Metal King Slime and the Dragon Quest Sticker Era, Explained

Metal King Slime 019 B — A Dragon Quest Monsters Collectible Sticker from 1998

This sticker is numbered 019 within a serialized collectible run, with the designation “B” most likely indicating a variant or subset within that series. A second number, 58, is also visible in the image — whether that represents the total count of stickers in the set, a separate catalogue reference, or something else is not certain. The sticker is believed to be paper or film, though the material has not been confirmed.

The Dragon Quest Franchise and the 1998 Spin-Off Behind This Sticker

Dragon Quest began on the Famicom in 1986, published by Enix, and grew into one of Japan’s defining RPG series. By 1998, the franchise had launched its first major spin-off: Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry’s Wonderland, released for Game Boy Color on January 23 of that year. Where the main series cast players as adventurers following a story, Terry’s Wonderland centered on recruiting monsters, raising them, and combining them to create new species — a formula that resonated with Japan’s handheld gaming scene at the precise moment that format was peaking in popularity.

All character designs across Dragon Quest were created by Akira Toriyama, also known as the author of Dragon Ball. Toriyama passed away in March 2024, and his contribution to both franchises has brought renewed international attention to Dragon Quest merchandise from this period.

The IP at this time was held by Enix Corporation — the merger with Square that created Square Enix would not take place until 2003. This sticker is therefore a product of the franchise’s original Enix publishing era. The manufacturer is unconfirmed; licensed numbered sticker sets in 1990s Japan were produced by several companies, including Amada, Bandai, and Tomy, but which company made this particular series has not been established.

The Metal King Slime and Its Place in Dragon Quest

The Slime is Dragon Quest’s most recognizable creature, present from the very first game in the series and functioning as the franchise’s unofficial mascot. The Metal King Slime is one of the highest-tier variants within the metal slime line — a group defined by a consistent set of behaviors across every Dragon Quest title: they flee from combat easily, they are difficult to defeat in the narrow window before they escape, but they reward an outsized amount of experience points when one is finally brought down. Hunting metal slimes has been a beloved and familiar pursuit in the franchise for decades.

This sticker shows the Metal King Slime in its classic form: a grey, bumpy sphere wearing a crown. Japanese text reading “Slime-kei” is visible on the sticker — this is the in-game family classification used in Dragon Quest Monsters, marking the character as belonging to the Slime family. A small symbol in the upper-left corner may be a series logo used on Dragon Quest Monsters merchandise of the period, though this cannot be confirmed from available information.

Numbered Collectible Stickers and Late-1990s Japan

The numbered collectible sticker was a well-established format in Japan’s children’s market by 1998. The Bikkuri Man series, which launched in 1987, brought the format to wide popularity with serialized stickers sold in ways that made completing the full numbered set the central appeal. The template spread quickly across anime and video game properties through the late 1980s and into the 1990s.

These stickers were typically distributed through convenience stores, toy shops, or packaged alongside snack products — though how this particular Dragon Quest Monsters set was sold is not known. The numbering on each piece implied the existence of the rest, and the drive to find the missing ones was the engine that made the format commercially durable throughout the decade. For fans outside Japan, items from this period circulated primarily within the domestic market, making them a rarely encountered corner of a franchise that would only later gain a broad international following.