Sand Land: The Series

One of Toriyama's most dramatic works is finally adapted and extended!
Sand Land, being short, is a raw and exciting story full of the mangaka's classic humor.

Humans and demons coexist, although distanced by their mutual hatred, more than 50 years of drought could end them, until a Sheriff decides to put an end to it by making a deal with the demons to find a source of water that, according to legend, It would be so big that it would return water to all of Sand Land. BUT beyond the horizon, there would be mysteries and interests about water and war, which our protagonists would face. ... A story with many values ​​about caring for water, prejudice, teamwork, camaraderie and of course, remorse and redemption (you will surely love General Shiva, the goat).
If we wanted to summarize the intentions of the story, I would say that the movie is an extended version of the original manga, the series is an extended version of the movie, and the video game is an extended version of the series. xD

This series brings the sand land movie divided in the first 6 chapters. The remaining 7 is the continuation with a new arc in which Toriyama participated a lot (including the video game). This part is very good and you get attached to the new characters like Ann and Lilith, also we discover that there are angels, some of them very resentful... An arc full of action, even Satan himself participates! And the ending, although somewhat predictable, was very acceptable and concludes Beelzebub's journey to become stronger.

Animation: Many are not fans of CGI, but it was generally maintained with very good CGI during all chapters, there are also 2D scenes in flashbacks or important events very well done in the second arc, a decent quality for a series. Both for those who read the manga and those who didn't, this is your chance to see the extended story of this wonderful world left to us by the author.

I'm not the biggest Akira Toriyama fan. I think DBZ is one of the worst shounen series ive ever watched and arale is a series i similarly found to be not a pleasant read. However this series has made me appreciate the man greatly.

STORY : The overarching story of both of its two arcs while simple are quite unique in concept as we dont often see premises like these in anime. The Beat by Beat plot however is an amazingly paced thrill ride that keeps you hooked with how cleverly everything is tied together. The last 3 episodes were a tad bit predictable but the ... rest of the series is expertly crafted

CHARACTERS : General Shiba is in the running for my favourite main character of 2024 so far and the side cast is almost equally as lovable. The only thing holding this show back is that the antagonistic force while not bad is just ok. Mooniel was great at the start and bread was consistently a solid antagonistic force, but Commander zeyu and the king were pretty boring.

SOUND : The score is great throughout and gives the action scenes a lot of weight. The voice acting in the Dub is very impressive as well.
However the most impressive thing however was the sound design for all the weapons. None of them sounded like the traditional anime 'pew pew' guns but they added actual audio of what sounded like extremely real weaponry. It's hard to put into words but it helped the tone of the action scenes a lot.

VISUALS : THIS SHOW IS BEAUTIFULL!!!!. From the 2D to the CG this show looks phenomenal and the character designs are great as well.

OVERALL : 8.5 I DEFINITELY RECCOMEND!!!!!!!!!

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.