is bleach episode 1 filler?

In a barren location filled with white sand and craggy spires of blue rock, the shadows grow long over the desert, and two blobs of darkness rise from the shade into the air before bursting out of the clouds in the nighttime sky over Karakura Town. The two blobs reveal themselves to be invisible monsters that land on a riverbank running beneath a bridge below.

Elsewhere, a Jigokuchō flies toward a full moon while Rukia Kuchiki stands on top of a telephone poll nearby. Noting she senses a powerful Reiatsu, Rukia jumps to another telephone pole before leaping toward the town below.