One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda's one-shot MONSTERS gets anime adaptation

One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda’s one-shot manga Monsters has been greenlit for an anime adaptation, according to the announcement made at the One Piece Day this year. A teaser trailer has been posted on One Piece's official YouTube channel, that reveals the key visual for the upcoming anime.

Amidst the buzz for the One Piece live-action series by Netflix, scheduled to be released on August 31, 2023, Oda fans have another project to look forward to. Further details regarding the release dates and the voice cast will be revealed in the future.

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Eiichiro Oda's one-shot manga Monsters is set to be animated.

One Piece Day 2023 was held on Saturday, July 22, 2023, where the announcement about the one-shot manga chapter Monsters was made. Written by Eiichiro Oda, the one-shot manga will be receiving an anime adaptation.

The anime is titled Monsters: Ippyaku Sanjo Hiryu Jigoku, which translates to "One Hundred Three Feelings Flying Dragon Samurai Goku'." It will be directed by Sunghoo Park, and animated at his new studio E&H Production. Park is best known for directing the first season of the 2020 shonen gem Jujutsu Kaisen and its prequel movie Jujutsu Kaisen 0.

So far, only a teaser preview and a key visual has been unveiled and it has also been revealed that the anime will be the length of one standard anime episode. Currently, no additional information about the release date is available. Further information about the upcoming anime will be available on Shueisha’s and One Piece’s official websites in the future.

The teaser takes viewers back to 1994 and introduces Oda's first work prior to his magnum opus One Piece. Following that, it unveils the face of a black dragon frame by frame. This is presumably the main conflict of the story, that fans will see Ryuma fight against.

The one-shot manga by Oda was first published in 1994 in the Shonen Jump Autumn Special of that year. It was later included in the 1998 compilation volume Wanted!, published by Shueisha. Wanted! included five one-shot stories- Wanted!, God's Gift for the Future, Ikki Yako, Monsters, and Romance Dawn, Version 2.

Monsters features the samurai Shimotsuki Ryuma as its protagonist, a character that appears in Oda’s One Piece as well. In the One Piece canon, Ryuma is a direct ancestor of Roronoa Zoro and was hailed as one of the greatest swordsmen of the world, and dubbed the Sword God. The one-shot gives fans a glimpse into the lore of Ryuma and how he became a legend in the world of One Piece.

A voice comic adaptation of the one-shot was released for One Piece 100 We Are ONE event in 2021, where Ryuma was voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya. Now it is expected that he will reprise his role in the upcoming adaptation as well.

Other voice actors from the voice comic adaptation include Sakamoto Maaya as Flare, Otsuka Hochu as Cyrano, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as D.R., and Terashima Takuma as Bartender. However, an official cast lineup for the Monsters anime is still awaited.

Stay tuned for more updates on Eiichiro Oda’s Monsters anime and other trending anime and manga series like One Piece, Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Oshi no Ko, and more.