Attack on Titan Filler List: Every Episode Explained + OVAs Ranked Watch or Skip

Does Attack on Titan have filler? No. Across 89 episodes and four seasons, the anime has zero pure filler episodes. Every main-series installment adapts Hajime Isayama's manga directly, and both studios that handled the adaptation (WIT for Seasons 1 through 3, MAPPA for Season 4) kept the story locked to the source material from first episode to last.

But the Attack on Titan filler list tells a stranger story than that zero suggests. Filler trackers report anywhere from 0% to 6.74% for the exact same anime. The disagreement has nothing to do with the 89 main episodes. It comes down to 8 OVA episodes that sit in a grey zone between canon and filler. One of them was written by Isayama himself and still gets classified as non-canon by some databases. Another was referenced in the manga years after release, quietly folding it into the canonical timeline while trackers kept labeling it filler.

Six main-series episodes contain minor anime-only scenes. None are worth skipping. So the AoT filler list works differently here. The main series is the easy part: watch all of it. The only real decision is what to do about those 8 OVAs, and the guide below is built around that decision.

Attack on Titan Filler Quick Stats

How many filler episodes are in Attack on Titan? The answer depends on who you ask, and the gap is entirely about OVA classification. animefillerlist.com reports zero filler in the main series by excluding OVAs from the count. BNGLY folds them in and arrives at 6.74%. Neither is wrong. They're answering different questions about the same anime, which is exactly why AoT filler percentages vary so wildly across databases. The season breakdown below shows where the confusion actually lives.

Every Season at a Glance

Seven rows of canon. Zero rows of filler. The six mixed episodes contain minor anime-only additions (extra character interactions, expanded dialogue, small pacing embellishments) that no guide recommends skipping. Even the most aggressive trackers mark these as "mixed canon/filler," not filler outright. The main series is settled. The only question with a real answer is what to do about the OVAs.

The OVA Verdict: Watch, Skip, or Essential

Attack on Titan has 8 OVA/OAD episodes released alongside the main series between 2013 and 2018. They sit outside the 89-episode count and outside the core storyline, which is exactly why trackers disagree on the show's filler percentage. Some databases ignore OVAs entirely and report 0%. Others fold them in, count the non-canon ones as filler, and land somewhere around 5 to 7%. The actual answer is simpler than either approach suggests.

Here's the real Attack on Titan filler list, OVA by OVA, with a clear verdict for each:

Three are essential. Three are worth your time if you want deeper character work. Two you can skip without losing anything. The three that matter most deserve a closer look.

Ilse's Notebook: The "Filler" Isayama Wrote Himself

Ilse's Notebook is the most misclassified episode in Attack on Titan. Hajime Isayama wrote it himself, making it the only OVA in the franchise that the original creator personally authored. It adapts a side chapter from the manga that most trackers file under the OAD category and label non-canon by default.

The episode follows a deceased Scout Regiment soldier named Ilse Langnar, whose journal documents an encounter with a Titan that spoke to her. The Titan called her "Lady Ymir," a detail that foreshadows the Ymir and Historia plotline running through Season 2 and the deeper mythology driving the final arc. Hange's discovery of the journal directly shapes her research approach going forward. CBR ranked it among the greatest filler episodes in all of anime, which says more about the classification system than the episode. If your tracker calls Ilse's Notebook filler, your tracker is wrong.

Watch it after Episode 3 or after completing Season 1.

No Regrets: The OVA That Became Canon

No Regrets is the OVA the fandom argues about the most, and the argument is worth understanding before you decide whether to watch it.

The two-part story adapts a spin-off manga about Levi's life before the Survey Corps. It wasn't written by Isayama. The plot follows Levi, Furlan Church, and Isabel Magnolia as underground criminals recruited by Erwin Smith for a mission beyond the Walls. The mission falls apart. Furlan and Isabel die. And Levi's grief hardens into the stoic, reckless loyalty he carries through all four seasons of the main series.

By the traditional definition, No Regrets is filler. A different author created it, and the main series stands on its own without it. But Isayama later referenced No Regrets directly in Chapter 76 of the manga, incorporating a flashback where Levi remembers Furlan and Isabel during a pivotal moment. The Attack on Titan Wiki debated for years whether to reclassify the OVA, and most fan communities now treat it as effectively canon.

Here's the practical takeaway: you will understand Levi perfectly well without No Regrets. But every time he makes a choice that looks cold or self-destructive in the main series, No Regrets is the context that explains why. Every time he loses someone and keeps moving, you're watching a pattern that started underground in the capital with two people whose names the main series never says out loud. It's 50 minutes that make 89 episodes hit differently.

Watch after Episode 25 (before Season 2).

Lost Girls: Annie's Side of the Story

Lost Girls is a three-part OVA adapted from light novels by Ryo Suzukaze, produced under Isayama's supervision. The first two episodes follow Annie Leonhart's perspective during and after her mission inside Wall Rose as the Female Titan. The third is a standalone Mikasa story set in an alternate timeline where the Titans never attacked Shiganshina.

The Annie episodes are the highlight. Attack on Titan rarely gives extended screen time to its villains' inner lives, and seeing the toll of Annie's infiltration through her own eyes adds real weight to her eventual return in Season 4. The Wall Sina episodes won't change the plot for you, but they change how Annie feels as a character when she finally wakes up from her crystal.

The Mikasa episode is the most skippable of the three. It explores what her life might have looked like without the tragedy that shaped her, and it's well-made for what it is. But it connects to nothing in the main timeline, and the emotional resonance depends on how invested you already are in Mikasa specifically.

Watch the Annie episodes after Season 2. Watch the Mikasa episode after Season 3 Part 1 (after Episode 49).

Three Ways to Watch Attack on Titan

Since the Attack on Titan filler list has nothing to cut from the main series, the watch paths here work by addition instead of subtraction. The 89-episode run is the baseline, and it's already complete and self-contained. The paths below vary only by how many OVAs you fold in and where you place them.

Path 1: Main Series Only (~37 Hours)

All 89 episodes in release order. Season 1 through the Final Chapters, no interruptions, no OVAs. Every minute is canonical manga-adapted story.

Pick this if you want the cleanest possible run. The main series never assumes you've seen the OVAs. No character introduction, no plot point, and no emotional beat depends on outside material. You can always circle back for the OVAs later, and some fans prefer it that way: experiencing the core story first, then adding context on a rewatch.

Path 2: Main Series + Essential OVAs (~38 Hours)

All 89 episodes plus three OVAs placed at the moments where they land hardest:

Three OVAs. Roughly 75 extra minutes. Ilse's Notebook plants a seed about talking Titans and the name "Ymir" that pays off across the next three seasons. No Regrets gives you Levi's emotional foundation before the main story asks you to watch him lose people over and over. The community consistently calls these three essential, and the extra hour and change is the best return on time in the franchise.

Path 3: The Complete Experience (~40 Hours)

All 89 episodes plus all 8 OVAs, placed in chronological order to avoid spoilers:

For the viewer who wants every expedition beyond the Walls, including the ones that never made it into the official report. A Sudden Visitor and Distress are lightweight, but they round out the early Survey Corps atmosphere in a way that's enjoyable on a first watch and easy to skip on a rewatch. The full run at roughly 40 hours is still shorter than a single arc of several long-running shonen. Attack on Titan is a dense series, but it is not a long one.

Beyond the Walls, the Sea

The Attack on Titan filler list might be the shortest guide on this site, and it earned that distinction the hard way. Zero pure filler across 89 episodes. Six entries with minor anime-only scenes that you'll barely notice while watching. Eight OVAs where the only difficult calls are the three you should probably watch anyway.

Isayama plotted the ending before the first chapter was published, and both WIT and MAPPA treated the source material like a sealed blueprint. There's nowhere in this story where the animation team needed to stall for time, because the manga stayed ahead and the seasonal format gave the adaptation room to pace itself without padding. The result is a series that runs tight for a decade and never wastes a single episode on anything that doesn't move the story forward or deepen a character who matters.

If you've been putting off the series because you expected a bloated commitment with filler arcs to skip, the reality is simpler. Attack on Titan is 89 episodes of unbroken story. Add the essential OVAs and it's 92. The entire thing fits inside two weeks of evening sessions or one very committed long weekend. At the end of Season 3, the surviving characters reach the ocean for the first time. Everything they fought for lived inside the Walls. Everything that comes next exists past the horizon. The show works the same way. Once you start, the only direction is forward, and there is nothing in your path that isn't supposed to be there.

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FAQ

Does Attack on Titan have filler?

No. Attack on Titan has zero pure filler episodes across its 89-episode run. Six episodes (22, 33, 38 through 41) contain minor anime-only scenes, but every one of them adapts core manga plotlines alongside those additions. The only content that could be called filler in the traditional sense lives in the OVA/OAD episodes, which are separate from the main series. Even among those, several OVAs (Ilse's Notebook, No Regrets) have strong arguments for being canon.

How many filler episodes are in Attack on Titan?

Zero in the main series. The reported filler percentage varies from 0% to 6.74% depending on the tracker, and the entire difference comes from how each database classifies the 8 OVA episodes. animefillerlist.com excludes OVAs and reports 0%. BNGLY includes them and arrives at 6.74%. Both are defensible. They're counting different things.

Are the Attack on Titan OVAs worth watching?

Three of them are worth making time for. Ilse's Notebook (written by Isayama, enriches Titan lore, referenced in Season 2) and No Regrets Parts 1 and 2 (Levi's full backstory, referenced in manga Chapter 76) are the OVAs most fans consider essential. The Lost Girls episodes following Annie are solid character work and worth watching if you want a deeper read on her motivations heading into Season 4. A Sudden Visitor and Distress are lighthearted side stories that are easy to pass on.

Is No Regrets canon?

It depends on how strictly you define canon. No Regrets was not written by Hajime Isayama, which by the standard definition makes it non-canon supplementary material. But Isayama referenced its events in Chapter 76 of the main manga, where Levi flashes back to his former companions Furlan and Isabel during a critical scene. The AoT Wiki and broader fan community debated the classification for years. Most fans now treat No Regrets as effectively canon, and the story genuinely loses nothing by including it.

What order should I watch the Attack on Titan OVAs?

Place them chronologically to avoid spoilers: Ilse's Notebook, A Sudden Visitor, and Distress after Episode 13. No Regrets Parts 1 and 2 after Episode 25. Lost Girls: Wall Sina Parts 1 and 2 after Episode 37 (end of Season 2). Lost Girls: Lost in the Cruel World after Episode 49 (end of Season 3 Part 1). The Path 3 table above has the full placement guide at a glance.