Miscellaneous Reviews 12: Dragon Ball Z Viz Big 01 and Skeleton Crew

Dragon Ball Z Viz Big volume 1 by Akira Toriyama:

I was introduced to Dragon Ball Z before ever being aware of Dragon Ball. Nowadays I consider both series to be one long series as it originally way in Japan. The popular series by creator Akira Toriyama was split into two different series in North America. The first series chronicles Goku’s childhood and rise to becoming the most powerful fighter on the planet. The second series tells of Goku’s ever-increasing strength caused by the necessity of regularly saving his adopted home planet of Earth and sometimes the entire universe. I suspect that even if the series had not been split in two we would still consider these volumes of Dragon Ball Z (volumes 1, 2 and 3 collected together in this edition) as a clear departure from the earlier Dragon Ball volumes.

At this point in the series the story has pulled away from the collection of Dragon Balls which was more of an adventure story with a focus on martial arts. The whole thing was also a vehicle for Toriyama’s sense of humour which dominated his first manga series, Dr. Slump. Dragon Ball Z focused much more on the fighting component and saw characters becoming increasingly, even ridiculously powerful during its publication. Even in the first volume you notice that loveable characters from Goku’s younger years will be playing a much smaller role during his years as Earth’s champion simply because they’re not strong enough to fight along with him against their new enemies. They still maintain a key role in the series but it’s mostly to provide additional character interactions, character development, and comic relief.

The most noteworthy change though is that Toriyama provides one of the most incredible retcon, or retroactive continuity, that I can remember so clearly. He did a radical change in Goku’s backstory by making him an alien. We learn that he’s native of planet Vegeta and he’s a Saiyan, a race of bloodthirsty warriors who completely eradicate planets of their sentient life forms in order to sell off the planets to rich clients. This is where the series attains its vast scope; from now on the outcome of Goku and the Z-Fighters battles will have consequences on the intergalactic scale. There are a few other retcons aside from Goku’s heritage but they all fall under the same category of the story’s overall expansion. We learn that the Demon King Piccolo and his god-like counterpart Kami are not mythological or supernatural beings, they too are aliens. Namekians, to be precise. In Dragon Ball Kami was thought to be one of the higher rankings of celestial officials but we quickly learn that there are other guardians above him with the introduction of King Kay who watches over the north quadrant of the galaxy.

The first three volumes of Dragon Ball Z are very impressive. Toriyama manages to completely change his story from an adventure, quest and coming of age story to a grand scale fighting extravaganza on the intergalactic level. The most impressive thing about this change in direction is that he did it without losing the main elements of the 16 volumes that preceded the arrival of Saiyans on Earth. Indeed, many of the characters from Dragon Ball will be present until the very last chapters of Dragon Ball Z. It’s all very different but also quite familiar, allowing fans of young Goku to join up with new fans of adult Goku in enjoying one of the most popular and loved action manga of all time.

Skeleton Crew by Stephen King:

In an effort to get over my unfounded prejudice against Stephen King and his massive body of work, I’m been sampling some of his books. Even though this is my second attempt to read Skeleton Crew the results have been pretty positive so far. The first time I read this collection of short stories and one novella, I couldn’t get past “The Monkey”. I really enjoyed “The Mist”, so much in fact that I wrote a review of just that story, but everything I read after it didn’t work for me. I wasn’t entirely surprised by this since I’ve found that collections of stories tend to vary greatly in quality and this is true of Skeleton Crew. Some stories were simply bad while other’s had a tone or style that didn’t particularly grab me. That’s not to say there aren’t any good stories. There are but I’m not able to recommended Skeleton Crew in its entirety. Instead, I would recommend the stories I think are the best or at least the most interesting thing and then let the reader decide if they’d like to read the rest. Here are a few quick thoughts on the stories I liked the most.

                                                                                                                                        

"The Mist"

Similarly to ‘Salem’s Lot what makes this story shine is the villagers and how they interact. The core of the story is surviving an invasion on inter-dimensional monsters but the monsters aren’t the focus of the story. It’s a character piece at heart and at just over a 100 pages it pretty powerfully condensed.

"Mrs. Todd's Shortcut"

This is a fun story that also deals with other dimensions. One woman’s passion for finding shortcuts leads her to speeding down roads that few or none others have travelled down before. It has a build but the entire thing is just off kilter enough to work well, even if you know how the story will end by the time you reach the halfway point. I’d like to read more stories like these. There is a definitive supernatural bent but there’s not real horror in sight.

"The Jaunt"

“The Jaunt”, is another story that can’t be described simply as horror though there is a clear horror element to it. It’s one of King’s few (so I’m told) science fiction stories. A father tells his family of the history of Jaunting, a form of teleportation that has been popularized in the future. During the telling he struggles to provide a complete narrative while also hiding some of the more unpleasant truths about Jaunting. He fails by leaving his listeners more curious than informed and the consequence is unsettling.

"The Raft"

This is probably the purest dose of horror in this collection. It’s incredibly straightforward but that simplicity helps it work. Four students go swimming out to the raft in the middle of a lake at midnight. It’s their last time swimming before the raft gets put away for the winter. They’re met by a dark oil slick on the surface of the water which proceeds to terrorize and attack them. It’s a chilling and gory story that completely captivated me. It’s probably the story that engaged me the most from all the other stories in Skeleton Crew.

"The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands"

I like this story more for the bookends than the story of the title. Again, it’s a story told within a story. King creates a gentlemen’s club with a never-aging butler and patrons that all seem to have dark secrets. The telling of “The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands” is one of those secret stories. While anybody with a bit of imagination can figure out why he doesn’t shake hands, the atmospheric tone of the storytelling made it a worthwhile read for me.

"Beachworld"

I found King’s second science fiction story in Skeleton Crew to be a disappointment but it was a good disappointing story. The story is too simple and even though I’ve only read a very small amount of stories by King, it has a pretty common structure amongst his work. Characters come face to face with an incarnation of evil, in this case a desert planet that appears to be sentient, and one of them stares into the abyss and is unable to look away, resulting in his destruction. It’s the one story I would have liked to see further developed as it could have been better or at least more interesting than how it is now.

"Survivor Type"

A man finds himself the lone survivor of a sunken cruise ship. He’s on an island with no food and a large amount of heroin. The story is told through his diary entries which become increasingly disjointed and strange as he slips into insanity. The best thing about this story is that King takes it to its natural conclusion and I appreciated that.

King’s ideas for short stories are generally pretty straight forward with the occasional twist ending. The problem with that is he takes time with his stories. He doesn’t rush to the end and he doesn’t drop the entire idea on the reader in just a few pages. This has the unfortunate consequence of making quite a few stories in this book slow to read and difficult to get through, not because of their difficulty but because it doesn’t successfully engage the reader. On the other hand, his better stories are a delight to read. Even some of the longer ones or those that have a simple idea that doesn’t hide away from the reader or is revealed in a twist ending. Reading “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” it was clear that she would find a shortcut but what wasn’t obvious is the nature of that shortcut. Add to that a good style and an enjoyable pace and the result is one of the better stories. Likewise, “Survivor Type” and “The Raft” are very simple stories but King’s commitment to taking the story to their just conclusion is what makes them compulsively readable and enjoyable (well, a specific kind of enjoyable – they are pretty gruesome) stories.

                                                             

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods review

Like most other Canadian or American fans my introduction to Japanese anime and manga was through the Dragon Ball Z TV series. I remember being mesmerized every time the show was on. I didn’t have cable as a child and the only time I could watch it was when we visited my grandma. Lucky for me we visited often. Still, I only caught episodes sporadically here and there and my friends at school would fill me in on the episodes I missed. A few years later I got to watch both Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z from start to finish. I loved it. Not just because of the crazy action and the innumerable types of power-ups. That was all good but what differentiated Dragon Ball Z from the rest of the action and brawling anime then and since was the characters and their zany humour. They’re well designed but they’re also individualized more than you were used to seeing in anime of that time period. Looking at a group picture of the main Dragon Ball Z characters you can easily spot your favourite characters because they personalities shine through in the way they’re illustrated. It was the beginning not only of my interest in Akira Toriyama and his body of work but also of manga and anime. Something that I continue to enjoy to this day though with a bit less excitement than I had when I initially started to explore manga.

The story of Battle of Gods takes place near the very end of the series, somewhere around the middle of the ten year jump before the final two chapters of the manga. Buu has been defeated and the Z-Fighters are enjoying their peaceful lives. Many galaxies away Beerus, the God of Destruction, wakes up after 39 years of sleep. He set himself an alarm to wake up because of a prophecy he heard that announced the arrival of a legendary Saiyan warrior. He’s interested in finding the Super Saiyan God and challenging him to a fight. Accompanied by his aid Whis, he makes his way to Earth where he thinks he’ll have his best chance of finding the Super Saiyan God because of the relatively high presence of Saiyans and half-Saiyans. On Earth both new arrivals crash Bulma’s birthday party. Eventually Beerus’s temper gets the better of him and the Z-Fighters are once again Earth’s final line of defence.

I quite liked Battle of Gods. My summary makes it sound like the plot resembles the plot of many other Dragon Ball Z stories. It’s true the series because pretty formulaic. The feel and tone of the movie fits quite nicely with the tone of the series. The focus isn’t on the action, it’s on the character interaction. There is an equal amount of time spent showing the events of the birthday party than there is devoted to the God of Destruction and his search for the Super Saiyan God. Nearly all the heroes of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z show up and it’s delightful to see them spending time together. Emperor Pilaf from Dragon Ball also makes an appearance. With the aid of Mai and Shou he attempts to steal the Dragon Balls to become rich. The goofing around that takes place in the story makes it pretty evident that Akira Toriyama played an active role in the development of the movie.

Unlike most of the previous 17 Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z movies, this one fits nicely in the timeline of the show. It’s not an alternate universe version of characters and stories. It’s set in the same timeline as the series and deals with the same incarnations of the characters we’ve come to know and love. To make things better a lot of the voice actors from the show returned for Battle of Gods. I would have been happy with another movie that didn’t fit with the show, another movie that didn’t “matter” but the fact this this one does fit in and feels like it matters makes it that much more enjoyable to watch. Granted, making a new movie in this franchise is definitively nostalgic but I don’t mind because it does something that the last few movies didn’t focus on. It’s refreshing and it makes it easier to forget the impulse to make yet another movie in this series.

That being said, this isn’t a perfect movie. There are a number of things I didn’t like and would like to see improved in the 19th Dragon Ball Z movie that is already rumoured to be in production. The first thing that comes to mind is that the movie introduces yet another Saiyan transformation form. It’s simply unnecessary at this point. It’s not nearly as exciting or meaningful as it’s intended to be. It also seems an odd choice of fighting technique to hinge a movie on considering how long it’s been since the last movie. I would have been just as happy to see character perform some of their classic techniques instead of being ridiculously outclassed and easily defeated.

I also wasn’t a fan of the animation. It was inconsistent and it didn’t transition well from the more traditional animation to the computer animation. I like how crisp the animation looks but the computer generated stuff just sticks out like a sore thumb. It doesn’t belong. Likewise, the camera angles used in the final battle is a nice touch but it’s too much. In the movie, characters that have spent years watching high speed battles admit to not being able to follow the fight between Beerus and Goku, that’s a problem. If the characters can’t follow the fight how are we, the viewer, supposed to be able to follow along? The animators’ intentions are obviously to provide fans with a fantastic battle scene and I appreciate the effort to show us something we haven’t already seen in the hundreds of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z episodes and previous movies but it fails. It’s flashy, unnecessary and ineffective. I would have preferred a movie made with only a single style of animation. I’m in support of a sleeker looking Dragon Ball Z but preferably something that also keeps the classic feel and look of the series.

Even the villain introduced in the films harkens back to some of Goku’s first adventures. Compared to many of the series’ villains were actually quite evil while others were simply goofy, yet powerful. Beerus falls into the latter category. He’s an antagonist, clearly, but I wouldn’t consider him evil. He’s too much of a buffoon for that and his main interest in the movie is similar to one of Goku’s own personal interest: he just wants to match his fighting strength to another extremely powerful being. For someone called the God of Destruction, destruction doesn’t appear to be on his mind as more than just an afterthought. He’s still threatening and works well as a villain because the movie does take the time to establish him as a threat but Beerus goes around seemingly in an attempt to undo the scriptwriters work and find an opponent to fight.

The movie is quite enjoyable. Most characters have their moments to shine. Oddly enough, my disappointment with this movie lies with the animation and the final battle scenes. You would think that having a new Dragon Ball Z movie would mean a movie with better animation. That’s only partially true as half the movie is very good and the other half is terrible. One of the staples of Dragon Ball Z is the battles and the ones in this movie are good but they’re not nearly as good as I was expecting nor are they as good as what we’ve seen in the series. The new Super Saiyan form is also unnecessary. Those problems aren’t enough to make this a bad movie though because the characters’ interactions, including new characters such as Whis and Beerus. It’s goofy fun and it works because it’s consistent with how we’ve seen the characters before. More importantly, the fighting and action in the series has plateaued, perhaps even on more than one occasion. The story formula of the series has been used to death and it’s nice to see Battle of Gods play around with that, albeit only a little bit. Dragon Ball Z is a classic and loved anime series not only because of the action but because of the characters and their odd-ball personalities. It’s refreshing to see a movie that focuses so much on heroes and villains goofing off. In many ways it feels like a throwback to Dragon Ball where humour was as much a part as the show as epic battles in which the universe hangs in the balance. 

Miscellaneous Reviews 05: Dr. Slump vol. 18 and Maria M. Book One

Dr. Slump volume 18:

This is the final volume of Dr. Slump. I have to say, it’s a bitter sweet moment. I’m glad that the series is ending because there is no way to make an open ended humour series work. It will eventually grow stale and if I’m being perfectly honest with myself and with Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball, some of the stories in the later volumes demonstrated that things had indeed started to slow down. Part of this could be that while ending Dr. Slump, Toriyama was also working on the early chapters of Dragon Ball which as well all know became and international phenomenon. Maybe he was getting a bit distracted by his new series. It’s not surprising to thing that after four years of non-stop hilarity in Penguin Village, a new series with new characters and a different setting would have its appeal. Why wouldn’t Toriyama want to focus on a different project? I’m not saying this to complain or to rationalize a depressive decrease in quality in the 18^th volume of Dr. Slump. The opposite is closer to the truth.

It’s impressive that Toriyama still manages to write funny stories about the townspeople who live in Penguin Village. If there’s one thing you need to understand about Dr. Slump is that there is a rotating cast of villagers that regularly pop up in stories. Some only appear one or just a handful of times but others appear at least once or twice a volume. Even after 18 volumes Toriyama is still creating new characters. The most notable in this volume is Biker Boy which should come at no real surprise considering the focus of this volume. Toriyama didn’t shy away from infusing Dr. Slump with his hobbies and all the other things he enjoys in life. Toriyama loves science fiction movies, building models, motorized vehicles and animals. He didn’t just incorporate this in the bonus feature pages in-between the chapters in the collections, he also incorporate these elements to the title pages and the stories themselves.

If there is one predominant theme to the final volume it’s advertising his new series, Dragon Ball. Seriously, if you haven’t read it, go out and buy a copy. It’s great stuff! I actually enjoy Dr. Slump far more than I ever liked Dragon Ball (and I really like it!). It’s one of the most overlooked manga series I know of. Sorry, I lost focus there. If there is one predominant theme to this volume its setting up stories in which Toriyama gets to draw vehicles of all sorts but specifically motorcycles. The standout new character of this volume is Biker Boy. A boy who has a rare and complicated (and entirely real) disease: he will die if he is not riding his motorcycle. He lives his life riding around the island never stopping for anything. A truck has to drive next to him so he can refill. He radios his favourite food truck to toss food at him while he drives by. Biker Boy’s condition is so serious he can’t even stop to use the bathroom. He wears a biking suit which is cut out at the back allowing him to poo in a special compartment of his bike which then flings it out onto the side of the road. This solves one of the great mysteries of Dr. Slump: just where do all the little piles of poo come from? Now we know where Arale finds it all. Thanks Toriyama, fans around the world also thank you for finally revealing the greatest secret in all of manga history.

Maria M. Book One review:

Gilbert Hernandez is a genius. He’s been hard at work on one of the best long form comic works of all time. Along with his brothers, Jaime and Mario, they’ve been regularly releasing Love and Rockets for over thirty years. Gilbert been pushing his work and bringing it to very interesting places since the Luba in America stories have been published. The most notable of these comics is the “Fritz B-movie” sub-series. Half-sister of Luba, Rosalba “Fritz” Martinez gave up her job as a psychotherapist to take up acting and Maria M. is her long lost masterpiece.

All of the Fritz B-movies are low-grade sexploitation films taking advantage of and displaying her unique physique. Maria M. is based on a true story and it has Fritz playing her own mother. The true story on which this “movie” is based is Gilbert’s incredibly dense Poison River, a huge and complex comic book opus. Already without looking at the story itself, Maria M. is a complex work simply based on its origins, both metatextual and real. The story though is pretty impressive for a 135 page comic that averages four panels per page. Maria Martinez has recently arrived in America (having run away from her home country in South America after an affair with her father’s gardener which resulted in the birth of her first daughter, Luba – that is if my memory serves me well, I haven’t read Poison River in quite some time). She finds a few “modelling” jobs and finally gets a few acting jobs as well. An influential gangster helps to produce one of those films, falls in love and marries Maria. The inconsistencies, or specifically, the artistic liberties being taken by Beto (a widely used nickname for Hernandez) with one of his previous stories is fascinating. In part because of how it contrasts with the earlier story and also on how it reflects more of Fritz’s character than it does on her mother. That makes sense of course since she’s had her story told in Poison River. But details such as Maria’s husband actually loving her or Gorgo having a brother and being Maria’s step-son bodyguard all feel kind of off but it makes for an engrossing read due to the depth of meaning these seemingly minor changes could have on the larger story of Fritz found in Beto’s work.

The Fritz B-movies has varied in complexity and quality but this latest one is pretty damn good. I feel like I’m missing some of the nuances the comic has to offer because it’s been such a long time since I’ve read the stories in my hardcover collection of Luba as well as Poison River that I’m certain I’m missing quite a bit. This comic, like most of the Fritz B-movies can only truly be appreciated by fans of Beto’s previous work. Still, I’m convinced Maria M. is a very good read because it’s a fast paced, haphardously paced crime comic. There is sex and violence to be found on nearly every page and the paranoia filled lives of Senor Cienfuegos (Maria’s husband), Gorgo and even Maria herself will delight even the most biased and critical fans of crime comics. I can’t believe Beto and Fantagraphics decided to split this story in two because the wait might just make me lose my mind but I shouldn’t complain too much since it gives me time to revisit earlier stories with Fritz and refresh my memory on just how big an impact making this movie had on her as well as her family. 

Miscellaneous reviews 03

Dr. Slump volume 9 by Akira Toriyama:

Akira Toriyama’s first weekly manga series, Dr. Slump, is an excellent read. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. Toriyama has a combination of intelligent, crass and simply stupid jokes. Each chapter is a barrage of various different types of jokes that incessantly pummel the reader. It all sound violent but trust me, it’s an excellent read. Arale is one of the cutest robots in the history of the medium.

I missed volume 9 when I was first buying the volume. I have most of the series and volume 9 was one of the two gaps I had in my collection. I was upset to have missed it because Dr. Senbei Norimaki and Ms. Midori Yamabuki get married. The weeding is followed by romping multi-part honeymoon. It was great to read about the wedding and honeymoon because I was wondering how the whole thing happened. Needless to say, Toriyama did not disappoint. I was a little weird to read one of the volumes at the half way mark because there was a surprising amount of differences from earlier stories. Someday I plan on writing a longer post about why this is one the most hilarious comics ever published. Each volume has special feature pages and this volume is no different. Half of the pages are slice of life type newspaper articles making fun of Toriyama. The rest are short, one page comics about the creation of some of the main characters. Dr. Slump is always an absolute joy to read I wouldn’t trust anybody who tells you they don’t enjoy it. They’re lying to you.

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany:

I really enjoyed Babel-17. It’s the first novel by Samuel R. Delany that I’ve ever read. I’ve been interested in reading some of his books as he sounds like a tremendous influence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. There were several of his novels at a used book store near home so I decided to pick up a few. I wasn’t sure where to start so I picked the book with the cover I enjoyed the most. It was a quick read but one that provided me with a few hours of enjoyment while reading and several more afterword. There is a lot to think about long after you put down the book.

The book deals with linguistic relativity (also known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) or how language affects your understanding of the world. Some people believe that your ability to communicate something in directly linked to your understanding of it. Rydra Wong, a renowned poet, is asked to decode Babel-17, a code which is being used to orchestrate strategic military attacks. It turns out that Babel-17 is not a code but a highly advances language from the depth a space. As Rydra learns the language her perception and understanding of the world around her radically changes.

I read an interview in which Delany mentions how he discovered the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis a few years after writing Babel-17 which completely disproved the theory in his opinion. Delany thought of about linguistic relativity without being able to label it with specific words. I enjoyed Delany’s style. It was poetic and managed to starkly describe the world in which the characters exist while also portraying the beauty of things. There are also neat ideas about the future like the extensive use of “cosmetisurgery” that not only modify the appearance of individuals but can also give enhanced abilities. It’s also rather funny at times. I particularly enjoyed how one of the characters references James Bond as being a real person. I enjoyed Babel-17 and I understand why it’s regularly considered a classic science-fiction novel. I’ve not entirely made up my mind on Delany but I know for certain that I’ll be reading more of his books because I’ve rather enjoyed this one.

Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus volume 2:

Jack Kirby continues his opus in the second collection of all the Fourth World stories, Superman’s Pal: Jimmy Olsen, Forever People, New Gods and Mister Miracle. I think it’s great that the titles are organized chronologically in theses collections. It’s not all great though because there is a downside. Walter Simonson mentions the incredible momentum that Kirby was building with four titles coming out on bi-monthly schedules. I don’t see it. I don’t feel it, either. Most of these title have a momentum building up within their own pages but skipping from one title to another nullifies that feeling of momentum and growth in the story. It’s as if the story is too big and it’s taking an unnecessarily long time to really get going. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the omnibus collection and therefore the entire Fourth World saga feels unfocussed and unnecessarily bloated.

Two volumes in and I find it very difficult to enjoy any of the Jimmy Olsen issues. Unless something happens in that title in later volumes, I think it could have been completely cut out from the Fourth World story. I wish I didn’t have to say that, but it’s true. But, for every issue of Jimmy Olsen I get one issue New Gods and another of Mister Miracle which are just superb. I absolutely adore both of those two titles. Kirby’s crazy ideas are at their finest in those two titles and his art is spectacular. Mister Miracle because much more interesting than it was in the first volume with the introduction of Big Barda, it’s hard to believe, I know, but she’s a great character. Forever People also continues to be good. It’s much better than Jimmy Olsen but there is something holding it back from being as good as New Gods or Mister Miracle. Either way, these are great comics from the 70s and I’ll definitively enjoy revisiting this once I’m done the series. I might end up skimming through the Jimmy Olsen issues though. Especially those Don Rickles co-star issues.

Sand Land by Akira Toriyama review

Akira Toriyama is one of my favourite manga creators and he’s also one of the first mangaka whose work ever caught my eye. As a child who grew up in the nineties, Dragon Ball Z has been on television for as long as I can remember. To this day I’m still a big fan of Dragon Ball. In recent years I’ve also been collecting Toriyama’s first ongoing series, the hilarious Dr. Slump. I love his body of work for various reasons from his excellent character designs, his excellent grasp of anatomy to his choreography of hand to hand combat and the combination of dumb and intelligent humour. Rereading Sand Land several years after I first read it in the pages of Shonen Jump was a real treat. At the time I had somewhat dismissed Sand Land as that “other comic” Toriyama wrote and drew but it’s clear to me now that it’s a modern classic manga in a single volume.

Sand Land is one of Toriyama’s works from the later part of his career. After completing Dragon Ball in the mid-nineties, Toriyama wisely chose to never create such a long series. Sand Land was supposed to be a short work about a man and a tank and the whole thing is only one volume long. Even then you get the feeling it went on longer than Toriyama was expecting. It was published in Japan in 2000 and it was first published in English in issues #1-11 of Shonen Jump. The story is rather simple, in a post-apocalyptic desert land, an old Sheriff and a couple of demons go on a journey to find the mysterious Phantom Lake. Along the way they meet various strange characters and a couple of monsters all the while uncovering the dark secrets of the King’s Army and the war that took place 30 years earlier.

There isn’t an enormous amount of depth but the story is entertaining and it moves at a breakneck pace. Yet, it’s not a quick read it just that so many things happen every chapter. There are demons stealing water from cargo trucks, monster chases through the desert, driving lessons, fights with crooks, tank battles, plenty of hand to hand combat, a couple military conspiracy and that’s only about half of the content of the manga! So there’s not a lot of depth because the focus is to write and draw a fun manga and hope the reader has fun too. That’s exactly what Toriyama achieves.

It’s not all fun in the sun and desert hijinks though. There are some environmental and social-economic concerns in there too for readers who need a bit food for thought with their entertainment. General Zeu’s use of the King vas a puppet leader to create a monopoly on the water of Sand Land is a pretty dark and surprisingly contemporary socio-economic issue. At first I was a bit disappointed that the villainous General Zeu didn’t appear to have any further motivation for his actions than wanting to amass power and money. That’s it for his motivation, actually. It works, though. That’s the driving factor for some of most of the corrupt military and political leaders of modern times. Greed is the driving factor that contributes directly to the suffering of hundreds of millions every year. Sheriff Roa, Thief and Prince Beelzebub are putting their foot down and choosing to end the needless suffering of the people of Sand Land.

Clean water should not be a luxury. It’s a foundational pillar of life and should be shared amongst all living creatures, be they man, animal or demon. It’s interesting that Toriyama makes Zeu a cyborg. He’s equal parts man and machine. By pursuing his greedy aim his body has decayed to the point where he needed to attach cybernetics to maintain his health. His need for water is presumably less important to him individually than it is for the average human. It’s grim that he’s the sole possessor of the Land’s water supply. His continued persecution of the people has nothing to do with his need for water but for his illusionary need for increased wealth.

The art here is some of Toriyama’s best. In his short introduction to this volume he states that he thinks his drawings of the tank are less than satisfactory which is completely inaccurate. It’s very well drawn from its first appearance to its last. He draws the exterior as well as the interior with great attention to detail. He draws several other motorized vehicles, some real and some imaginary. His character work, as always, is great. His villains look like villains and his heroes are tough but fair. Beelzebub and the Sheriff look great. I would really like to see more of their adventures.

Sand Land wasn’t a quick read but it was a light read. The book feels dense even though there isn’t an overabundance of story but there are a lot of plot points, nearly each chapter feels like a story unto itself. It all keeps the story rolling along but it also makes you feel as though it was money well spent. It was to see a storytelling master at work. Sand Land could be dismiss as just another fun adventure manga with demons, tanks and an old secretive Sherriff but to dismiss it as such is to entirely miss the point. The entire point is to have fun but there is a more depth to the work for those who wish to pay attention to it. Sand Land allows for a more engaged reading experience. Viz Media gave the collected volume an “A for All Ages” rating and that’s spot on because Sand Land works well on so many different levels. Truly a manga for the whole family.