Sandland: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes (Patreon)

Manga Details

• Author: Akira Toriyama
• Author’s other works: lmao
• Run dates: May 9, 2000 – August 8, 2000
• Chapters/Volumes: 14/1
• Anime movie about to come out as is a video game
• Was an original Shonen jump magazine in the US series

About the Manga

• Plot
  • It’s the post apocalypse and demons are just struggling to survive. About 50 years ago humans had the big war and basically ended the world, with all that’s left being just a desert. Prince Beelzebub, the son of Lucifer AKA Deborah from the Majin Buu arc, just finished leading attack on a truck transporting water when a human sherif named Rao approached with a request. The King has jacked up water prices so help him find “the phantom lake” to give people water and in exchange he’ll give the prince the last surviving PlayStation 6 and Dragon Quest 13, two things that seemed a lot more hyperbolic when this manga first game out. The prince agrees and he grabs his trusted friend named Theif, an old demon who knows a lot, and they’re off. After encountering some bandits the group immediately lose their food and supplies, but thief is thankfully able to steal them some more food by dressing as Santa.
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  • Their car is messed up so thief points the sheriff to a tank: apparently one of 5 in the entire world, and he successfully steals it, seemingly able to drive it with no problem. The tank runs into a weird floating fortress thing piloted by General Are, and while at first they’re able to trick him into thinking they’re on his side he quickly realizes they’re thieves, resulting in a conflict where they escape. While resting, Thief tells Rao the truth about an explosion 30 years ago which destroyed a civilization known as the Picchi as well as his own tank battalion. Rao believed they were building weapons but were actually building a water machine that would make water for everyone and threaten the king’s profits. And since Rao’s battalion spoke out about some shit, Dick Cheney, now morphed into a cyborg named General Zeu, decided to just blow everyone up, leaving Rao as the only survivor. While driving, a group of bandits called the swimmers see Rao in the tank, quickly draw an amazing sketch of him, and take it to the media who immediately realize he’s general Shiba, the war hero people thought was dead. Shiba calls the station and tells listeners that they’ve been lied to about the explosion and that he’s looking for water.
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  • They then run into the 4 remaining tanks lead by General Are, and after some clever fighting Are steps out of his tank to talk to Shiba, who fills him in on everything until they’re attacked by the Swimmers. Beelzebub chases them into the desert, punching each of them and getting caught in a snowstorm. He takes cover in a cave and accidentally stumbles upon the wandering lake. Beelzebub grabs Shiba and brings him over only to discover that it’s the home of some remaining Picchi people. Shiba decides to leave the lake to them and instead go after the King’s water source. Tracing the waterbed south, they come upon a giant dam blocking up the water from a rainy ocean area in order to secure the king’s profits. They attempt to blow up the dam which enrages general Zeu, who uses his floating cyborg body to transport an insect man to fight them. Beelzebub goes super saiyan and beats it up until Zeu blows up the remote control bomb inside of it. Are then comes out of nowhere and shoots Zeu, having turned on the king. He then helps destroy the dam, filling the waterbed and saving sandland. The series ends as we watch the swimmers being taught by their dad how to swim.
• Characters
  • Prince beelzebub
    • Demon with a heart of gold
    • Super strong
  • Rao aka General Shiba
    • Sheriff
    • Clever
    • Hates the king
    • Former military genius
    • Married to Sexy Terrier
  • Thief
    • Old demon
    • Dresses like Santa Claus

Why it did poorly

• There's some exposition dumps that could have been told more organically
• It's a bit of a slow start
• I feel I don’t see much of Beelzebub’s character as I’d like
• I kinda feel the bugman part kind of came out of nowhere and was a little shorter a fight then I’d have liked
• The characters besides Shiba really don’t have much depth even if they feel like they have personalities
• A lot of things seem to come out of nowhere suddenly.
• The plot is a little compressed

What it did well

• It's Toriyama you know it's aces
• Good art
• Such a clean opening
• I like the anti capitalist undertones
• The message of mutualism is also interesting this really looks into what toriyama wanted to write about when he could do whatever
• That hairspray gas was great
• Some beautiful splash pages
• Some great panneling like Chapter 5 page 12 with the moon
• Really shows all the personality of the characters beyond even the big three
• I love how there are only 5 tanks and very few other vehicles in all of existence. It really shows that mankind completely decimated themselves in the final war and yet continue fighting. Even the unnecessary explosion destroyed how many tanks?
• The demons don’t kill anyone, merely scare them. Humans kill many many people and blame it on the demons.

Where it could have gone

• Maybe play up the demon racism element it feels kinda half mentioned in the second chapter
• Foreshadow the boss fight, maybe someone with the power of daytime or something?
• The power of the night thing never really came up
• This needed to be at least 4 chapters longer to improve the pacing

Misc Thoughts

• So cute how this had a read this way indicator on some of the pages
• It’s interesting how some character designs are reused like Deborah or the hair swirl guy in Superhero
• Yay capybara in this manga