Netflix’s Monsters Hides a Clever One Piece Easter Egg

Monsters 103 Mercies Dragon Damnation has made its anime debut with Netflix, and it actually hides a pretty sneaky shout out to the One Piece anime series! Monsters was one of One Piece series creator Eiichiro Oda’s original one-shot manga ideas that released with Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine before One Piece was ever made into a series, but the ideas introduced in this one-shot ended up becoming officially part of the One Piece canon. It’s not just a small bit of the world either as it plays into a very pivotal point of Roronoa Zoro’s story. 

Monsters 103 Mercies Dragon Damnation features a post-credits scene that explicitly brings in Zoro during a very important moment from One Piece’s Thriller Bark arc where he receives Ryuma’s sword, but the anime actually has another sneaky Easter Egg as Zoro’s voice actor provides the narration for the special overall. This is true across both the Japanese and English dubbed releases with Kazuya Nakai providing the narration in the Japanese audio and Christopher Sabat providing the narration in the English dub. 

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How to Watch Monsters

Directed by Sunghoo Park for for E&H production, Monsters 103 Mercies Dragon Damnation is now streaming with Netflix if you wanted to check it out. 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., Katsuhito Nomura as Master, and Kazuya Nakai as the narrator. 

Monsters was originally 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, and has since become a full part of the franchise’s canon with ties to Wano Country. With the anime adaptation now streaming with Netflix, even more fans can check out this cool piece of the franchise’s history. 

What did you think of the Monsters anime special on Netflix? 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)!