GKIDS presents a new anime film, that is based on an autobiographical manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto best known for Chainsaw Man: Look Back. The picture is directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama, who also curated the character designs. He adapted the 143-page one-shot web manga that was published on Shueisha’s Shōnen Jump+ and that, upon its release, garnered 2.5 million reads on its first date of digital publication, climbing to over 4 million in two days. The manga went on to receive numerous awards and nominations, including a nomination at the 2023 Eisner Awards. The motion picture debuted at the 2024 Annecy International Film Festival and held sold-out premieres at New York City’s Japan Cuts and Los Angeles’ Anime Expo.
The film’s narrative focuses on two young girls. Ayumu Fujino (voiced by Yuumi Kawai) is praised by her classmates for her amusing comics in the school newspaper. Her pride and popularity are challenged one day, when her teacher asks her to share the space with Kyomoto (voiced by Mizuki Yoshida), a girl whose social anxiety has lead her to being a recluse and not attend school. Kyomoto’s pulchritudinous artwork sparks a competitive fervour in Fujino, who enhances her drawing efforts.
Look Back delicately exposes rivalries that morph into teamwork, as well as the ups and downs of the artistic profession, even when it is embraced within an academic context and hasn’t yet kicked off in a work environment. The film is way beyond the conventional coming-of-age drama, as the making of a work of art becomes therapeutic and possibly life-changing.
This animation — produced by Studio Durian — marks Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s feature-length directorial debut. Look Back begins as an educational tale about the importance of creative collaboration between two girls who dream of becoming manga authors. Without giving too much away, it can be said that the film also explores, through phantasmagoria, the social phenomenon of school shootings. In fact, as the story progresses a tragic event occurs transforming the film into a Sliding Doors scenario, in which “what-ifs” run parallel in portraying different life developments, uniting the truant and ambitious school girls.
Not only does Look Back embark upon a philosophical trajectory, but it interweaves — from the very beginning — the imaginative world that is transferred by two artists from their mind on paper. Each of their comic strips comes to life through an animated stream-of consciousness, that can compare to the realm of flowing thoughts of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. If these two European authors applied this style through words, the Japanese animator translates this expressive style through manga imagery. Thus, the Yonkoma (manga strip) transforms into a portal of possible life evolutions and dreamy escapist dimensions.
Images are courtesy of GKIDS
Final Grade: B-