Eiichiro Oda finally reveals why he agreed to Monsters adaptation

The Monsters anime adaptation was released in January 2024, but One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda has finally revealed why he agreed to take on the project.

Before the official release of the One Piece manga, Oda released a few one-shot series, one of which is called Monsters. It follows the story of Ryuma Shimotsuki, who lived around 400 years ago and is a legend in the land of Wano.

The anime, directed by Sunghoo Park, director of Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1, debuted on Netflix. However, in a recent interview, Oda spoke about why he agreed to the anime adaptation.

According to a popular One Piece translator, Oda said, “I thought, ‘I guess it’s okay to do it now.’ In fact, way back before this adaptation happened, more than ten years ago, was it at Jump Festa or an Anime Tour? There had been an offer to animate Monsters. But I declined it at that time.

“I thought it wouldn’t be fun to show the audience, who were looking forward to One Piece, something I created when I was younger. Speaking from my personal experience, I went to Toriyama (Akira) sensei’s anime tour a long time ago, and I was very happy to see that one of Toriyama sensei’s past one-shot stories had been adapted into an anime.

“At that time, I couldn’t imagine the fans of One Piece would be delighted in the same way with Monsters. Now, the anime adaptation talks have come once again. The Wano Country Arc is already completed, and the story connection with Thriller Bark has already been established.

“I thought it was as good as a One Piece substory, so I agreed. I just gave my go-ahead, but I didn’t really explain the connection to One Piece with them. On the storyboard that they sent me, Zoro appeared at the end, and I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s perfect.'”

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