Hurt me once, shame on you. Hurt me twice, shame on me. Hurt me three times, shame on Fujimoto.
Actually, shame on Fujimoto all three times.
GKIDS released the teaser for the live-action film adaptation of Look Back and opens with the two friends hanging out before going back to their first meeting at school. The movie stars Natsuki Deguchi as Fujino and Aju Makita as Kyomoto. Furi Nanase and Rokka Okada will portray the younger versions of Fujino and Kyomoto, respectively. Hirokazu Kore-eda will direct, write, and edit the film while Yuta Bando (BELLE) will compose the music.
Two teaser visuals were also released of the friends working together on their manga before sweetly falling asleep on the table.
Look Back follows a young girl named Ayumu Fujino whose confidence in her manga-drawing skills get shattered when a fellow classmate named Kyomoto proves her art skills surpasses Fujino’s. Although Fujino makes every attempt to get better than Kyomoto, it proves fruitless. When Fujino is tasked with delivering her school diploma to Kyomoto’s house, she’s startled to find Kyomoto idolizes her and has been following Fujino’s manga in the school paper for a long time. The two quickly become friends and work together to write and publish manga. As they grow older, they start growing apart and eventually go on separate paths. However, Fujino quits drawing when tragedy strikes.
The one-shot, written and illustrated by Chainsaw Man‘s Tatsuki Fujimoto, debuted on Shonen Jump+ on July 19, 2021 and hit 2.5 million views in one day. The story, comprised of 143 pages, received acclaim worldwide with many praising Fujimoto’s heartbreaking storytelling about loss, grief, and friendship. Look Back was nominated for the Eisner Award in the “Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Asia” and won Rakuten Kobo’s E-book Award in the “One Complete Volume! One-Shot Manga” in 2023.
The story inspired an anime film adaptation that was produced by Studio Durian that premiered on June 28, 2024. The film won “Best Animated Picture” at the Japan Academy Film Prize, “Daruma for Best Feature Film” at the Japan Expo Awards, and “Animation of the Year (Feature Film” at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival.
A release date has not yet been announced although the film will release sometime this year in Japan, the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Ireland.
Source: YouTube
