Yeah, there was a long stretch of fillers (that I skipped to spare my sanity). The last few eps have been canon based, though. Things ought to pick up speed from now on. The manga has some good material.

However, the manga isn't still that much ahead of the anime. Too bad they couldn't just stop the show for a year or two. The FT manga doesn't have so awesomely lots of content per chapter, so they are eaten fast animated.