Dragon Ball Creator Breaks Silence on Sand Land Movie

Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama's Sand Land is getting a CG anime feature-film adaptation, and now Toriyama himself is breaking the silence on what the project is and how it came about. When the official Sand Land Twitter account posted the big reveal that Sand Land will be a movie – and with it came some words from Toriyama himself (via Herms98): 

"After Dragon Ball ended, I experimented with various short works and one-shots, then tried to put all I had into drawing what I figured would be my final work. This was 'Sand Land'" Toriyama said in a statement. "Thinking about it now, I'm surprised I managed to draw a weekly serialization all by myself without any assistant, even if it was only for a single comic volume's worth."

If you're wondering how Sand Land compares to Dragon Ball? Well, by his own admission, Toriyama says it is even more of his unabashed creative passion put to work: 

"I drew this putting my own likes at the forefront, so anyone who says they enjoy this is a super-fan who really gets me! Something like that, I guess." Toriyama said. "The images I've seen still had many unfinished parts, but I never expected this to get a visual adaptation after over 20 years, so this kind of quality is like a dream come true."

The Sand Land anime movie will be produced by Sunrise, Kamikaze Douga, and Anima and has a release date of August 18th in Japan. 

The original Sand Land manga appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump back in the year 2000, but only lasted for one volume (fourteen chapters). Fans of Sand Land picked up on the moves being made when Bandai Namco started a website for the series late last year. A countdown led to the announcement that Sand Land would get an anime – and now we know it will be a film.  

Meanwhile, Viz Media will be giving  the Sand Land manga an English-language adaptation, and the synopsis reads as such: 

In the far future, war has destroyed the entire Earth, leaving only a barren wasteland where the supply of water is controlled by the greedy king. In search of a long-lost lake, Sheriff Rao asked the king of the demons for help...and got the king's son, Beelzebub, and his assistant, Thief. Together the unlikely trio sets off across the desert, facing dragons, bandits and the deadliest foe of all... the King's army itself! It's travel adventure and tank action in this new story from Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball Z!

Sand Land will hit theaters in Japan on August 18th.