What are the main reasons for filler episodes?

Question

This isn't a question about a specific anime. However, I wonder why filler episodes exist.

At first, I thought it was to allow the manga to advance a bit more when the anime was catching up. However, in Naruto (for example), the manga has finished and the anime still has fillers.

For other series like One Piece, the anime is relatively close to the manga and there are no fillers (Thanks God!)

What's the purpose of filler episodes?

Do you want to keep earning from anime of finished popular manga? That is how you keep earning from anime of finished popular manga. — mirroroftruth, Mar 09 '15 at 11:11
The targeted audience are not only manga reader,AFAIK most of the manga reader drop the show not the anime fan — mirroroftruth, Mar 09 '15 at 11:15

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 09 '15 at 13:20

Filler episodes aren't supposed to be bad at their fundamental purposes.
They are supposed to mainly close opened gaps and holes in the plot of the main series.

They could be also be used to divert the main story into a different one.
For example, in Naruto, there are many "side-stories" that couldn't be connected to the canon (like the stories from the video games/movies, but not all of them though).

What are the main reasons for filler episodes?

1 Answers1