The Journey is an ambitious but flawed experience. It is ambitious because it gambles its reception over the audience's acceptance or interest in Arabic culture. There is very little to take from the film if you're already well acquainted with Arabic culture and the Quranic legends. As a person who lived through and heard all those stories multiple times in his life, I'd say I felt conflicted while watching the movie; there is the joy in having a legendary story animated in Japanese style, and the boredom of knowing exactly how the story will pan out.
Starting with the premise of the film, it's an ode to Surah Al-Fil taken directly from the Quran as source material. The film also utilizes several other short stories to give the film the illusion of depth, but we'll take more about that soon enough. The story itself is adequate, it stays true to the source material and provides sufficient information at all stages without taking too much off the experience. What disrupts the enjoyment, however, are the short stories that are included to give the viewer this false sense of depth; the stories themselves do not add anything to the story, in fact, the film would probably be better received removing them altogether. They really cheaped out on them, and the stories (3 of them, if I recall correctly) are essentially glorified slideshows with decent art. They are mainly used as ideas that characters use to extract wisdom, motivation, and stoical qualities for application. The detail in them is great and appreciated, but the length it took them to divulge that information results in extreme boredom, where the viewer wishes the segment to end as quickly as possible.
The art, to me, resembles the western adaptations of anime (Netflix adaptations and originals) more than the traditional Japanese productions. It focuses more on aesthetics rather than quality of the animation. Much of the fight scenes were anti-climactic because they were extremely brief and have no momentum to deliver.
Voice acting for the Arabic dubs was unexpectedly good. The script of the dialogues was fun to hear and dissect because the characters converse using Classical Arabic (unspoken Arabic that is present and known only in texts, it was replaced by the more modernized version: Standard Arabic), and expresses itself more like stanzas in an elegant poem rather than just plain statements. This is usually the product of well-written Arabic prose.
There is not much to say about the characters themselves, they are bare-bones and much of the cast simply exists because, well, the directors shoved them in there. Quantity over quality. The designs were average, while some characters looked pretty good; nothing much to be said about them. However, it is important to note that several historically accurate characters weren't given the time they deserved, such as the main antagonist, Abraha, for example.
I viewed this movie with a friend of mine in the pandemic—we were the only persons in the theatre hall. I believe this greatly enhanced the experience. The enjoyment that can be taken from this anime would be the strict historical and cultural qualities, other than that, it is your average run-of-the-mill moderate budget anime movie.
To conclude, this anime is an okay watch. If you're interested in the legends it depicts, go for it. If you're wishing to watch the stories you read in text your whole life come to life in animation (and presentation, but I digress), then go for it. If you're looking for a unique experience that will leave you satisfied in virtue of the sheer quality of the product, then this is not for you.
