Talk:Anime/Fugitive Arc/@comment-95.90.228.84-20160930162558/@comment-2125188-20190927060958

Perhaps Toei could've ended the series at 60 episodes without this filler, but at the time the filler was airing, Toei clearly weren't intending to end the anime. Toei didn't know that Ashihara was gonna start taking frequent breaks and then go on hiatus at the time, so they just simply thought a decent amount of filler should restore the gap so they can continue on like normal. So yes, in hindsight, it probably was a waste of time and money, since Ashihara's breaks made continuing the anime long-running impossible, but there was no way they could've known at the time how bad Ashihara's health would get.