Adventures on the Sand Planet
In the future, our planet will transform into a strange new world in which humanity must endure on an Earth without rain or oceans—only vast, desiccated deserts where two teenagers struggle to survive and search for hope.
The sea, the sky, and the land have been completely polluted by humankind when mysterious objects fall from the heavens. These gigantic structures crash onto the planet and absorb the air, the water, and most living beings into their core, stripping the Earth of the very essence of its nature.
The few remaining inhabitants of Earth fight to survive in a hostile environment and against an oppressive ruling race known as the Rodo. A hot-tempered boy named Ran struggles against the Rodo and against a world in which rain has become nothing more than a legend.
Green Legend Ran by Yu Yamamoto and Satoshi Saga, released in 1992 and 1993, is one of those anime titles that rarely appears on cult lists. Sure, Akira, Spirited Away, or Perfect Blue are always represented, but Green Legend Ran has long existed in the shadows—and entirely without justification.
In fact, it was one of the few titles I once ordered from a catalog on VHS. Alongside *El Hazard* and a *Bubblegum Crisis* music video tape. For whatever reason. I had always intended to get the otaku documentary instead—but at the time I was too young, since it was restricted to viewers 18 and older.
As mentioned earlier, Green Legend Ran is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth with a distinct science-fiction aesthetic. After an extraterrestrial invasion in which six of the so-called Rodo—an apparent race of gigantic monoliths—crash down from space, a massive climate shift is triggered that completely eradicates the oceans and rainfall, transforming the planet largely into an immense desert.
By that time, humanity had already devastated the environment, making a kind of apocalypse inevitable—similar to other environmentally themed anime such as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, or Future Boy Conan.
In this brutal new world, two polarized factions have emerged. The first, the Rodoists, is a fanatical religious sect that worships the Rodo while practicing a form of hydraulic despotism. All communities are clustered around one of the monoliths, as they are the only remaining sources of water and food—most of which is gathered near the monoliths in what is known as the Sacred Green.
Travel between communities is rare, since beyond a certain distance from the monoliths the environment becomes so depleted that even the air is no longer breathable, requiring pressurized, spaceship-like vehicles. The second faction, the Hazard, is a secret revolutionary movement that opposes the Rodoists.
The protagonist, Ran, is a young orphan determined to join the Hazard and seek revenge on the scar-chested man who killed his mother. He becomes caught in the middle of a battle between the Hazard and the Rodoists, during which he meets a mysterious silver-haired girl named Aira.
Ran helps several Hazard scouts escape from his city and joins them. Soon afterward, the Rodoist army attacks the Hazard base. Aira is forcibly evacuated by the Hazard against her will. Ran attempts to board the sandship but fails, and begins pursuing it across the desert in a stolen pressure suit.
He is rescued by traveling water and food merchants just before his air supply runs out. The leader of the traders, a thoughtful man named Jeke, offers to help Ran rescue Aira. The rescue attempt goes awry when the Rodoists attack the Hazard sandship and recapture Aira while Ran and the merchants attempt to infiltrate the same vessel.
Divided into three chapters, Green Legend Ran is a rousing adventure film featuring carefully crafted characters who seek happiness after the apocalypse. What begins in a dusty shantytown quickly evolves into an epic journey across deserts, forests, and sacred cities to uncover the secret behind the Rodo.
Co-developed by the well-known illustrators Kenji Teraoka and Yoshiharu Shimizu, the work brims with action, humor, and occasional touches of romance. At times it is quite brutal and, toward the end, features more exposed breasts than many a hentai manga.
Naturally, Green Legend Ran can be interpreted as a metaphor for the environmental catastrophe toward which our species is undeniably heading. Perhaps the Rodo were summoned by the Earth itself to prevent humanity from causing further harm—who knows.
Anyone who enjoys a densely packed adventure anime filled with rugged characters, gigantic sandships, religious fanatics, and a bit of bloodshed will have just as much fun with Green Legend Ran as I did. Not least because of the outstanding soundtrack by Yoichiro Yoshikawa. And who knows—perhaps the film ultimately presents a not-so-implausible vision of the real world’s future.