The film was released in Japanese theaters on June 25, 2021. Toei subsidiary T-Joy had the distribution rights for the film in Japan, and later distributed by Toei Animation. VOX Cinemas has theatrical rights for the film in the Middle East and North Africa region. The film is scheduled to release in 2021. The Journey was originally planned to make its premiere in 2020 at the Cannes Film Festival which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film finished production by February 2020. The film project's cost ranges from $10–15 million. Production work for The Journey was done both in Tokyo and Riyadh. The character design for the film was done by Tatsuro Iwamoto and musical score was by Kaoru Wada. The Journey was directed by Kōbun Shizuno with Atsuhiro Tomioka providing the screenplay. This film is the second animated work made by Manga in collaboration with Toei with the first being animated series Future’s Folktales. The Journey, which was based on Saudi folklore, is a joint collaboration which began in November 2017 between two animation studios Manga Productions of Saudi Arabia and Toei Animation of Japan.
