Look Back
2024 · Directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama
Original language: Japanese
- animation
- drama
The story
Popular, outgoing Fujino is celebrated by her classmates for her funny comics in the class newspaper. One day, her teacher asks her to share the space with Kyomoto, a truant recluse whose beautiful artwork sparks a competitive fervor in Fujino. What starts as jealousy transforms when Fujino realizes their shared passion for drawing.
What it’s like
Loose, expressive hand-drawn animation with visible pencil-like linework, where sketchy margins and rough strokes give way to sudden fluid bursts of motion whenever characters are absorbed in drawing. Sunlit school afternoons, quiet rainy streets, and long open fields of late-summer countryside are rendered in warm, slightly washed-out colour, and the score is sparse and melodic, with long stretches of ambient room sound: pencils scratching, rain, the hush of an empty classroom. The vibe is wistful and bittersweet, a contemplative ache that suits a slow evening alone or a reflective rainy afternoon. The pace is brisk and unhurried by turns, moving through years of two girls learning from and pushing each other, with the emotional register shifting from playful competitiveness to quiet tenderness. Intensity is low: there is no violence or gore, and the one sudden, grief-laden turn arrives gently, handled with restraint rather than shock. It is for viewers who love art about making art, who want melancholy without cruelty, and who enjoy animation that treats craft as feeling.
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