Sand Land: The Series

Its ok. Watched it alongside playing the game. Story is bland. Not much in it. Akira has a huge reputation. And deservedly so for his influence on the industry. But its mostly nostalgia. Story has never been his strong points. Its very simple and one dimensional like Dragon Ball. Though i did enjoy Sand Land more. Maybe for its shorter lenght as it didnt manage to get old and repetetive as ig would in a 100-200 ep show.

Music mediocre. Already forgot the OP and ED. Not a fan of the style and art. Use of CGI. I think as a complement to playing the ... game or fans of Toriyama id recommend a watch.

It was a rather good anime, had some more emotional moments especially when dealing with the Sheriff's background.
While it's more on the childish side, especially as far as humor goes, there is still plenty to enjoy as an adult.

A short but good anime, definitely worth checking out. The second half of it has a different plot, the main focus of the series wraps up after about six episodes. After that the plot changes up, still enjoyable.

The Art style is a mix of 3D and 2D animation, certainly not for everyone, it is one of the better ones for animation type.

Mostly a rather light ... hearted adventure story with easily liked character, written by a legend.

Great anime and 100% worth the watch however I wouldn't call it a masterpiece.
The first 6 episodes follows the original (source material) manga. The story, plot and animation is well designed and easy to follow. While the animation might not be for everyone, I personally loved it, the sound quality was a nice touch which gave the overall setting a real impact.

Without diving into any spoilers, the Manga was short lived, the whole concept originally started when Akira Toriyama drew a tank he loved and then later turned it into a Manga. The overall concept is very basic however loveable. I guess this is ... a mix of bad and good because it's a simple anime, nothing more, nothing less. You can clearly see after the 3rd episode that the story is wrapping up, it's quite predictable of how the story is going to end after the 6th episode. (part 1)

I give credit for Akira trying to expand on making a part 2 however I personally found part 2 quite bland and the characters didn't personally grab me. The main issue with Sand Land is there isn't any major character development, other then your main 3 characters, everyone feels they are just there for the sake of the story. With new original characters being designed for part 2, it feels like there's alot of missing development in the original characters from part 1. Sand Land feels like a big universe but isn't widely expanded on, I feel we only were treated a part 2 because Bandai was making a video game, a trading card game and expanding on their toy collection. There will be no season 2, even if Akira was alive right now, there never was enough source material to continue this Manga further. As I stated earlier in my review that the whole plot of Sand Land is around a tank that Akira drew when he was younger. I don't believe the manga was intended to be expanded on from the original source material and you can see that in the story.

While my review may sound harsh, by all means I am not calling Sand Land bad. I really enjoyed part 1 however, part 2 fell off for me and felt a bit forced. Overall if I had to combine my rating I would say it's OK at its best. I believe if you want the true Sand Land experience, just watch the movie that came out in 2023 or just watch the first 6 episodes of the 2024 anime and call it a day.