A fun little one-shot, similar to Toriyama's previous series "Pink" which also has similar themes regarding a lack of water. While Pink feels like something out of Star Wars, like Tatooine, Sand Land adds much of the same demon flavored, wholesome charm that exists in another Toriyama manga, Cowa!. The way Toriyama envisions demons as not necessarily evil creatures is something he consistently plays with, even down to Majin Buu who is technically not at all evil. The strength of his ability to write these evil, yet charming characters is one element that helps establish Beelzebub. General Shiba is another great character filled with personality, who has a similar feel to Goku, making you want to root for him, hoping he achieves his goals.
The one limitation of this manga is the time, and real lack of a strong enemy and confrontational climax. The King never really gets his day, despite his monopoly on power ending. While this manga is cleanly wrapped up, it feels like the story in between could have added a lot more to the mix that would significantly beef up the content and memorability. Otherwise, this was a pretty decent manga and for it's size and expansion of an even shorter manga, this was quite enjoyable to read.
