Dragon Ball creator’s new anime show is coming this month

Sand Land, the upcoming anime from Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, finally has a premiere date, and you’re getting a whopping six episodes at once to boot.

Although Sand Land might seem new, Akira Toriyama’s manga actually started over 20 years ago. Following a group of rogues and scavengers in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, it’s a Mad Max riff that’s as delightful as you’d expect from Toriyama.

It was only last yeear, in 2023, an anime movie was produced, telling Beelzebub’s story. That production brings us to now, with a full anime show coming. Across two parts, we’ll get a retelling of the film, and new scenes and ideas that expand the world and story beyond what we’ve been shown already,

Sand Land starts steaming on Disney Plus and Hulu in March

Sand Land premieres on Disney Plus and Hulu in the US and UK on March 20. On that day, not only will you get the first episode of Sand Land on the service, but you’ll get another six as well, for a total of seven episodes.

Another six will then arrive weekly on Wednesdays, giving you 13 episodes of Sand Land in total. That’s a pretty strong release strategy, giving fans a huge burst, before splitting the rest up piecemeal. Given that this will deviate from the film, the differences will be intriguing to parse, and the potential for any continuations, should Toriyama leave any.

The mangaka is busy this year, not only putting out Sand Land, but returning to Dragon Ball for Dragon Ball Daima, a new sequel to Super. More comedic than we’ve gotten from Goku and the Z Fighters lately, this has them all becoming child-like versions of themselves thanks to an evil wizard.

So now Kid Goku and Kid Vegeta and kid-everyone-else has to defeat the evil. That sounds fund anyway, but Toriyama back as a core creative, it bodes very well indeed. I’m always happy to have more Toriyama in my life, and Sand Land will make a fine preamble to Dragon Ball Daima.