you see Class 1-A heading to the swimming pool for the third time.