It's been a strong year for anime. Major titles such as Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen delivered the goods, while Delicious in Dungeon cooked up something special on Netflix and Frieren: Beyond Journey's End staked its (well-earned) claim as one of the top-rated anime of all time by the end of its first season.
Despite 2024's high bar of quality, a new anime movie on Prime Video may have just bested them all at the eleventh hour.
The following contains spoilers for Look Back.
Look Back, an adaptation of Chainsaw Man author Tatsuki Fujimoto's one-shot manga, is something I've been unable to stop thinking about since its debut on Amazon's streaming service earlier this month.
The movie, directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama and described by video game developer Hideo Kojima as one of the "most remarkable" of the past decade, is – at its base level – a story about two girls who form an unlikely bond thanks to their love of drawing manga.
Where one, Fujino, is intensely competitive, the other – Kyomoto – is a recluse whose masterful submissions to the school newspaper's manga panels are her only contributions to anything outside the four walls of her room.
Early on in Look Back, we see the to-and-fro of Fujino's self-taught drive to becoming a great manga artist being overshadowed by Kyomoto's more natural ability. Eventually, Fujino's ice-cold front melts away and the two become friends and artistic partners as they aim to hit it big.
But this isn't a rags-to-riches story. It's something far more heartfelt than that. The first lump-in-the-throat moment from Look Back arrives about a third of the way through its hour runtime – and it involves little more than Fujino heading home after one of her first interactions with the wallflower-like Kyomoto.
As a brisk walk turns into a joyful jig and playful splashing in the rain, Fujino – and the movie itself – is able to express the ungraspable feeling of what it means to create something or to share something you love with another person. It's simple, effective and, thanks to its rotoscope-like movements, is a strong contender for one of the year's most masterfully-animated sequences.
Look Back's magic is found in that one scene. Why? Great movies can make you feel things. The best movies can make you understand why you feel things. Look Back, with just 30 seconds of animation, falls firmly into that latter category.
Drawn together
Just on that heart-swelling merit alone, it would be easy to recommend Look Back. It's the film's latter half that really sees it step into classic territory – and hits as hard as any movie I've watched recently.
Fujino and Kyomoto, inevitably, grow apart. These things happen. As each has different ideas of what they want to do with their career, their paths diverge. In one fell swoop, Fujino strikes out on her own as a significant success and Kyomoto heads to art school.
As an adult, it can be tough to grieve the loss of friends and the shared memory of moments you held dear. Look Back handles that situation through a series of unspoken goodbyes, ones that will resonate with anyone who has lost contact with someone they loved.
Unfortunately, that's not the end. While at art school, Kyomoto is confronted by a crazed member of the public wielding an axe and is killed.
It's a sudden, unthinkable moment. While we never see the massacre itself, we feel its effects – and it's a shattering reminder of what the anime has already lost.
After all, it's difficult to unmoor Kyomoto's death from the real-life tragedy that saw 36 people die after an arson attack at the Kyoto Animation studio in 2019, one of Japan's worst post-World War Two massacres. Fujimoto clearly dealt with this grief two years later by creating art and – through Fujino – imagines an alternate timeline where the day is saved and everyone continues living their lives completely oblivious to what could have happened.
Look Back, through that dual timeline switch, not only mourns the loss of art, but the loss of people. The people in our lives may not be painters, animators, or sculptors yet each, in their own way, are artists; they create the same sense of joy and belonging that a great piece of art does, and we should forever keep them close.
If you can find time to wipe away the tears in its closing 10 minutes, Fujino's final act in Look Back is oddly triumphant. Prior to living a quote-unquote 'normal' life once more back in the original timeline, she heads to Kyomoto's room. There, it's revealed Kyomoto followed Fujino's career from afar, yet never quite found the means to reconnect.
In response, Fujino places an empty four-panel manga on the window of her studio, much like the one from her school newspaper days, and continues drawing as she remembers – via montage – of all the times her art made Kyomoto come out of her shell and be happy.
Then, the kicker: the time for reminiscing is over as the credits roll and Fujino heads back to the grind of her day job as an artist. No more looking back, no flashbacks, but a resilient step forward. The message: everything you do, no matter how small, is worth something. Make sure you live every day as if it were four empty panels, waiting to be filled.
For more, check out the new anime coming your way in 2024 and beyond. Then dive into the latest on Jujutsu Kaisen season 3 and Solo Leveling season 2.
