I really wishes episode 500 had been the StrawHats reuniniting. It would have been much more fitting and they spread out this filler way way way too much. They could have easily done it in3-4 episodes instead of seven and given us more of hte other Strahats and their training.
However this was still a great episode
um this isn't filler. this is canon material. it was about 7-8 chapters in the manga and at the manga pace of 1 chapter per episode and accounting for the 2 filler episodes we just had (498, 499) the pace is well to be expected.