Seriously those two episodes had some of them best filler scenes ever! I mean they developed so much characters such as Yakiko but it was also nice to see how the Akatsuki started little by bit growing. What was most important was the fact that you see that Hanzo did have similar ideas to that of Yahiko and in fact he supported them. It was because of Danzo's manipulation that Hanzo changed his opinion. Now, you may say that this wasn't in the manga but I don't care one bit, it would make perfect sense for it to have happened in that way. Don't stick to the terminology "fillers", if an episode is done in a fine and creative way, without distorting manga's progress, then why you should not like it? Personally, I liked them even more because I know that the manga would never go into so many details about these characters, which I like.
Whatever you may think these episodes were good.
Whatever you may think these episodes were good.