One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda's new anime, Monsters: 103 Mercies Dragon Damnation, hits Netflix on January 21.
Spotted by Skullghost on Reddit, the Netflix page for Monsters has been quietly updated to include the release date. The streaming service had announced it would arrive at some point in January, but hadn't shared a specific date until now.
Monsters tells the story of young samurai Ryuma as he travels to a town destroyed by a dragon and comes across a young waitress called Flare and lots of trouble. If the samurai's name sounds familiar to One Piece fans, it's because Monsters is actually sort of One Piece canon.
Based on a single issue manga released by Oda before his most famous work was created, the author brought the character back as a zombie in the One Piece Thriller Bark saga. Oda said the characters were the same person in a One Piece: Volume 47 question and answers segment, though fans have long debated whether or not certain elements match up.
Regardless, Netflix haven't been shy about connecting the two. "Monsters: 103 Mercies Dragon Damnation by Eiichiro Oda tells the tale of Ryuma, the legendary swordsman that hails from the Land of Wano in One Piece," the announcement post said. This references an area visited by Luffy and the One Piece crew later in the story.
Perhaps the anime adaptation will sync up some of the iffy details, or set things up ready for the full One Piece anime remake.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
