Anime
One Piece prequel manga announces its own anime and is related to Zoro
Eiichiro Oda confirms the anime of Monsters, the one-shot manga he wrote in 1994 about Ryuma, the samurai who fought with Zoro in Thriller Bark.
Many may not know it, but Eiichiro Oda has a past before One Piece. The mangaka published a handful of self-contained stories (called one-shots) before he joined the Straw Hats on their journey. One of them is Monsters and it was just announced that it will get its own anime during One Piece Day (where we also saw a spectacular new trailer for the Netflix series and the first teaser for Luffy’s Gear 5).
Monsters, the prequel manga to One Piece
Why was the Monsters movie announced on One Piece Day? Very simple, because as you can read above, it is a manga that serves as a prequel to One Piece for many. After all, it tells the story of Shimotsuki Ryuma, the legendary samurai of Wano, whose zombie confronted Zoro during the Thriller Bark saga. The straw-hat swordsman emerged victorious from their special duel and received one of his most famous swords (Shusui, one of the 21 or Wazamono). Our favorite Marimo only got rid of it more than 600 chapters later, when he decided to exchange it for Enma, Oden’s cursed blade, at the request of Oden’s daughter Hiyori.
There is no official release date yet, but here is the synopsis of Monsters and its first trailer:
“Ryuma is a samurai who arrives in town penniless and on an empty stomach. Fortunately, a waitress at the Gèrard Restaurant named Flare saves him by giving him food, and as he argues with the young woman about how to repay such a debt, a sword scabbard touches Ryuma and he takes it as a duel. After Flare ends the contest, Ryuma discovers that the past of his rival and the waitress who saved him are linked by the attack of a mysterious dragon.”
Where and how to read Monsters, the one-shot by Eiichiro Oda?
Monsters was collected together with other one-shots by Eiichiro Oda in a One Piece volume called “Wanted!”, which you can find everywhere for the price of a regular manga. “Wanted! is Eiichiro Oda’s debut work with everything left in the archives and a previous version of One Piece in which we meet a very different Luffy.