http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3140575
1UP: You mentioned there are 103 monkeys in the game. Is that symbolically speaking, or are there literally 103 monkeys found in the game? What is the significance in there being 103 monkeys?
TI: Sorry, I might have been drunk when I told you this, but it's 108 monkeys, not 103. The number 108 is the number of worldly desires in Buddhist teachings. That mountain stage was originally supposed to be full of tourists, but at a certain point, for some reason it became a monkey-filled mountain [laughs]. There is one white monkey that is supposed to be the boss monkey, and three other monkeys that are apparently his consorts.
The lead designer of DOA4 started getting all fancy with the monkey animations, and eventually began giving them all names. This all escalated out of control until the point that now he says he wants to make an all-monkey fighting game. Not one of those throw-away "mini-games" that I hate so much, mind you, but "full-fledged hardcore monkey combat" is how he pitches it. What's going on with him, I wonder? [laughs] Besides, in the first place only the white boss monkey was supposed to have fur, but then this lead designer tricked the programmers working on the Monkey Mountain stage, and next I knew all 108 monkeys had fur. It's craziness.