English Dub Review: Sand Land “On to a New Adventure; Operation: Sneak Into the Capital!”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

A few days after the previous arc’s events, Rao has fully recovered and takes Beelzebub and Thief to a local market. There, Beelz picks a fight with an angel named Muniel who claims to be a hero, but is actually there to pick up a special pot. After that, the three run into Ann, a girl who is part of the resistance in Forest Land, where a secret coup happened several years ago, with her father, the former king, now up for execution. They all enter Forest Land to help, especially when they learn Supreme Commander Bred and Muniel plan to obtain the same material that led to the Picchi people’s destruction. But while the plan seems to go well, they find themselves in an ambush.

OUR TAKE

We now begin the second half of the Sand Land anime, kicking off a completely new story arc made specifically for this show (and possibly also for the accompanying video game that’s coming out soon, but I’m probably not going to play that)! While the first arc, adapted from the manga, was pretty much just contained to the titular Sand Land and really just focused on a small set of characters and events, we’ll now see things branch out with more characters and an additional setting, Forest Land. I know, not really the most creative naming here, but it’s at least a very different sort of biome compared to a barren desert. We also get something completely unexpected for this show thus far: A female character with lines and a not insignificant role in the story! Yeah, you probably didn’t notice it last time, but the first arc had no women, aside from Rao’s dead wife and maybe one girl at a pool in the background. I’m sure this wasn’t on purpose, since Toriyama has never been hesitant to have interesting women in his stories (Arale in Dr. Slump and Bulma in Dragon Ball just to name a few) Ann, in contrast, is going to be a very prominent part of this arc, and won’t even be the only woman involved, so that’s neat.

In terms of how this new arc is structured so far, it does have a bit of clunkiness, as it has to give a solid reason that Beelzebub, Thief, and Rao would get back involved together when they only grouped up for convenience in that last mission. So, tying it to the unstable material that the Pichi people had to deal with, as well as Rao himself being seen as a legend as Shiba was a natural way to extend what we know about the world from the last arc. As for things for Beelzebub and Thief to do, we see Beelz get a bit of a rivalry with Muniel. It’s interesting to see this story’s version of angels when Dragon Ball fans have come to know characters like Whis in Super. But as to be expected with the motif, if demons are weird and ugly but ultimately good and well meaning people, angels look nice but are little conniving and scheming brats. And there’s more coming about all that as we head into the Forest of Sand Land.