Look Back

showed to my sister, i have this stupid memory where i tried showing her the oneshot during a car trip and she had no idea what was going on but im happy she forgot about that moment and really enjoyed this movie lol it’s really easy to talk about fujimoto when talking about this movie (rightfully so, this guy is a fucking beast READ CHAINSAW MAN NOW) since it’s such a unique style of storytelling, but there’s a hell of a lot of credit to be given to oshiyama as well, using the freedom of animation to elevate an already beautifully-drawn manga. There are so many times in anime where shots are just copied straight from the original panels, which could allow for stiffness or hint at the lack of time and polish before deadlines, so whenever animators are given the chance to make it their own way it’s always so cathartic to see. even though this story has a lot of fujimoto’s own experiences as a young artist poured into it, i love how oshiyama’s able to mix that story into his own. i found out he worked on a lot of the animation in this movie, of course with the help of really famous animators but he did a LOT, even going to the point of losing sleep. seeing his other works, he clearly has this passion to have full control of his works, which i really admire and can clearly see in this movie too. there’s a lot of roughness here; as detailed as the drawings can be, you can easily make out the overlapping scratchy lines and the erased marks bleeding through every frame, and i think it’s able to emphasis the process of drawing rather than the result, and it’s so, so, so fucking inspiring. going back to what i said earlier about copying shots, there is a good amount of shots that are referencing the original manga but there’s still so much care to it, either expanding upon it or making it as detailed as possible. it’s like a mixture of being able to speak more with acting and movement and understanding the original drawing’s unremovable power, and it’s balanced so well. For instance, there’s this moment where the characters are running through a crowd and it’s already breathtaking in this single page but the animation adapts it into so much more, and it’s personally my favorite scene in the movie (fought the tears in both watches, lolz…) i could write another stupid long review about how good the character animation is but you’ll already get it in the first minute. this movie kinda does for me what spiderverse did in 2018, and stupid internet stickfigures in 2015: just reaffirming this unstoppable love for drawing and connecting with people through drawing and no matter what happens always drawing and drawing and drawing. even if i do get stuck in a job i hate or lose someone i love or walk along the cliff of death or had a different life ill always keep drawing, because its how i communicate. its how i live. “JUST DRAW, STUPID!”