>>40136580Yes, actually. Most of Z was story driven episodes. Yajima (the director) actually commented on this in an interview from a while back.
"When XY&Z started, Yajima knew that the series had to wrap up everything in only a year, and they did a meeting to basically set up how the events of that year would go. He also specifically says that this is the reason there's minimal filler in XY&Z, there was absolutely no room"
https://forums.bulbagarden.net/index.php?threads/tetsuo-yajima-interview-on-xy.220915/ 