On October 31, thanks to the efforts of studio DEEP, the anime 'Look Back' will be officially shown on big screens in cinemas with dubbing by Flarrow Films. We've already checked out the project, so we tell you why this story about girls drawing mang...
'Look Back' is an adaptation of the one-shot by the author of the popular manga Chainsaw Man, Tatsuki Fujimoto. The adaptation was handled by the little-known Studio DURIAN under the direction of Kiyotaka Oshiyama, who managed to perfectly transfer the source material to the screen and successfully expand it with some additional scenes. It's too early to predict, of course, but there hasn't been a new addition to the ranks of popular Japanese animators for a while. So, maybe?..
On December 27, 2022, the first season of the anime 'Chainsaw Man' ended. The adaptation of the manga of the same name was eagerly awaited worldwide, including in Russia. We tell you what it was like.
Open materialWhat's the Plot?
Young Fujino is in fourth grade and draws a funny four-panel manga for the school newspaper called yonkoma. For example, in her story, a couple in love, after a car accident, swear to each other before dying that, having been reborn (they crashed, by the way, classically into a truck), they will definitely meet and kiss. Years pass, the girl can't wait for her beloved and his kiss, but that doesn't mean her love won't keep his promise. It's just that he reincarnated as a meteorite... And is rushing towards Earth at full speed, puckering his lips!
Thanks to such humorous strips, the elementary school student is very popular among peers and relatives, who predict a future as a manga artist for her. However, one day the teacher asks to let a reclusive girl named Kyomoto publish in one issue, and this changes Fujino's life. Seeing the drawings with detailed backgrounds, her own works seem mediocre to her (and not only to her), so, angered by the emerging rival, the heroine begins to work hard on herself.
For two years, she tirelessly works, improving her skills, until everyone around starts saying it's time to grow out of drawing, because before you know it, you'll turn into an otaku without friends. And at some point, the girl really quits, drastically changing her lifestyle. And again, the same teacher influences the student's fate by asking her to deliver a certificate to the annoying recluse. The girls finally meet, and Kyomoto turns out to be a devoted fan, dreaming of an autograph from her rival. She practically forces Fujino to return to drawing, after which the girls become partners and start working together on their first one-shot!
I Drew Myself
Tatsuki Fujimoto cannot be written off as a one-hit author, if only because, besides 'Chainsaw Man', he has an excellent 'Fire Punch'. And he manages to release one-shots not only in between but also parallel to the story about Denji. The manga 'Look Back' was released in 2021 (it is now even officially translated into Russian and available in bookstores), and in 2022 'Goodbye, Eri' and 'Just Listen' came out, and most likely, their turn will come one day and studios will talk about adaptation. Meanwhile, MAPPA is stalling for time with revealing any details about the movie about Reze, viewers have an excellent opportunity to get acquainted with another side of the popular manga artist's work.
The anime 'Look Back' lasts just over an hour (and if you exclude the credits, probably even less), but in such a short time, the authors manage to tell a complete, engaging story of the lives of two girls with vastly different fates. The characters go from fourth grade to university and work, and yet it cannot be said that the film rushes through events too quickly. No, everything looks very systematic and measured, as if the time allocated was exactly right. It feels like one step here, one step there, and it would be either drawn out or chaotic. Apparently, during the 2.5 months that Kiyotaka Oshiyama slept at the studio, he managed to find the perfect balance for this story.
Most likely, for Fujimoto, this is a very personal and perhaps partly autobiographical work. This can be judged at least from the fact that the heroines' names (Fujino and Kyomoto) easily combine into the author's own surname. Moreover, the anime touches on the difficulty of the manga artist profession. Most people probably believe that such a job is a real happiness. You get published, works sell, ratings hit, printed volumes are released, adaptations appear, money and fame fall from the sky. But that's not entirely true.
To publish regularly, you need to constantly come up with and draw something, and when the work transitions from one-shots to serialized manga, where chapters must be submitted to the editorial office weekly, the artist and their assistants simply drown in work. Not every assistant can withstand such a pace (in 'Look Back', this is directly stated), let alone the author themselves. And besides, how many real-life cases are there where a manga artist puts a story on hiatus to fix serious health problems? Unfortunately, sometimes such dedication to work leads not only to health deterioration but also to real tragedy. This is probably not obvious to many.
Look Around, Look Back
Besides the difficulty of being a manga artist, 'Look Back' also raises other topics for conversation with the viewer. Initially, it's a coming-of-age story that perfectly shows that simple talent is not enough for success. You need to constantly develop and improve your skills (it's safe to assume that the back of the drawing protagonist is shown even more often than her face). And where would we be without the healing power of friendship between opposites? Fujino is a sociable extrovert, and Kyomoto is a withdrawn introvert, and together they complement each other perfectly both in life and work. They even have different engines of competition: one gets angry that someone draws better than her, so she tirelessly works to become the best; the other admires the first's excellent works, so she strives to reach the same high level and match her friend.
However, at one point, the bright story drastically changes direction and 'Look Back' turns into a psychological drama. The author openly talks to the viewer about the strongest feeling of guilt for events that happened due to tragic coincidence, rather than as a result of a natural choice at a certain stage of life. In such cases, people tend to imagine options of how they should have acted long ago, rewriting history so that everyone would be better off now.
And Fujimoto wouldn't be himself if he didn't insert a touch of his characteristic madness into his work. At some point, the anime shows an episode that completely erases the realistic boundary of the story. After seeing it, you don't quite understand: did this really happen, or is everything shown just a fantasy arising from severe emotional stress? In any case, the manga artist's style is easily recognizable: from character design and drawing to references directly to the author's own works (for example, the covers of Fujino's manga 'Shark Kick' look exactly like those of 'Chainsaw Man'). The team led by Kiyotaka Oshiyama did an excellent job on the adaptation.
Incidentally, there is also plenty of internal industry context in 'Look Back'. The girls' first joint one-shot is published by the hugely popular magazine Weekly Shonen Jump, where many popular authors publish their titles, including Fujimoto himself (on the cover of the issue, by the way, is the future Pirate King — Monkey D. Luffy). The anime also contains a direct allusion to the terrible tragedy that affected the anime studio Kyoto Animation in 2019. Perhaps the average viewer won't notice such a number of insider details, but even without them, the story of two girls can conquer and touch to the depths of the soul.
What's the Verdict?
Let the new adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto not be as mainstream as the anime of the beloved Chainsaw Man, but it is a subtle psychological work that manages to take you on an emotional rollercoaster in just one hour. At first, 'Look Back' gives viewers a smile, inspiration, and tenderness, and in the end, leaves them with a heartbreaking feeling of longing and a lump in the throat. I'd like to believe that director Kiyotaka Oshiyama, after such a good adaptation, will not disappear from the radar, but will be able to realize himself in other projects. And fans of the original author's work can only wait and believe that the adaptations won't end with this one-shot.
On December 7, perhaps the last anime of the brilliant Hayao Miyazaki, 'The Boy and the Heron', will be released in official Russian distribution. In this regard, our editorial team decided to briefly tell why.
Open materialBy the way, subscribe to our Telegram channel 'After the Credits' (here's the link). There we post posters, trailers, and various interesting and funny news from the world of cinema.
Comments
0No comments yet.
Sign in to join the discussion.