It’s time to look at the Monster special/mini movie that came out recently. You know when they first announced this project I figured it’d be at least an hour or longer but I guess that would have not really made sense since this was based on a one shot. At the very least they would have had to add a lot of extra scenes. Maybe if they included the full fight in the after credits scene instead of just the ending but for people just trying to watch this as a stand alone it probably would have been a really odd way to end this.

The story starts with Ryuma showing up to a village in a state of near starvation. He hasn’t eaten in days and so Flare (I feel like her name was a little different when I saw the film but this works well enough), a nice person lets him eat a bunch for free. He considers himself to be in her debt now although he has a funny way of showing it considering that he starts a big fight in the bar. This happens because the world’s strongest swordsman, Shirano ends up bumping his sword into Ryuma’s. It should have just been a simple accident that they both laugh at and walk away from but Ryuma takes this kind of thing personal.

The same thing happens with someone else a few minutes later, but this time it is a villain named D.R. who pretends that he has been stabbed by Ryuma and uses the legendary dragon horn to summon a dragon to destroy the village. Now the whole village is mad at Ryuma but also just depressed because they are all going to die. Shirano vows to stay and fight the dragon but Ryuma knows that it isn’t his fault and just figures everyone should run off and live. Is this really the right move though? And why did this villain randomly summon a dragon like this? Something’s not right.

The special’s length is basically around 1 normal episode so things have to move pretty quickly. That includes the main plot twist here although it’s one that you will absolutely see a mile away. This is a fairly conventional story about a heroic figure slaying the giant dragon and so the plot around it is pretty much what you would expect. I’m guessing back in the day when submitting the oneshot to the magazine, the writer probably wanted to go with a safe story to start off with. It makes sense and the movie is a very faithful adaption. In a world of subversions and complex plots though, it works well enough.

My main complaint would be that I wish we got more action though. There is only one real action scene here with the dragon and it’s a short one. Yes there is a sword “duel” but that only lasts for a single move and is very fast. It does have the best action sequence by far though. I tend to like when an animation quickly switches to black and white for dramatic effect although you don’t want to overuse it. For example we get another black and white flash against the dragon but that one was really underwhelming in comparison. I would say the animation here is reasonably good but definitely not great or excellent like you would expect from a special. One Piece itself destroys this with many episodes in Wano.

As for the soundtrack, it’s pretty uneventful. Nothing to write home about so you’ll be forgetting the tunes pretty fast. As a main character Ryuma is okay but I wasn’t actually a big fan of his. The guy is super irresponsible, I still can’t believe that he broke a statue in Flare’s restaurant for practically no reason. I get that the sword is important to him but then you confront the guy outside. You don’t pick a fight where you can hurt innocent civilians. It’s also worth noting that Ryuma clearly went for a headshot against Shirano. So he was going to murder a guy for lightly bumping into his sword? Even after the guy apologized?

It’s hard to just overlook that. Particularly as it isn’t really played off as a bad thing either. It’s more of a comedic moment because Shirano had the skills to stop the attack and defeat Ryuma instantly but otherwise it could have been bad. This does also raise a power scaling issue later on. I mean a good rage mode easily answers that question but it’s why we should have had more of a fight later on.

I also think the climax raises some questions on exactly how the scheme worked. It seems to me like the dragon whistle actually works really well because the dragon never tried to attack them. So if you have a dragon working for you, then you can just blow villages up all the time. Why even bother with elaborate traps and schemes? It just seems unnecessary. There could be world building reasons around that like not wanting to attract attention but it seemed like the villain would make things harder on himself here.

D.R. is a fairly underwhelming villain. The guy can’t fight and isn’t too strong so he’s the kind of guy who really just hides in the back and hopes that things will work out. Flare is a decent heroine but a little too gullible. The fact that she was so quick to turn on Ryuma with no evidence was annoying. I get that it was traumatic but she really has no reason to jump in with the mob there. As you can tell I was not a big fan of the cast overall. Shirano would be the strongest character here by default. He may not go out very well but the guy is interesting all the way through and does help to enhance the special. With a better ending he would have fared even better.

Overall, Monsters is a fun special but I don’t see there being a lot of replay value. There just isn’t a reason to watch it for a second time. The best moment is a quick scene that plays after the credits though. I’ve actually watched that one a few times now. It’s got a lot of replay value but you could Youtube that instead of watching the whole thing again. The connection to a certain franchise is one of those open secrets where everybody basically knows about it, but I won’t spoil that in case you don’t know. If they could have hidden the connection more then the scene would really hit extra hard but then you lose out on some of the marketing angles so it’s a double edged sword. Regardless I do think this is worth a watch, particularly with how short it is.

Overall 6//10