Why is it that we create art? Certainly not for the adulation of the crowd; for beyond the theoretically accommodating audience of your close family and friends, there is little chance you’ll be impressing anyone without putting in thankless, outrageously time-consuming practice for any hope of positive return. Doubly so for financial incentives, which have frequently eluded even the most popular and historically celebrated of artists. Is it simply so difficult for us to express our feelings plainly and move on with our lives? Is there some form of egoism inherent to our species, that we must believe our particular thoughts are so noteworthy they demand public distribution? Is making art just another way of fearing death?
Tatsuki Fujimoto would likely agree with all three of those conjectures. Look Back’s original creator is one of our greatest working mangaka, and possibly the only current mangaka who has somehow made a devil’s deal allowing him to be wildly popular in the shonen manga space while not compromising whatsoever in terms of his work’s thematic acuity and acerbic bite. Chainsaw Man is both a mile-a-minute action rollercoaster and a searing, irreverent indictment of modern society, a sneering rejection of the usual shonen “friendship, effort, success” paradigm. Such an ethos would only be of use to Chainsaw Man’s antagonists, lulling their deluded victims into sacrificing themselves for a system that eats youth and shits death.
Fujimoto’s smaller self-contained works are at least as impressive, simultaneous punk rock anthems and carefully observed character studies, assessing the modern world and our desperate lives with both empathy and defiance. He is both Crumb and Bechdel, an outsider putting our most intimate feelings under the microscope, and discovering both the hilarity and humanity therein. If anime has a future as significant art, Fujimoto is one of the clearest reasons why.
Fortunately, Fujimoto is not alone in seeking profundity through animation. Look Back director Kiyotaka Oshiyama has already proven himself one of the most talented and, perhaps more importantly, most artistically ambitious artists of our modern era, persistently seeking out projects that prioritize personal creativity and thematic substance, and elevating each of them through his own contributions. He has worked with many of the industry’s similarly noteworthy directors, including Masaaki Yuasa, Shinichiro Watanabe, Mitsuo Iso, and Yuzuru Tachikawa. His own Flip Flappers is a marvel of fantastical scenery and psychological inquiry, demonstrating with its every episode the wonders only animation can bring us, and counting among the most imaginative and poignant stories of the last decade.
The two of them collectively embody the hope of anime’s future – that incisive, inventive, and challenging art might still emerge among a sea of indulgent distractions, that anime can still triumph as an art form marked with deeply personal works of human investigation. It is a very hard thing to make genuinely great art within such a commercially cross-integrated and labor-intensive medium; every artist who attempts to do so is fighting against the tide, a struggle embodied through the labors of Look Back’s two young heroines.
The film opens with the most defining image of that struggle: sitting at your desk and staring down at your work, scratching and erasing and willing it into a form you don’t hate to look at. Whether a comic, a painting, or a manuscript, the frustration is the same, that itching at the inside of your skull, the painful certainty that you’re just short of the skills or ideas that might actually bring your work to life. Look Back’s avatar of this frustration is Fujino, a fourth grader who draws four-panel gag comics for her school newsletter. Fujino basks in the adulation she receives for her natural abilities, until a shut-in named Kyomoto requests a comic space of her own, and utterly trounces Fujino’s scribbles with her evocative, realistic renderings of their adolescent world.
Nothing sparks a creative fire like a hated rival, and so Fujino sets to work, dedicating herself wholly to study and practice for the next two years. Fujino retreats from her family and grows distant from her friends, all in order to surpass Kyomoto – yet for all her efforts, two years bring her no closer to her rival’s level. And so she gives up on manga, turning her gaze upward and enjoying the myriad pleasures of youth, only thinking of Kyomoto again when she’s forced to deliver the girl’s certificate of graduation. An idle thought in Kyomoto’s home prompts one more four-panel, which accidentally slips under her rival’s door, introducing her to the girl who knows her as “Fujino-sensei,” who has loved her works ever since she started drawing, and who asks with furtive, hopeless audacity, “why did you stop drawing?”
Thus begins the partnership of Fujino and Kyomoto, as they collectively strive to hone their abilities, and to create works that will resonate with the world. There’s a certain scrappy vitality, an intimacy in how well Look Back’s form echoes this narrative quest. Fujimoto’s character art possesses a vital ambiguity – faces get screwed up in unflattering contortions that express contradictory, ungenerous emotions, all of which feels true to the messiness of our actual feelings. Meanwhile, Oshiyama’s personal touch, the blood and sweat he poured into this preposterously short-staffed adaptation, is apparent in Look Back’s every wobbling frame.
The film is the first adaptation to capture the unique texture of Fujimoto’s expressions, as well as the key visual contrast of his manga work: studious background draftsmanship contrasted against loose, exaggerated characters that nonetheless adhere to the core fundamentals of human physicality. His work thus takes place in our world, but starring characters who look how they actually feel – a contrast echoed by the pairing of Fujino and Kyomoto, whose signature strengths are expressive character art and realistic landscapes.
The parallels continue through Fujino’s eventual debut “Shark Kick,” which is clearly just Chainsaw Man, even down to its specific volume covers. Fujimoto never hides the fact that he’s talking about himself; in fact, he often seems to sneer directly at the camera, attesting that absolute emotional sincerity and painful revelation can exist alongside such unruly digressions as Goodbye, Eri’s explosions or Chainsaw Man’s dick-kicking. Like with his character art, Fujimoto’s narratives emphasize that how we process our most profound emotions is often petty and ugly, not fitting into the sanitized channels they are afforded in so much of modern storytelling.
There is little ambiguity in Look Back’s narrative, only two characters of note, and only one major narrative twist. The story being adapted is a simple one, but there is beauty in that simplicity – the film is a pure, unadorned articulation of what it is to create, the bargains and sacrifices we make in order to exist as artists. Look Back’s story could as well be told in repeats of that first silent minute, as Fujino stares in frustration at her would-be masterpiece. It is brimming with tiny, well-observed reflections on creativity, from the ease with which Fujino initially disregards her own silent efforts, to the fury with which she attempts to surpass Kyomoto. How we tend to downplay the agony of creation, all those long hours spent bashing our heads against some idea, certain it could be as compelling in reality as it was when we envisioned it, if only our stupid hands and useless words could somehow conjure it into reality. And how one negative comment can outweigh all the praise we’ve ever received, wedged painfully in our teeth long after the commenter has undoubtedly forgotten it.
It is a work told in montage, because the artist’s life is one of montage, as so many of the beautiful things in the world pass us by, caught briefly through the window as we slave at our desks. As a fourth grader with a passing interest in drawing, Fujino is able to delight in the thought that she’s just as good at sports as she is at drawing. By the time sixth grade comes around, the needs of genuine artistic commitment have made her an outcast, a figure of curiosity who is asked “aren’t you getting too old to keep drawing?” This is what happens – you burn your life to make fuel for artistic development, cashing in all the moments you could spend on other experiences in the hopes that one day, you might create something that is truly, deeply meaningful to others. There’s a lyric I always return to by The Vigilants of Love: “can you give away your life, like a good luck charm?” Such is the quest of the artist.
The process is largely thankless at the best of times, and at others, it can all feel entirely hopeless. The arson attack on Kyoto Animation was a clear inspiration for Look Back, and in both watching this film and reliving that tragedy, I found myself again filled with an absolute void in my gut, a sensation of powerlessness so acute it threatens to choke me, a fatalism which almost broke my love of animation. If these are the monsters such brilliant artists are fighting and literally dying for, what point is there to any of it? What hope do any of us have of making beautiful, inspiring art in a world so viciously hostile to such personal expression, where the obsessive, ownership-minded demon of fandom has taught artists to fear their own audiences?
Making art is so difficult, and we are all so fragile, and it can be easy for the senseless cruelty of human nature to stamp out our inspirations, our passions, or our very lives. Creative passion is embarrassing, is thankless, is strange – like the girls in Fujino’s sixth grade class, most people will see nothing worth praising in the artist’s unglamorous dedication to their craft. And there are no shortcuts; as the stacks of notebooks lining Kyomoto’s home attest, there is no remedy for dissatisfaction with your abilities beyond putting in the endless, endless, endless work.
Look Back does not lie to us about the effort it takes to bring our creative passions to life, nor does it sugarcoat the sort of life anyone who pursues such passions would end up living. Most stories about creatives want us to believe they are just enjoying life as normal, and are occasionally struck by inspiration that flows effortlessly from their pen. Not so – the creative life is a lonely, largely frustrating one, and the act of creation itself is simply work, painstaking effort that may or may not result in something worthwhile. It is a sad fact that even absolute commitment is no assurance of quality; I’d hesitate to call my criticism art, but I do know I’ve worked just as hard on pieces I’ve gladly forgotten as those that count among my best.
All we can hope for is what Fujimo and Kyomoto had from the beginning: a set of shoulders to stare forwards towards, a smiling face to look back upon. Just like Fujino after she initially quit drawing, we often will not be aware how important our work is to others. Most of us will slave away at our passions without ever being proportionately celebrated or remunerated for them, finding contentment only in having thoughts become ideas become projects become done, and hopefully learning enough in the bargain to feel optimistic about the next climb. The catharsis Fujino finds even at this film’s conclusion is one part miracle, nine parts personal reassessment; all we can do is retain that childish sense of wonder within ourselves, embracing, synthesizing, and god willing articulating what is beautiful and inspiring about the works of the artists we love.
Because it still seems worth it, in one way or another. To know something we created actually changed the life of another – to be told our skewed, unwieldy perspective and thankless practice actually meant something, helped someone else feel more okay about themselves, or perhaps a little less alone. As with all else in Look Back, form and content merge in Oshiyama’s depiction of that brilliant moment – of Fujino racing home to sonorous applause, Kyomoto’s praise having assured her that the thing she cares about most in the world was just as important to somebody else. When the fire of your heart, ensconced in all the skill and wit and experience you’ve acquired from years of seemingly thankless practice, actually emerges into the sunlight, and is loved as much by another as all the love it took to bring that flame into being. You don’t get many of those moments, but to those who seek connection through art, they are everything. For as wonderful as it is to be transformed or enriched by a work of art, it is even more magical to be that enrichment, to conjure that magic for another.
We will sprint and we will stumble and we will pick ourselves up, gathering scars and making sacrifices and knowing there’s a whole world out there beyond the tablet, the canvas, the screen. But then again, there’s a whole world inside here, as well – a world contained just within those four panels of encouragement, and then the next mountain to climb, and the next one, and the next. We create because we must – because there is nothing more fundamental to us, as Kyomoto readily demonstrates, going to the same art school even with no Fujino to guide her. There is something wrong with us, yes, but it is beautifully wrong. We tear ourselves into pieces, but those pieces make the world brighter. It will never be worth it in any tangible way. It will always, always, always be worth it.
Fujino wonders repeatedly throughout this film why she draws, what makes all this effort and sacrifice so worthwhile, in spite of the time spent and her lack of natural talent and all she’s lost in the process. “I don’t even like drawing manga,” she admits. “It’s not fun, just plain tedious, and super unglamorous too. I can draw all day long and still be nowhere near finished. I should stick to reading them. Drawing isn’t for me.” So why does she draw at all? For her, the answer is Kyomoto – the knowledge that somewhere, in some universe, her best friend is still rooting for her, still waiting to become her trusted assistant. Through such errant scraps of paper as Fujino and Kyomoto’s four-panels, we can truly find each other, and come to also love ourselves. Does the world really require one more sensible, well-adjusted person who generally enjoys their life? Can we actually remove the pick from our backs, or is it doomed to follow us forever, driving us through pain and loneliness and disappointment, all so the one who inspired us can see where we climb to next?
While Fujino’s answer is quite specific, Look Back as a whole offers a more general prescription for the madness that drives us onward. We create because we just might achieve that feeling of Fujino racing ecstatically home, or at least articulate that feeling for others to understand. We create because in the existence of manga or films like Look Back, humanity has manifested something that is larger than us, that can redress the pain and inflame the spirit of thousands, millions of similar dreamers. We create because we must, because nothing else makes us complete, because one time we were praised for it and nothing has ever been the same since. We create because creation is what we are – because this isn’t just what we live for, it is what makes us alive. One soul touching another, the electricity of creation extending beyond the reach of our tentative hands. Why does Fujino draw? Well, how else do you create miracles?
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