Sand Land is a manga from renowned mangaka Akira Toriyama, and a short one at that. I only stumbled upon this manga because I was trying to decide if I should read dragon ball or not, and I decided to look at the author's other works, and I can confidently say that if this is the quality he provides, I'm sure Dragon Ball will be a pretty fun read.
Plot - Sand Land is a story about the world of Sand Land, a world in which there is virtually no water, and the only way to get the water you need is to either steal it or pay the exuberant prices the king of Sand Land offers. While most of humanity is contempt in going with the awful prices route, our favorite misunderstood minority, the demons, are not, they steal water (another case of the slightly annoying "good but poorly understood group" trope). Anyway, our heroes' journey begins when an old timer shows up around their turf asking for their assistance in finding the phantom lake, a secret lake hidden somewhere in Sand Land that if found, could once again bring prosperity to the people. The demons, of course wanting to help out, agree to join him, and so their adventure begins.
Characters - There's only a few characters in this, but I'll overview them anyway.
Beelzebub is a "young" kid who just wants to do the right thing and is willing to sacrifice himself and also maybe shoot down a plane with a tank to do that. We don't get much backstory on him, which normally I wouldn't fault for a 14 chapter manga, but at the end of the manga he just kinda pops off for some reason, and we don't get much of an explanation as to why. But considering how short this is, I wasn't too upset. Then there's thief, who's basically what would happen if that crazy guy who likes dynamite and a master thief had a child, he's fine I guess. And last but not least we have the sheriff, the old timer who enlisted the help of the demons. He's a war vet with a big heart and an even bigger nose for justice. I was pleasantly surprised with how much backstory and development he got, I was decently invested in his story and desire to right his past wrongs. This doesn't mean that the characters werent flat though. These were still some very flat characters, and to a certain extent I can forgive the manga when you consider how long this is, but on the other hand, fleshing these characters out a bit more would make it much more satisfying to watch them fight about something that they care for. I won't dock too much for this though, the backstory wasn't too bad I guess. To be honest, this would have really benefitted from being a longer manga, I would have read a new chapter of this each week for sure. Oh well.
The art is pretty good. I don't think it's anything special in any way, but it's certainly nothing to scoff at. I did like the framing, I wanna mention that. I found it very easy to follow along and also understand the intensity with which things were happening. And in the off chance the art can't convey that to the reader, there's dialogue to ensure you know how you should be visualizing the story, or at least I thought so, maybe you didnt idk
The last thing that I wanna talk about is the overall writing in this. It's fine. There are plenty of things in the writing that I enjoyed, but I'll leave those out so you can figure out what you like for yourself. And of course there are things that I think could be improved. The pacing in this felt VERY fast, and I again want to mention how much better this could have been if it had been longer and was allowed more time to build up the characters and story. On more than one occasion, something happens that I don't think was explained or just downright doesn't make sense, but I'll again leave those for you to figure out. These things don't really hurt the story, they just slightly irked me a bit, but to be honest, i'd be surprised if many people found these to be an issue, this is not a manga to take particularly seriously.
Overall, Sand Land is pretty good. I liked the characters, but they could have been better. I liked the story and world, but they could have been better. I liked the art but it could have been better. And I liked the writing, but that could have been polished up too. There is nothing great or inherently wrong with this manga, and when you consider this is a 14 chapter manga, I think it was hoping to be an average at best manga anyway. So if you have like 45 minutes or an hour or something idk i read slow then maybe check this out, I can almost guarantee you wont be disappointed with this since you have no expectations for it anyway.
I give Sand Land a 6.9 because funny secks
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