Eiichiro Oda’s Monsters Is Now Free to Read Online

Monsters 103 Mercies Dragon Damnation has made its anime debut with Netflix around the world, and now fans can check out the original one-shot manga completely for free! Eiichiro Oda might currently be most well known as the creator behind the long running One Piece franchise, but the creator actually had a few ideas and one-shot manga released within the pages of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine long before One Piece got started. One of these one-shot releases was even made an official part of One Piece’s canon thanks to Wano Country and its ties to a legendary swordsman seen in the one-shot. 

Monsters 103 Mercies Dragon Damnation is now streaming with Netflix, and curious fans can now seek out Eiichiro Oda’s original one-shot release that inspired the new anime. Following an adventure with Shimotsuki Ryuma, a swordsman who becomes super important to Roronoa Zoro and Wano Country’s past in One Piece‘s manga and anime, this one-shot reveals how some of Oda’s earlier ideas eventually influenced what was seen later. You can now read the 46 page manga for free with Viz Media’s digital Shonen Jump library. 

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What Is Monsters? 

Monsters was a one-shot manga release crafted by One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda that initially hit the pages of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine back in 1994. The short tells a story of a samurai who wanders into a Western like town that’s soon attacked by a massive dragon. The main character, Ryuma, eventually appears in One Piece canon as one of the zombies in Thriller Bark that entrusts his sword to Zoro and has ties to Wano Country that are fleshed out years later. So it’s a fun tie to the main franchise. 

Directed by Sunghoo Park for for E&H production, Monsters 103 Mercies Dragon Damnation is now streaming with Netflix if you wanted to see the anime adaptation. Running for 25 minutes, Netflix teases the anime special as such, “A samurai’s path leads him to a young waitress whose hometown was destroyed by a dragon. He doesn’t want any trouble – but it finds them anyway.” The special stars a main voice cast of Yoshimasa Hosoya as Ryuma, Kana Hanazawa as Flare, Hiroki Tochi as Cyrano, Mitsuaki Madono as D.R., and Katsuhito Nomura as Master.

How do you feel about Eiichiro Oda’s Monsters one-shot manga? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animation and other cool stuff @Valdezology on X (formerly known as Twitter)!