Look Back Review (TIFF 2026)
Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Look Back, a one-shot manga published in Shonen Jump, is one of those works that works so well because of the medium it’s in. It’s a story about Ayumu Fujino, a girl who draws manga, and her rivalry-turned-lifelong friendship with Kyomoto, another girl who draws manga and is a shut-in, until Fujino draws her out of her shell.
The anime adaptation of Look Back (by director Kiyotaka Oshiyama) is beautiful, but it very much is the same as reading the manga, where panels and pages are simply turned from “still images” to moving. There’s some interesting shot compositions, and I love the music and the voice acting, but it is largely a 1:1 adaptation, there is nothing more you can get from the anime that you’re missing from just reading the source.
This is where the live action adaptation of Look Back (directed by Hirokazu Kore-Eda) stands separate. It adapts most of the manga, with a lot of moments keeping the same framing as Fujimoto did in the manga, but also adds a lot more – replacing monologues with sequences where they can be spoken as dialogue, adding a lot of sequences to fill in space. With manga, because the reader controls the pace, you can sit with a moment for as long as you want. With film, the pace is controlled by the filmmaker (specifically the director and editor, who in this instance is the same person), and as such Kore-Eda’s new sequences perfectly illustrate that feeling of sitting with a moment.
The part of this that stood out to me the most was when the film focuses on the act of creating manga. Unlike in the source, where creation is a quick montage, here it is a big part of the film, with multiple sequences as we see Fujino and Kyomoto develop their skills and try new techniques. At my screening at TIFF (for the North American premiere), Kore-Eda San talked about how reading the manga made him realize that he had to adapt it, and without it he couldn’t move on to his next project, because the manga made him confront why he loved the act of creation. You can see that love expressed through those moments, with so much character injected into how both Fujino and Kyomoto work. It’s wonderful.
It’s a gorgeous film too. It was shot across a whole year and it makes full use of that, with each sequence progressing in time into a new different season, and that remains intact as they age and grow older. Both actresses for Fujino (Natsuki Deguchi portrays the older self, while Furi Nanase portrays the younger self) and Kyomoto (Aju Makita portrays the older self, while Rokka Okada portrays the younger self) perfectly fit as their counterparts, and they look so similar that the age up just works without any problems whatsoever.
I’m also quite fond of how Kore-Eda San reframes the ending of the manga, making it thematically aligned to how he felt upon reading it for the first time and making the viewer too consider if they should sit back or if they should seize the moment and make their own art and express themselves. The ways he and the rest of the cast and crew have reimagined this manga really do place it as one of those creme le da creme comic book adaptations, and you should definitely check out Look Back and read the manga.
