Journey: Taiko Arabia Hantou de no Kiseki to Tatakai no Monogatari Episode 1 Discussion

0451 said:
Saudi Arabia x Japan is a collaboration I never expected to see in my life. After watching the trailer which I think came out like a year ago I wasn't all that excited. But the movie is finally accessible to a wider audience now and after learning that the story of this movie is actually based on Surah Al-Fil I was shook and I knew then I had to check it out.

Surah Al-Fil (Chapter of the Elephant) is the 105th surah of the Holy Quran and it's one of the shortest chapters with only 5 verses(!). How they stretched that into nearly 2 hours I had no idea and that's the thing I mainly wanted to find out by watching the movie.

The story itself which was told in the surah took place in 570CE just a few months before the birth of the Last Messenger Muhammad ﷺ. So it's definitely one of the most important folktales or history (depending on who you ask) of the Meccan Arabs.
But that's basically where the similarity ends. The anime movie takes lots of creative liberties that deviates from the story I was told by introducing many original characters. Having original characters isn't necessarily a bad thing but that isn't the only thing that's "new" in the movie.
According to the original story that I heard before, Abraha's forces didn't fight any Meccan warriors. The grandfather of the Prophet ﷺ Abdul Muttalib didn't decide to fight back and left the whole thing up to God's hands. And God did His job of protecting His sanctuary that'd later be purified by Muhammad ﷺ.
They even changed the existing characters.
Abraha al-Ashram himself was a Christian ruler and originally he built a beautiful Church in his capital but after it failed to get many pilgrims he decided to destroy its closest competitor, the Ka'aba which was in Mecca, the largest trade center in the Arab peninsula. I find it strange that in the anime he turned into more of an atheist(?) or at least irreligious. Japan's Christian population is currently larger than its Muslim minority so it's possible they played it safe to avoid any controversy.
But that isn't the thing, the movie has this weird vibe of portraying the Meccans as monotheists when in reality the majority of the pre-Islamic Arabs were polytheists. The Ka'aba itself housed 360 idols, all of which were destroyed by Muhammad ﷺ's own hands in 630CE after the bloodless conquest of Mecca. I feel like Saudi Arabians are the ones who asked for this change to make the Meccans look more like how they are now which is a bit disappointing but I understand why they did it.

The narration at the beginning by Aws was a bit jarring to me but thankfully there wasn't much of it in the middle of the movie during the action. I thought it was interesting that stories of 3 Prophets (Nuh AS, Musa AS and Hud AS) were told from the perspective of basically side characters (which I never heard of before so I assume they were original). These small segments ranged from around 5 to 10 minutes and I actually liked them a lot. Sure they weren't anything I didn't already before but it was cool to see them "animated". The artstyle used for Aad, the people of Hud AS was the highlight for me.
These scenes were a nice change of pace from the regular desert sceneries which understandably looked kinda boring. Narratively they also had huge significance as they foreshadowed the miraculous ending of the movie.

Lots of media nowadays tries to portray God as a "villain" and relying on fate or destiny as "weak", especially in Japan with JRPGs involving kids slaying ancient gods and the world still continuing like normal. The ending of this movie with the involvement of an All-Powerful AND JUST God was a breath of fresh air. But it also made me realize why movies tend to avoid using miracles that might be too on the nose nowadays.

Like I said the battle itself didn't take place and there were no Meccan casualties. And Abraha and his army were turned into mincemeat (their corpses becoming indistinguishable from person to person and the elephants) from the small pebbles dropped by the ababil on their way which were later discovered.
Abraha didn’t die getting crushed by a huge piece of rock like it was in the anime (tho I admit it was rad as hell). He retreated after getting fatally wounded only to collapse before entering his capital iirc.
(But what do I know, maybe there was a battle. Allahu Alam) Afaik the Abdul Muttalib and the other Meccans knew about Abraha's goals but they chose not to fight like I previously stated.
But this wouldn't make for a very compelling narrative. New characters like Aws ibn Jubair and Zurara weren't bad though I probably wouldn't remember them after a few months. The design of the characters were actually really good and didn't feel too anime. The fights also seemed reasonably realistic, I thought they'd go all-out with crazy anime fight scenes with maybe magic and djinns and stuff but maybe Toei didn't have enough budget to go that far. In the end the movie probably only benefitted from this choice imo.

I've watched the Arabic dub but since I normally don't watch Arabic media I couldn't determine the actual quality of it. From what I could tell it was good. I switched between Japanese and Arabic on some small periods to compare them and honestly the Japanese dub was probably better but that might just be my weeaboo side speaking. I don't think you can go wrong either way.

Yes this movie has many flaws if you approach it critically but I still enjoyed it. The characters aren't all that memorable except for Aws the main character and his friend Zurara. Abraha was cool but his actual goals come off as cartoonish villainy because his religious motivations were cut. It has poor pacing and probably shouldn't have been nearly 2 hours long. I honestly think this movie would've been better if it was a little shorter. I think anyone can enjoy it if they have 2 hours to spare however. Just don't expect anything too fancy.
I hope Manga Productions keep making new anime that will be better than this.
I'd like to see more anime based on Islamic tales and history. Obviously they can't depict the life of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ due to strict anti-idolatry laws of Islam. But a series based on Khalid bin Walid animated like Wit Studio's Vinland Saga could be wild if done properly.

Oussema said:

I agree with all the positive and negative points you mentioned !
But I'm still wondering why they chose to base the movie on this particular story while there are longer and more complex stories. As a result of their choice i thought that all the characters ( maybe except Aws) were one-dimentional and i didn't care about any of them
Anyway it was a different thing to watch and it was kinda fun. Hopefully we'll see more Arabic or islamic stories in anime

0451 said:
yeah looking back my comment about the movie seems more like a review than a... comment.
lol
glad you liked it

It baffles me why they chose to adapt this particular story too.
If they had to adapt something from the Quran they could've adapted Dhul Qarnayn where they could've taken more "creative liberties".
I would've liked adaptations of Prophet Uzayr or Surah Yusuf from the Quran too, the latter of which I think is the most unique chapter due to its structure being like an epic whereas other chapters are usually more poetic. But since these stories focus on the Prophets I suppose an animated movie would be impossible due to anti-idolatry rulings like I already said.

Those who don't know much about the characters I mentioned here should search them on YouTube. There are some good narrations telling their story out there.

0451 said:
Saudi Arabia x Japan is a collaboration I never expected to see in my life. After watching the trailer which I think came out like a year ago I wasn't all that excited. But the movie is finally accessible to a wider audience now and after learning that the story of this movie is actually based on Surah Al-Fil I was shook and I knew then I had to check it out.

Surah Al-Fil (Chapter of the Elephant) is the 105th surah of the Holy Quran and it's one of the shortest chapters with only 5 verses(!). How they stretched that into nearly 2 hours I had no idea and that's the thing I mainly wanted to find out by watching the movie.

The story itself which was told in the surah took place in 570CE just a few months before the birth of the Last Messenger Muhammad ﷺ. So it's definitely one of the most important folktales or history (depending on who you ask) of the Meccan Arabs.
But that's basically where the similarity ends. The anime movie takes lots of creative liberties that deviates from the story I was told by introducing many original characters. Having original characters isn't necessarily a bad thing but that isn't the only thing that's "new" in the movie.
According to the original story that I heard before, Abraha's forces didn't fight any Meccan warriors. The grandfather of the Prophet ﷺ Abdul Muttalib didn't decide to fight back and left the whole thing up to God's hands. And God did His job of protecting His sanctuary that'd later be purified by Muhammad ﷺ.
They even changed the existing characters.
Abraha al-Ashram himself was a Christian ruler and originally he built a beautiful Church in his capital but after it failed to get many pilgrims he decided to destroy its closest competitor, the Ka'aba which was in Mecca, the largest trade center in the Arab peninsula. I find it strange that in the anime he turned into more of an atheist(?) or at least irreligious. Japan's Christian population is currently larger than its Muslim minority so it's possible they played it safe to avoid any controversy.
But that isn't the thing, the movie has this weird vibe of portraying the Meccans as monotheists when in reality the majority of the pre-Islamic Arabs were polytheists. The Ka'aba itself housed 360 idols, all of which were destroyed by Muhammad ﷺ's own hands in 630CE after the bloodless conquest of Mecca. I feel like Saudi Arabians are the ones who asked for this change to make the Meccans look more like how they are now which is a bit disappointing but I understand why they did it.

The narration at the beginning by Aws was a bit jarring to me but thankfully there wasn't much of it in the middle of the movie during the action. I thought it was interesting that stories of 3 Prophets (Nuh AS, Musa AS and Hud AS) were told from the perspective of basically side characters (which I never heard of before so I assume they were original). These small segments ranged from around 5 to 10 minutes and I actually liked them a lot. Sure they weren't anything I didn't already before but it was cool to see them "animated". The artstyle used for Aad, the people of Hud AS was the highlight for me.
These scenes were a nice change of pace from the regular desert sceneries which understandably looked kinda boring. Narratively they also had huge significance as they foreshadowed the miraculous ending of the movie.

Lots of media nowadays tries to portray God as a "villain" and relying on fate or destiny as "weak", especially in Japan with JRPGs involving kids slaying ancient gods and the world still continuing like normal. The ending of this movie with the involvement of an All-Powerful AND JUST God was a breath of fresh air. But it also made me realize why movies tend to avoid using miracles that might be too on the nose nowadays.

Like I said the battle itself didn't take place and there were no Meccan casualties. And Abraha and his army were turned into mincemeat (their corpses becoming indistinguishable from person to person and the elephants) from the small pebbles dropped by the ababil on their way which were later discovered.
Abraha didn’t die getting crushed by a huge piece of rock like it was in the anime (tho I admit it was rad as hell). He retreated after getting fatally wounded only to collapse before entering his capital iirc.
(But what do I know, maybe there was a battle. Allahu Alam) Afaik the Abdul Muttalib and the other Meccans knew about Abraha's goals but they chose not to fight like I previously stated.
But this wouldn't make for a very compelling narrative. New characters like Aws ibn Jubair and Zurara weren't bad though I probably wouldn't remember them after a few months. The design of the characters were actually really good and didn't feel too anime. The fights also seemed reasonably realistic, I thought they'd go all-out with crazy anime fight scenes with maybe magic and djinns and stuff but maybe Toei didn't have enough budget to go that far. In the end the movie probably only benefitted from this choice imo.

I've watched the Arabic dub but since I normally don't watch Arabic media I couldn't determine the actual quality of it. From what I could tell it was good. I switched between Japanese and Arabic on some small periods to compare them and honestly the Japanese dub was probably better but that might just be my weeaboo side speaking. I don't think you can go wrong either way.

Yes this movie has many flaws if you approach it critically but I still enjoyed it. The characters aren't all that memorable except for Aws the main character and his friend Zurara. Abraha was cool but his actual goals come off as cartoonish villainy because his religious motivations were cut. It has poor pacing and probably shouldn't have been nearly 2 hours long. I honestly think this movie would've been better if it was a little shorter. I think anyone can enjoy it if they have 2 hours to spare however. Just don't expect anything too fancy.
I hope Manga Productions keep making new anime that will be better than this.
I'd like to see more anime based on Islamic tales and history. Obviously they can't depict the life of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ due to strict anti-idolatry laws of Islam. But a series based on Khalid bin Walid animated like Wit Studio's Vinland Saga could be wild if done properly.

0451 said:
Saudi Arabia x Japan is a collaboration I never expected to see in my life. After watching the trailer which I think came out like a year ago I wasn't all that excited. But the movie is finally accessible to a wider audience now and after learning that the story of this movie is actually based on Surah Al-Fil I was shook and I knew then I had to check it out.

Surah Al-Fil (Chapter of the Elephant) is the 105th surah of the Holy Quran and it's one of the shortest chapters with only 5 verses(!). How they stretched that into nearly 2 hours I had no idea and that's the thing I mainly wanted to find out by watching the movie.

The story itself which was told in the surah took place in 570CE just a few months before the birth of the Last Messenger Muhammad ﷺ. So it's definitely one of the most important folktales or history (depending on who you ask) of the Meccan Arabs.
But that's basically where the similarity ends. The anime movie takes lots of creative liberties that deviates from the story I was told by introducing many original characters. Having original characters isn't necessarily a bad thing but that isn't the only thing that's "new" in the movie.
According to the original story that I heard before, Abraha's forces didn't fight any Meccan warriors. The grandfather of the Prophet ﷺ Abdul Muttalib didn't decide to fight back and left the whole thing up to God's hands. And God did His job of protecting His sanctuary that'd later be purified by Muhammad ﷺ.
They even changed the existing characters.
Abraha al-Ashram himself was a Christian ruler and originally he built a beautiful Church in his capital but after it failed to get many pilgrims he decided to destroy its closest competitor, the Ka'aba which was in Mecca, the largest trade center in the Arab peninsula. I find it strange that in the anime he turned into more of an atheist(?) or at least irreligious. Japan's Christian population is currently larger than its Muslim minority so it's possible they played it safe to avoid any controversy.
But that isn't the thing, the movie has this weird vibe of portraying the Meccans as monotheists when in reality the majority of the pre-Islamic Arabs were polytheists. The Ka'aba itself housed 360 idols, all of which were destroyed by Muhammad ﷺ's own hands in 630CE after the bloodless conquest of Mecca. I feel like Saudi Arabians are the ones who asked for this change to make the Meccans look more like how they are now which is a bit disappointing but I understand why they did it.

The narration at the beginning by Aws was a bit jarring to me but thankfully there wasn't much of it in the middle of the movie during the action. I thought it was interesting that stories of 3 Prophets (Nuh AS, Musa AS and Hud AS) were told from the perspective of basically side characters (which I never heard of before so I assume they were original). These small segments ranged from around 5 to 10 minutes and I actually liked them a lot. Sure they weren't anything I didn't already before but it was cool to see them "animated". The artstyle used for Aad, the people of Hud AS was the highlight for me.
These scenes were a nice change of pace from the regular desert sceneries which understandably looked kinda boring. Narratively they also had huge significance as they foreshadowed the miraculous ending of the movie.

Lots of media nowadays tries to portray God as a "villain" and relying on fate or destiny as "weak", especially in Japan with JRPGs involving kids slaying ancient gods and the world still continuing like normal. The ending of this movie with the involvement of an All-Powerful AND JUST God was a breath of fresh air. But it also made me realize why movies tend to avoid using miracles that might be too on the nose nowadays.

Like I said the battle itself didn't take place and there were no Meccan casualties. And Abraha and his army were turned into mincemeat (their corpses becoming indistinguishable from person to person and the elephants) from the small pebbles dropped by the ababil on their way which were later discovered.
Abraha didn’t die getting crushed by a huge piece of rock like it was in the anime (tho I admit it was rad as hell). He retreated after getting fatally wounded only to collapse before entering his capital iirc.
(But what do I know, maybe there was a battle. Allahu Alam) Afaik the Abdul Muttalib and the other Meccans knew about Abraha's goals but they chose not to fight like I previously stated.
But this wouldn't make for a very compelling narrative. New characters like Aws ibn Jubair and Zurara weren't bad though I probably wouldn't remember them after a few months. The design of the characters were actually really good and didn't feel too anime. The fights also seemed reasonably realistic, I thought they'd go all-out with crazy anime fight scenes with maybe magic and djinns and stuff but maybe Toei didn't have enough budget to go that far. In the end the movie probably only benefitted from this choice imo.

I've watched the Arabic dub but since I normally don't watch Arabic media I couldn't determine the actual quality of it. From what I could tell it was good. I switched between Japanese and Arabic on some small periods to compare them and honestly the Japanese dub was probably better but that might just be my weeaboo side speaking. I don't think you can go wrong either way.

Yes this movie has many flaws if you approach it critically but I still enjoyed it. The characters aren't all that memorable except for Aws the main character and his friend Zurara. Abraha was cool but his actual goals come off as cartoonish villainy because his religious motivations were cut. It has poor pacing and probably shouldn't have been nearly 2 hours long. I honestly think this movie would've been better if it was a little shorter. I think anyone can enjoy it if they have 2 hours to spare however. Just don't expect anything too fancy.
I hope Manga Productions keep making new anime that will be better than this.
I'd like to see more anime based on Islamic tales and history. Obviously they can't depict the life of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ due to strict anti-idolatry laws of Islam. But a series based on Khalid bin Walid animated like Wit Studio's Vinland Saga could be wild if done properly.

0451 said:
Saudi Arabia x Japan is a collaboration I never expected to see in my life. After watching the trailer which I think came out like a year ago I wasn't all that excited. But the movie is finally accessible to a wider audience now and after learning that the story of this movie is actually based on Surah Al-Fil I was shook and I knew then I had to check it out.

Surah Al-Fil (Chapter of the Elephant) is the 105th surah of the Holy Quran and it's one of the shortest chapters with only 5 verses(!). How they stretched that into nearly 2 hours I had no idea and that's the thing I mainly wanted to find out by watching the movie.

The story itself which was told in the surah took place in 570CE just a few months before the birth of the Last Messenger Muhammad ﷺ. So it's definitely one of the most important folktales or history (depending on who you ask) of the Meccan Arabs.
But that's basically where the similarity ends. The anime movie takes lots of creative liberties that deviates from the story I was told by introducing many original characters. Having original characters isn't necessarily a bad thing but that isn't the only thing that's "new" in the movie.
According to the original story that I heard before, Abraha's forces didn't fight any Meccan warriors. The grandfather of the Prophet ﷺ Abdul Muttalib didn't decide to fight back and left the whole thing up to God's hands. And God did His job of protecting His sanctuary that'd later be purified by Muhammad ﷺ.
They even changed the existing characters.
Abraha al-Ashram himself was a Christian ruler and originally he built a beautiful Church in his capital but after it failed to get many pilgrims he decided to destroy its closest competitor, the Ka'aba which was in Mecca, the largest trade center in the Arab peninsula. I find it strange that in the anime he turned into more of an atheist(?) or at least irreligious. Japan's Christian population is currently larger than its Muslim minority so it's possible they played it safe to avoid any controversy.
But that isn't the thing, the movie has this weird vibe of portraying the Meccans as monotheists when in reality the majority of the pre-Islamic Arabs were polytheists. The Ka'aba itself housed 360 idols, all of which were destroyed by Muhammad ﷺ's own hands in 630CE after the bloodless conquest of Mecca. I feel like Saudi Arabians are the ones who asked for this change to make the Meccans look more like how they are now which is a bit disappointing but I understand why they did it.

The narration at the beginning by Aws was a bit jarring to me but thankfully there wasn't much of it in the middle of the movie during the action. I thought it was interesting that stories of 3 Prophets (Nuh AS, Musa AS and Hud AS) were told from the perspective of basically side characters (which I never heard of before so I assume they were original). These small segments ranged from around 5 to 10 minutes and I actually liked them a lot. Sure they weren't anything I didn't already before but it was cool to see them "animated". The artstyle used for Aad, the people of Hud AS was the highlight for me.
These scenes were a nice change of pace from the regular desert sceneries which understandably looked kinda boring. Narratively they also had huge significance as they foreshadowed the miraculous ending of the movie.

Lots of media nowadays tries to portray God as a "villain" and relying on fate or destiny as "weak", especially in Japan with JRPGs involving kids slaying ancient gods and the world still continuing like normal. The ending of this movie with the involvement of an All-Powerful AND JUST God was a breath of fresh air. But it also made me realize why movies tend to avoid using miracles that might be too on the nose nowadays.

Like I said the battle itself didn't take place and there were no Meccan casualties. And Abraha and his army were turned into mincemeat (their corpses becoming indistinguishable from person to person and the elephants) from the small pebbles dropped by the ababil on their way which were later discovered.
Abraha didn’t die getting crushed by a huge piece of rock like it was in the anime (tho I admit it was rad as hell). He retreated after getting fatally wounded only to collapse before entering his capital iirc.
(But what do I know, maybe there was a battle. Allahu Alam) Afaik the Abdul Muttalib and the other Meccans knew about Abraha's goals but they chose not to fight like I previously stated.
But this wouldn't make for a very compelling narrative. New characters like Aws ibn Jubair and Zurara weren't bad though I probably wouldn't remember them after a few months. The design of the characters were actually really good and didn't feel too anime. The fights also seemed reasonably realistic, I thought they'd go all-out with crazy anime fight scenes with maybe magic and djinns and stuff but maybe Toei didn't have enough budget to go that far. In the end the movie probably only benefitted from this choice imo.

I've watched the Arabic dub but since I normally don't watch Arabic media I couldn't determine the actual quality of it. From what I could tell it was good. I switched between Japanese and Arabic on some small periods to compare them and honestly the Japanese dub was probably better but that might just be my weeaboo side speaking. I don't think you can go wrong either way.

Yes this movie has many flaws if you approach it critically but I still enjoyed it. The characters aren't all that memorable except for Aws the main character and his friend Zurara. Abraha was cool but his actual goals come off as cartoonish villainy because his religious motivations were cut. It has poor pacing and probably shouldn't have been nearly 2 hours long. I honestly think this movie would've been better if it was a little shorter. I think anyone can enjoy it if they have 2 hours to spare however. Just don't expect anything too fancy.
I hope Manga Productions keep making new anime that will be better than this.
I'd like to see more anime based on Islamic tales and history. Obviously they can't depict the life of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ due to strict anti-idolatry laws of Islam. But a series based on Khalid bin Walid animated like Wit Studio's Vinland Saga could be wild if done properly.

CytonicDevil said:


Firstly, the only reason the people in their OWN mind forbid drawings of prophet because they were afraid people might worship them, Like so called Shia.

Before you say, it’s haram, find me one Surah in the Quran that it is haram.
Before people said drawing the SAHABAH was haram, but now I found it on films and movie. Please before you say, think, is it based on RELIGION that says don’t portray or draw prophets then following by Boeing to them or is this just a cultural ideology?

Man people can’t think these days

Adampk said:
I like it. Great way to bring out folklore and mythologies. Unique style of storytelling. Voice acting was superb. Though animation was inconsistent [felt really good at places and felt poor at places]. Probably the 3 tales suffered most since there ppt slideshow like (though the character designs were really good)

Overall i enjoyed it quite a bit. I definitely made me interested in watching the other animated series

Adampk said:
I like it. Great way to bring out folklore and mythologies. Unique style of storytelling. Voice acting was superb. Though animation was inconsistent [felt really good at places and felt poor at places]. Probably the 3 tales suffered most since there ppt slideshow like (though the character designs were really good)

Overall i enjoyed it quite a bit. I definitely made me interested in watching the other animated series