in 2024 tasy Fujimoto is one of the biggest names in manga after the runway success of Chainsaw man in the late 2010s and exploding even further into the spotlight and cultural Zeitgeist with the anime release in 2022 Fujimoto has undeniably become one of the titans of the modern manga landscape but we're not here to talk about chainsaw man at least not directly we're here to talk about a little onot done during a break between chainsaw man part 1 and two a one shot by the name of look back you may be familiar with the name
there's an anime feature that's already out in Japan receiving wild Acclaim slated for Western release next month going into look back I'm not sure what I expected from one of the most subversive Twisted slightly unhinged affectionate working mangaa today but what I definitely wasn't expecting was such a Soulful somber meditation on Art creativity relationships the manga industry and how personal tragedy can sometimes derail all of the above look back is the story of one's personal relationships with the things they create and the people they create them with it's a story about how someone can conflate
creative output with self-worth and it's presumably a very autobiographical look at Fujimoto looking [Laughter] back at his own okay that actually made me laugh at his own place in the manga industry after a time of publishing years of weekly serialization Fujimoto is a very interesting mangaa to me I was reading chainsaw man weekly from about chapter 50 or 60 to the end of part one and I've read a fair share of Fire Punch although I haven't finished it what makes Fujimoto so unique is how brightly his interests namely Cinema really shine through in the way
that he creates if anything else his manga just feels cinematic and not in the way that you can tell that he's clearly gutting for cool moments in anime adaptations but in the way that feels like he's visually translating the Wong car film in his head on to pen and paper if we're going with filmmakers as an analogy if other manga or infinitely polished Marvel movies CGI tuned to Perfection with endless resources behind them Fujimoto is a grimy art housee film that you see in an independent theater an unknown quantity debut on a festival run where
the imperfections and budget constraints don't detract from the experience but actually enhance it fujimoto's art is sketchy and rough compared to the classics of the medium but I think that rough really lends itself to the stories he wants to tell especially when it comes time to convey devastatingly real human emotion something that Fujimoto does better than maybe anyone doing it right now so what is look back why should I read this well dear viewer you've come to the right place because we're going to get into why you should read lookback look back is the story
of two girls aspiring to be manga artists in a relationship that lasts the majority of their lives aumu fuino runs a small manga strip in her Elementary School newspaper something she's infinitely lauded for her classmates look at her as a prodigy and although her art is obviously childish and inexperienced there's a sense of heart and storytelling to her jokes it's clearly evident and everyone around her notices her for being the quote unquote art kid one day fuino was told that another artist panels will also be futured in the paper an enigmatic girl named kimoto who
no one has ever even seen when fujino sees Kimo's art she's stunned koto's art is far more advanced than fujino's with intensely beautiful drawings of still scenes that seem almost poetic in nature compared to kimoto fuino doesn't even compare for someone who's always been the artistic one of the school fujino's identity is immediately shattered fujino vows to become better than kimoto and over the next few years she studies art relentlessly and although she improves by Leaps and Bounds the mysterious kioto is also improving with her backgrounds becoming dangerously professional with no chance to ever compete
with her unseen rival fuino quits art altogether on the day of her Elementary graduation fujino's teacher tasks her with delivering koto's diploma after all with her shared newspaper page fuino is probably the closest thing kimoto had to a proper classmate fujino makes the trip to koto's place only to realize that kimoto is a hikikomori a shut in who doesn't leave her room outside of her room are countless sketchbooks lining the hallways and in this instant we get the confirmation of something we only could have assumed till now kimoto wasn't just naturally gifted at drawing these
Landscapes she was practicing consistently to get to that level and that time that she wasn't going to school and interacting with others was probably time she spent honing her drawing skills a lot of the time Envy toward creative Talent is unjustified fuino envied koto's perceived Talent without taking into account the debilitating life circumstances that led her to god-given Natural Talent art like anything creative is 95% mileage just putting in the work and fujino's small stack of sketchbooks that she throws away was nothing compared to koto's literal hallway of filled sketchbooks there's this moment of soft
realization where it sinks into fuino that her rival wasn't just someone who was better than her by chance kimoto was just working just as hard if not harder than she was unable to get a response from kimoto from behind the door fuino does what she does best she draws a funny Charming comic strip before realizing the whole thing is stupid and leaving but as she turns to leave she drops the comic which slips under the door oh no but as fuino actually does leave kimoto builds up her courage and runs after her as it turns
out kimoto has always been a fan of fujino's Comics proudly touting her as a manga genius kimoto looked at fuino as The Talented one and was trying to catch up to her and she was devastated when fuino stopped drawing fuino spins a quick lie that she's only been on the Hiatus to begin working on a real Bonafide submission to a manga contest after kimoto asks her hero to sign the only thing she has on her at the time her shirt the two girls decide that maybe they can put their differences aside and team up to
work on fujino's manga submission [Music] [Music] together now if you haven't read look back or seen the movie I guess it's literally coming out right away please go do that and then come back the rest of this video will have spoilers so you have been warned now it's not hard here to see a bit of The Duality between these characters and it's also not hard to see that they're both presumably sides of Fujimoto himself you know Fuji no Moto fujioto um it's really not that subtle fuino represents storytelling heart comedy and the innate intangible quality
that draws people to creative Endeavors even if technically they might not be perfect kimoto on the other hand is his technical proficiency without anything to say beautiful painstakingly detailed art that ultimately lacks palatability to a wider audience it's through the marriage of these two sides of himself his own art and these characters that we kind of get a deeper understanding of how Fujimoto views his own creative process over the years fuino and kimoto work on manga together becoming Inseparable friends and creative Partners fuino drawing the characters and kimoto working on the backgrounds they submit countless
manga to magazines and are both heralded as young prodigies of the medium after a bunch of one shots the girls are finally invited to work on their first serialization fire punch sorry shark kick but there's a sadness about this meeting as if koto's heart isn't entirely there on the walk back kimoto tells fuino what we might have already suspected that she wants to leave the partnership declining to work on shark kick to go to Art School even though she's shy and nervous she wants to improve her art skills and get more comfortable around people but
this is met with nothing but hostility and negativity from fuino who sees this suggestion as an unacceptable betrayal to everything they've worked so hard to achieve together fuino leaves after saying some cutting half-truths and does Shar kick on her own the two never speak again shark kick explodes in popularity getting volume after after volume eventually even an anime adaptation fuino now lives in a beautiful modern apartment with an expensive digital setup despite that we still see that she doesn't draw her own backgrounds one day as fuino is working like usual she casually glances at the
TV and sees a news report a sudden attack and mass murder at the nearby Art School fujino's heart drops and she calls her old friend no answer she gets a call from her mother she cries kimoto was the victim in this senseless act of violence and despite what we see to the contrary the deranged man thought that kimoto was copying his art the culprit later admits that he would have done it anyway the rest of the manga deals with fujino's grief as she puts shark kick on indefinite Hiatus she returns to koto's childhood home and
regrets ever drawing the stupid comic strip they brought them together all those years ago she imagines what she could have done differently if they never met at all she never would have pursued art again she would have continued with karate and would have been able to save kimoto with his surprise karate kick to the spine listen man it's Fujimoto you knew there were going to be some Goofs along the way but all of this is just an escape from the devastating reality the kimoto is gone when suddenly a piece of paper flits from under the
doorway exactly as how fujino did all those years ago fuino looks at the comic from kimoto she enters koto's room not sure what to even expect it's not like kimoto could still be alive and this was all just a mistake a bad dream only to find nothing it's an empty [Music] room but it's not empty all around koto's room her old manga strp whole volumes of shark kick and even the shirt signature from all those years ago despite everything despite their falling out kioto was always rooting for her friend fuino reflects on why she even
makes manga to begin with in something anyone that makes things can relate to why even do it why make anything what's the point creativity is hard it's unglamorous it's timec consuming times nothing works the way you want it to but at the end of all that painstaking work there's always someone on the other side rooting for you someone's life that you made better with something only you could create on the other side of all of it is a smile fuino stands up stealing her resolve and gets back to drawing look back is a beautiful story
about artists life the hardship of creative work that even though making art is a labor of love it's also hard and there's real humans on both sides of it artist and audience it's a commentary on the manga industry by someone who is at once fujino and kimoto both both feeling like a young agil Prodigy and a relatively inexperienced newcomer to a brutal Cutthroat industry it's also a story about how personal tragedy can sometimes freeze that very creativity in its tracks and how a manga Hiatus can often be a whole lot more devastating and personal to
the artist than it is a slight on impatient fans but maybe the biggest takeaway from look back is that you never know the effect that your art has on others fuino assumed kimoto wanted to be her rival and take away her identity as the class's best artist she had no idea that kimoto looked up to her her she assumed kimoto wanted to leave their partnership to pursue her own Artistic Endeavors but really kimoto just wanted to become a better artist so she could make their manga even better in the future for both of their sake
in some ways fuino did take Koto for granted and it's a heartbreaking reality that they never got to mend their relationship it's a story that's a painfully cute Coming of Age tale with a slice of comedy and Supernatural weirdness that's typical for Fujimoto manga and even even though it is a tragedy there's a hopeful optimism to the end of this thing where fuino realizes why she creates in the first place is to see the reactions on the faces of people that she makes the things for ultimately I think it's a really good message and a
really necessary one if you do create things all in all if it's not obvious I strongly recommend look back it's a manga that's at once beautifully minimalist and disarmingly real with the passage of time often taking place wordlessly between panels and Pages only shown by the main characters drawing and hanging out it's a manga with striking emotional beats but that also doubles as a commentary on fujimoto's own experience with drawing manga but more than anything I think it's a love letter to the art of making things of pursuing creative Endeavors even if you don't feel
like it or immediately see the benefits because behind everything that you do make there could be someone smiling on the other [Music] side thank you guys so much for checking out the video please subscribe leave a like and leave a comment all that algorithm stuff if you want to help out the channel it does really help me out personally and if you'd like to support the channel um you can check out my patreon or become a YouTube channel member all of the vods to my manga reading streams are up on patreon so you can get
the entire backlog to those we've read half of delicious in Dungeon almost all of which had a helier look back and there's going to be way more to come I would really appreciate if you uh wanted to support uh but if not just leave a comment what did you think of look back are you excited for the movie have you seen the movie um I know I'll be watching it in October as soon as I can but uh thank you guys so much I hope you like the video and until the next one [Music]
