is a 2024 Japanese animated

coming-of-age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can b ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

based on the

one-shot One shot may refer to: Film and television * One-shot film, a feature film shot in one long take with no edits, or manufactured to look like so * ''One Shot'' (2005 film), a Sri Lankan action film directed by Ranjan Ramanayake * ''One Shot'', a ...

web manga of the same name by

Tatsuki Fujimoto Tatsuki (written: 樹, 達樹, 竜樹, 立規 or 辰希) is a unisex Japanese given name. It is also a Japanese surname (written: 立木). Notable people with the name include: Given name *Tatsuki, Japanese director for anime shows such as '' Kemon ...

. The film is directed by , who also wrote the screenplay and served as a character designer, and produced by Studio Durian. It stars

Yuumi Kawai is a Japanese actress. Career In 2019, Kawai made her acting debut in the short film ''Yodominaku, Yamanai''. In 2022, she was given the Best Newcomer award at the 43rd Yokohama Film Festival for her roles in ''A Balance'' and '' It's a Summer ...

and

Mizuki Yoshida is a Japanese actress. Career In 2017 she was scouted as an actress until making her debut in November 2018 on ''As a Crow, I Looked Down at the World Below''. In June 2019, she made her movie debut in '' Machida-kun's World''. In early 2020, s ...

as two girls with a passion for drawing—the outgoing Fujino (Kawai) and the truant recluse Kyomoto (Yoshida), the latter of whose artistic ability inspires a competitive fervor in Fujino that soon develops into a partnership, furthered by loss in a mass violence event. ''Look Back'' premiered at the French

Annecy International Animation Film Festival The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (, officially abbreviated in English as the Annecy Festival, or simply Annecy) was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of June in the town of Annecy, France. Initially occurring ever ...

in June 2024. It was theatrically released in Japan by

Avex Pictures Avex Inc. ( kabushiki gaisha , commonly known as Avex and stylized as avex) is a Japanese Conglomerate (company), entertainment conglomerate led by founder Max Matsuura and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1988, the company manages J- ...

on June 28, 2024.

Plot

Cast

Production

In February 2024, an

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

film adaptation of the manga ''Look Back'' was announced. In March 2024, it was announced that Kawai and Yoshida had joined the voice cast as Fujino and Kyomoto, respectively.

Music

The music is composed by Haruka Nakamura; the film's theme song, "Light Song", is composed by Nakamura and performed by Urara.

Release

''Look Back'' premiered at the

, which took place in

Annecy, France Annecy ( , ; , also ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. It lies on the northern tip of Lake Annecy, south of Geneva, Switzerland. Nicknamed the "Pe ...

, from June 9–15, 2024, in the "Annecy Presents" category, a non-competitive category created to showcase a variety of international animated films to audiences. ''Look Back'' received a theatrical release in Japan by

on June 28, 2024, screening in 119 theaters nationwide. Due to positive critical and commercial response, including positive

word of mouth Word of mouth is the passing of information from person to person using oral communication, which could be as simple as telling someone the time of day. Storytelling is a common form of word-of-mouth communication where one person tells others a ...

, its release expanded to 11 more theaters on July 5. In the United States, the Japan Society screened the film on July 14, 2024, in Japanese with English subtitles, as part of the "Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Cinema" event at New York. The film has been licensed in North America by

GKIDS GKIDS is an American film and television distributor owned by Toho International. Based in New York City, GKIDS releases mostly international animated films and television series to North American audiences, as well as American films by indepe ...

and premiered in theaters on October 4, 2024. Singapore-based film distributor

Encore Films Encore Films is a film distribution and production company based in Singapore. It distributes primarily Japanese and other Asian content in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong, India and Brunei. Some titles released by ...

licensed the film in Southeast Asian countries and released it in theaters. The film was released worldwide on

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...

on November 7, 2024, by

Amazon MGM Studios Amazon MGM Studios is an American film and television production and distribution company owned by Amazon, and headquartered at the Culver Studios complex in Culver City, California. Launched on November 16, 2010, it took its current name on O ...

; it includes the original Japanese audio with English subtitles, as well as an English dub.

Reception

Box office

''Look Back'' grossed million in the United States and million in other territories, for a worldwide total of million. The film grossed over ¥227 million (around million) in its opening weekend at the Japanese

box office A box office or ticket office is a place where ticket (admission), tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a Wicket gate, wicket. ...

. By July 17, after 18 days in theaters, it had made ¥1,017,961,780 (around million).

Critical response

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, ''Look Back'' has a 100% critic rating based on 25 reviews and the average rating is 8.7 out of 10.

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, assigned the film a score of 90 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". '' IndieWire''s David Ehrlich gave the film a grade of "B+", praising the character design and the emotional weight of the story; Ehrlich wrote that, "the fleeting nature of Oshiyama's film, which so fluidly renders eons of labor with the lightness of memory and the brilliance of a shooting star, is what ultimately allows it to crystallize a truth that most artists can only hope to accept for themselves .. Making things isn't a waste of time or a way of isolating oneself from the world, but rather the most beautiful way of belonging to it." Robbie Collin of ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are often names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * The Telegraph (Adelaide), ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaid ...

'' gave the film a score of five out of five stars, praising its visuals as "wildly yet unassumingly beautiful" and its plot as accessible "yet philosophically rich"; he concluded: "There's a

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

-like purity to it: ''Look Back'' is as neat and yet also as overflowing as the four-panel strips in which its leads once diligently honed their craft. And if something so beautiful also feels too brief – well, that may be the idea."

Accolades

References

External links

* * * {{Navboxes , title = Awards for ''Look Back'' , list = {{Crunchyroll Film of the Year {{Japan Academy Film Prize for Animation of the Year {{Tokyo Anime Award for Animation of the Year 2024 films 2024 animated films 2024 anime films 2020s coming-of-age drama films 2020s high school films 2020s Japanese-language films Animated films set in Japan Animated teen films Anime films based on manga Coming-of-age anime and manga Crunchyroll Anime Award winners Film of the Year Crunchyroll Anime Award winners Films about artists Films about comics Films set in Yamagata Prefecture Japanese animated feature films Japanese coming-of-age drama films Japanese high school films Middle school films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animated films