Akira Toriyama is best known as the creator of “Dragon Ball,” a manga that ran for 11 years and spawned an anime franchise that continues to this day. But Toriyama can be succinct when he wants to be. Take “Sand Land,” the manga from 2000 that ended after precisely one volume and has now been adapted into an animated film. Sometimes, brevity is nice.
“Sand Land” takes place in a post-apocalyptic future in which the world is one big desert. Water is the most precious resource around and the supply is monopolized by an evil king who hawks bottled water for outrageous prices on TV. As the film kicks off, one such royal shipment of water is hijacked (or liberated, depending on your point of view) by a band of demons led by a purple, spiky-haired prince named Beelzebub (voiced by Mutsumi Tamura).
Soon thereafter, the demons are visited by a human sheriff named Rao (Kazuhiro Yamaji), who suggests they team up to find a rumored spring somewhere deep in the desert to free its parched denizens from the king’s stranglehold. Humans and demons normally don’t mix, but Beelzebub and an elder demon named Thief (the single-named Cho) decide to join in and the adventure begins.