Sand Land Is Coming Out, but Why Is No One Talking About It?

Summary:

• Akira Toriyama’s Sand Land is receiving a series, but most people aren’t aware of that.
• It will be licensed by Disney+, which isn’t promoting the series enough.
• Fans wanted the anime to be on Crunchyroll instead.

Sand Land, a manga by Akira Toriyama (the creator of the Dragon Ball franchise), has received a movie adaptation in 2023. It is also receiving a full series that premieres on Disney+ and Hulu on March 20. Yet somehow, most fans aren’t even aware it exists — which raises huge concerns.

Sand Land is becoming an anime series

Sand Land: The Series is going to be an original story continuing and expanding the storyline of the manga. The original storyline was written by Toriyama himself, so fans of the manga don’t need to be worried about it not staying true to its spirit.

The anime will have 13 episodes, and the first 7 are already releasing in a couple of days — yet no one’s talking about the anime.

Dragon Ball is still relevant after all these years, and after Toriyama’s passing, fans have been researching his other works and learning more about them. Yet somehow, Sand Land is still overlooked — and fans are blaming the streaming platform that acquired it.

There’s no promotional campaign for the anime

Disney+ announced streaming the series worldwide, with it being released exclusively. Yes, it’s also going to be available on Hulu due to the merger between the two services, but otherwise, it’s going to be unavailable legally for those who aren’t subscribed to those platforms or don't have them in their region.

Both Hulu and Disney+ aren’t exactly platforms most fans remember when they think of anime licensors. Neither of them specializes only in anime, and anime series licensed by them often don’t get much — if any — promotion. It seems that Sand Land is another victim of that: many otaku would be interested in it if they knew it actually existed.

Disney+ put nearly zero effort into promoting the series, which doesn’t look good for those who want the anime to succeed.

While it was very unlikely for it to receive more seasons after the first one — because the anime is already expanding the rather short manga and because of Toriyama’s passing — this basically confirms that it won’t be popular enough to receive any more content.

What do fans think?

Fans are really upset about this license. Disney+ is also known for delaying some of the Hulu-licensed anime by multiple weeks in regions outside of the US, and Sand Land fans are worried that this might happen for the series as well.

People really wanted a bigger service like Crunchyroll — or even Netflix — to license the anime, but they have to deal with it being on a more obscure service now.