Look Back review

LOOK BACK: 

ANIME FILM VERSION OF WEB MANGA IS A BEAUTIFUL, MOVING, AND EMOTIONALLY POWERFUL LOVE LETTER TO DRAWING! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: **** out of 4 (Ten Stars if necessary!)

GKIDS AND MGM

Fujino and Kyomoto in Look Back

 

            You ever have that feeling where you hear about a movie that you’ve never seen any trailers or advertisements for yet positive word of mouth from your peers is enough for you to go see it and feel the urge to express your own thoughts on it after being moved and blown away by what you just saw? That’s pretty much what happened with me when I went to see Look Back, an anime film adaptation of the web manga by Chainsaw Man’s Tatsuki Fujimoto. 

            The film is directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama and aside from watching the trailer online right before going to see it, I knew very little about this movie. I never read the manga before and I didn’t even hear about it until a few days ago. 

            But because of all the unanimous praise the movie has been getting, I decided to check it out…and I am so grateful that I did because Look Back is about as perfect a film as you could get. As someone who drew a lot of cartoons in school as a kid, I could relate to quite a bit of this film, but even without that connection I was captivated and enthralled throughout, literally I was hooked just by its opening and I didn’t even care that it was Japanese language with English subtitles. 

            The film follows popular, ongoing Fujino who is celebrated by her classmates for her funny comics in the class newspaper. But when her teacher asks her to share the space with a truant recluse named Kyomoto with a beautiful art style, it sparks a competitive fervor in Fujino. 

            However, what begins as jealousy transforms into an unbreakable friendship between Fujino and Kyomoto after Fujino realizes their shared passion for drawing. 

            Overall, Look Back is easily one of the best anime films I’ve ever seen, I’ll go on record and say it’s one of the best films I’ve seen as well. This is a beautiful and very personal film from its creators and you can feel the love and passion for those who pour their blood, sweat, and tears into their art much like Fujino and Kyomoto here.

            The animation is gorgeous and visually striking, sometimes even taking different art forms that looks incredible on the big screen. Some of my favorite sequences are a perspective one-shot of a character running through a house and opening the front door and another where one of the characters is skipping in the rain, very simple moments but so beautifully animated and phenomenally put together. 

            This is also a movie I think would only work in animation because while a story like this probably can be told in live-action, it would be nowhere near as effective as it is here. Especially since a lot of the story is told through visuals whether it’s the drawings of the two characters or Fujino taking Kyomoto out into the unknown real world. 

            I think anyone who loves art regardless of the quality or form can take something away from this film and be emotionally attached to its story, themes, and characters. I think Fujino and Kyomoto are some of the best anime protagonists in recent years and I love how they’re essentially polar opposites from one another with Fujino having this dry, somewhat cynical personality while Kyomoto is this socially awkward, reclusive person and you 100% buy their friendship throughout. 

            One of the themes the movie explores is understanding why a person draws which I found incredibly fascinating because there’s no clear answer to it. Sometimes you draw just for fun and other times it’s to express yourself or how you’re feeling and this film understands that perfectly and the emotions both Fujino and Kyomoto have with their drawings are very genuine. 

            The movie gets pretty gut-wrenching and heavy in its third act with something happening to one of the girls that initially I was against because I loved their chemistry and seeing them together. But as it went on and I saw what it was building up to, it immediately won me over with a heartfelt and touching final note. 

            People, this could have easily been a movie that flies under my radar due to my attention being focused on much larger releases but Look Back managed to surpass my expectations and skyrocket all the way up to the best movie I’ve seen all year so far. It’s a beautiful, heavy, and inspiring love letter to drawing and artists and a captivating anime film that can even rival the works of Studio Ghibli and Makoto Shinkai, it’s a life-changing movie that I will gladly draw myself more viewings of in the future.