User blog comment:SuperStrawHatSaiyan/Are You Gonna Fix It, Toei?/@comment-4156018-20130104172417/@comment-4605926-20130104190721

Yea, I know they're required to fill in the gap but you don't have to count them just like you do with normal episodes and into the original series it's rather confusing. Just call it a special or Filler Episode XX or whatever. People who don't read the manga might actually think that filler episodes are really connected to the actual storyline, giving them a wrong feeling about the crappy episodes.