Dragon Ball Creator's New Anime Sand Land Stuns in First Look

Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama's latest project was only just announced, but the new Sand Land series is already turning heads.

Legendary creator of Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama, has just revealed his involvement in a brand-new adaptation of one of his other works, Sand Land, and it's already drawing attention from a first look that's just been released.

The first new pieces of information on the project have now arrived in the form of a magazine scan (provided courtesy of Twitter account DbsHype), showing some images from the series and providing a bit of basic background information on the series as well as its plot and characters. The magazine page features several stills from the series, including one of Beelzebub and Thief trying to outrun a sand monster in a car, as well as shots of the tank, the trio, and Beelzebub and Thief in the tank. Many fans have compared the series' look in these stills to the recent Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero film, suggesting that it might use a similar CGI animation style. Probably the most valuable new piece of information on this magazine feature is a date: 2023, suggesting the project will be hitting whatever distribution platform it winds up on next year. The magazine also includes the names of the animation studios working on it, which include Sunrise and Kamikaze Douga.

Related: Why Gohan's Return Was Crucial for Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero

The Sand Land project was first announced on December 8 with a special video featuring some very cool sand art, with a promise that more information would arrive soon. The series is based on the first manga Toriyama published after concluding Dragon Ball and had a brief run from May to August 2000. Sand Land follows Beelzebub, the Prince of Demons, a retired general-turned-sheriff named Rao, and Thief, a friend of Beelzebub, as the trio search their post-apocalyptic desert world in a tank for a new source of water, outside the control of their greedy King.

Given the manga's short length (just 14 chapters), it's reasonable to think that some expansion of the source material may take place in this adaptation, especially considering Toriyama's close participation in the anime is being advertised. Sand Land bears many hallmarks of Toriyama's style that will be familiar to Dragon Ball fans, like pointy-eared non-humans, characters with tails, and outlandish hairstyles. Toriyama was said not to have been very happy with the project when he was working on it, mostly because the tank proved extremely difficult to draw, and Toriyama had long insisted on doing all the drawing by himself. Given Toriyama's willingness to work with Toyotaro on Dragon Ball Super, he's obviously overcome this need to do it all, so perhaps this project represents a chance to revisit a work that he was never fully satisfied with and turn it into something he can be.

More information on the series is set to come out on December 17, so fans won't have long to wait to hear more about the Dragon Ball creator's latest project, Sand Land.

Next: Dragon Ball's Prototype Comes Stateside in Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater

Source: Twitter