is a short manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 series authored by Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama

is a Japanese manga artist and game artist known mostly for his creation of Dragon Ball in 1984. Toriyama admires Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy and was impressed by Walt Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which he remembers for the great art...

 that appeared in Weekly Shōnen Jump

Weekly Shonen Jump

is a weekly shōnen manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the Jump line of magazines. The first issue was released with a cover date of July 2, 1968, and it is still circulating. One of the longest-running manga magazines in Japan, it has a circulation of 2.8 million copies...

magazine during the summer of 2000.

After Sand Land completed its run, all fourteen chapters were collected into a single tankōbon

Tankobon

, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...

 that was released on November 11, 2000. Sand Land was later serialized in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 by Viz Media

VIZ Media

VIZ Media, LLC, headquartered in San Francisco, is an anime, manga, and Japanese entertainment company. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ Media LLC, which is jointly owned by Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, and...

 in the United States Shonen Jump magazine, spanning twelve issues in 2003. Viz released a graphic novel

Graphic novel

A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

 of the series on January 21, 2004.

Creation and conception

Toriyama, the series creator, intended for Sand Land to be a short story about a man and a tank that he wrote for his own enjoyment. Once it came time to draw the tank, however, Toriyama had difficulty getting it to look as he had envisioned it. Although he became frustrated to the point of wanting to remove the tank from the story, he had already devised the plot and thus was forced to put up with it.

Plot

After enduring years of natural disaster and war, the world of Sand Land is left without its main supply of water; the river that provided water to the country dried up long ago. With the greedy king of the land's personal water supply becoming increasingly more expensive for the citizens of Sand Land to buy, the people begin robbing one another for water and money. Sheriff Rao, tired of the king's greed, approaches the demons of Sand Land for help in searching for a new water supply. Demon prince Beelzebub and his friend Thief agree to join Rao.

Soon after their quest begins, their car breaks down and they are forced to steal a tank from the king's army. This attracts the anger of the king and he mobilizes his forces to stop them. Sheriff Rao, a former legendary general of the king's army, is able to quickly deal with all of the current army's attempts to hinder their progress. Once they reach the supposed water supply at the end of the now dried up river bed, they find a lake that now acts as the king's private reserves. With the water sealed away behind a dam to give the king a monopoly over water, Rao, the demons, and those sympathetic to their cause tear it down. With the water returned to the world as a result, the king's oppressive rule is brought to an end.

Characters

- Beelzebub, named after the biblical demon of the same name

Beelzebub

Beelzebub -Religious meaning:Ba‘al Zəbûb is variously understood to mean "lord of flies", or "lord of the dwelling". Originally the name of a Philistine god, Beelzebub is also identified in the New Testament as Satan, the "prince of the demons". In Arabic the name is retained as Ba‘al dhubaab /...

, is the son of Lucifer

Lucifer

Traditionally, Lucifer is a name that in English generally refers to the devil or Satan before being cast from Heaven, although this is not the original meaning of the term. In Latin, from which the English word is derived, Lucifer means "light-bearer"...

. He is renowned as the "Prince of the Underworld," but generally referred to only as "Prince" by his fellow demons. Beelzebub tries to live in relative harmony with the humans. Although he regularly steals water from them, he only takes as much as he and his fellow demons need to survive. Simply joining Sheriff Rao out of boredom, Beelzebub lends his enhanced sight and demonic strength to fight against the tyrannous king.

• Sheriff Rao - An elderly man, Rao seeks to free the people of Sand Land from the king's pocket. Formerly known as General Shiba, Rao disappeared after his forces died years earlier trying to destroy a mysterious weapon on the king's orders. As he travels with Beelzebub and Thief, he learns that the weapon was not actually a weapon at all, instead a machine to artificially create water. Rao sets to right his wrong by bringing down the king and helping those whose family died due to his actions.
• Thief - Thief is recruited by Beelzebub for his expertise at stealing and his great wisdom. He often fights with Beelzebub for turns to drive the tank.
• General Are - Rao's replacement in the king's army, Are's father died during the raid against the mysterious weapon. Initially, he actively pursues Rao in order to avenge his father. However, once he learns the truth about the mysterious weapon he joins Rao in bringing down the king.
• General Zeu - The true antagonist of Sand Land, Zeu is the aging commander of the King's forces. Due to his failing body, Zeu is confined to a floating robotic lift. He ordered the attack on the Picchi people, the creators of the water-producing machine, to both rid himself of Shiba's disobedient tank brigade and the threat to the king's monopoly. He uses the king as a figurehead to rule Sand Land. Ultimately, Are shot him with a tank cannon blast, killing Zeu.
• King of Sand Land - As the current ruler of Sand Land the king makes enormous profit by selling bottled water at high prices. He tries to eliminate Rao to make sure nobody finds out about his personal water supply or the water-creating machine he had destroyed. After water is returned to Sand Land, he is forced by Rao to give his wealth to the people.

Reception

Sand Land has been called a light story that, while not necessarily deep or memorable, does well to explore the fictional world and the unique characters that inhabit it. Despite Toriyama's complaints about designing the tank, the art style is praised as being highly detailed, imaginative, and of more consistent quality than Toriyama's previous works (Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. It was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995; later the 519 individual chapters were published into 42 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. Dragon Ball was inspired by the classical Chinese novel Journey to the...

).