“Look Back”, a Manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto

Fujimoto is best known for Fire Punch and Chainsaw Man, and if you know him for those, you might be surprised to learn that he also makes “normal” manga — like this slice of life one shot.

Look Back follows a fourth grader that draws manga strips for her school, and her rivalry with another student. This will show her development through the years, and is a story of jealousy, pride and regret.

I’m fond of Fujimoto’s somewhat sketchy art style, it has a distinct look that’s pretty recognizable, but what makes this special isn’t the effort put into characters and background, but how it’s used for the composition of the manga.

Art is used in order to give us, the reader, information, so we know who is talking, how they’re feeling, where they are, what actions are taking place, the passage of time… and that’s indeed the case here as well. But what also happens here is that sometimes the art only gives us implications, and it’s up to the reader to decipher what it’s trying to tell us. For example, the following pic that I’ll (attempt) to explain later.

Now, before I can continue I must warn people about SPOILERS, this is a 140 pages work, and the following text will spoil it. This manga was licensed by Viz Media.

Story

Fujino is the protagonist of the story, she draws manga for her grade’s weekly newspaper, and she basks in the praise received from her classmates when one day he’s asked by her teacher if she’d mind if a slot was given to Kyōmoto — a truant student — who, inspired by Fujino, wants to try drawing as well. She accepts, scoffing at what an “amateur” could achieve, but Fujino finds herself outclassed when the next newspaper rolls in as the difference in their art skill is apparent.

This rude awakening doesn’t discourage Fujino for long, who uses this as motivation to try and improve her art, sacrificing other activities like her studies and friends. But while there’s a marked improvement over time, the gap between them is still massive. And even though they're a different kind of manga — with Fujino’s being gag based and Kyōmoto’s being akin to a snapshot of life — Fujino can’t help but feel defeated, and decides to “graduate” from manga along with elementary school.

But before she can carry on with her life, she’s asked to deliver Kyōmoto’s diploma, due to them being featured together. Begrudgingly, she goes and finds that nobody seems to be home, and seeing Kyōmoto’s sketchbooks, she decides to draw a mean spirited manga which falls under a door just to be picked up by Kyōmoto, who then excitedly comes out to greet her. This interaction renews Fujino’s interest for drawing, and they start working together in order to submit manga to publications.

Their efforts bear fruit, and years of steady effort get them recognition and a manga serialization, but just as Fujino is on cloud nine she gets shot down by Kyomoto, who can’t help her with the manga as she wants to try going to an art school in order to improve, as well as learn to socialize with people without depending on Fujino. This causes a falling out between them, and as a result, Fujino carries on alone with the manga.

At this point is where the Shark Kick image comes in, while it initially seems to just be telling us about Fujino’s progress by showing us published volumes, there’s more being said here. We can see how the last volume has been bought several times, implying that it’s Kyōmoto who has been buying them in order to support Fujino, and this is something that is only silently confirmed later in the One Shot.

But it all comes crashing down when Kyōmoto dies at the hand of a deranged individual. In her grief, Fujino looks back, feeling guilty over her dead, after all, if she hadn’t met her, Kyōmoto would still be alive.

But then a miracle happens, Fujino is back on Kyōmoto’s house back when they met, she rips apart her drawing, preventing their meeting. The manga then shows how Kyōmoto develops independently, and her life is ultimately spared. A good end where Kyōmoto lives and gets to meet and work with Fujino in the end…

And depending on how much you liked the characters, you might want to stop reading the manga at this point, as the redo scenario is just a what-if from Fujino’s mind, and there’s no undoing Kyōmoto’s death. It’s born out of her grief and guilt, but reality can’t be changed, and Kyomoto is gone for good.

Thoughts

I think Look Back could be said to be a manga about several things, like loss and rivalry. But I consider the main theme is motivation, about why we do what we do. Many will surely relate with wanting to give up on something you previously enjoyed because you realized you aren’t good enough. And Fujino’s true motivation seems to be something she isn’t truly aware of until the last stretch of this.

I found Fujino in particular to be a great character, she is prideful, she is stubborn, when hurt she can do or say something they regret immediately, her flaws make her human and relatable. Sometimes it takes losing something for good to realize what it truly meant to you.

Kyomoto isn’t explored as much, she exists to support Fujino, and her point of view isn’t really brought up, nor her full circumstances. We know how she has become a shut-in, but not if there was something behind that, we know that she idolizes Fujino as someone who opened the door to a new world to her, and how she falls in love with art and wants to improve in her craft.

Although I wish Kyomoto had been developed a little more, I’d be lying if I said that this didn’t manage to put a lump in my throat, as it managed to make me care about the characters despite its short run thanks to the believable interactions. This is something that I could easily recommend to anyone interested in this medium.

Second Look

Some may have noticed that Fujino and Kyōmoto together can be used to spell “Fujimoto”, and I do believe that, at least the very start, was partially based on the author’s own experiences growing up. It’s also possible that they both are supposed to represent the author, perhaps with Fujino being the part that wanted to have fun and get recognition and Kyomoto the part that wanted to improve as an artist, but how much they are supposed to reflect the author is something only he would know.

Looking at it, you might notice references to things that exist outside this one shot — both to his previous works as well as third party’s — but missing these winks don’t really affect the enjoyment of the read.

But leaving aside references to other media, there are a few things that make me wonder whether this was also intended as a tribute to Kyōto Animation’s (Kyōani) victims. And although it’s very possible I might be reading too much into things, the things that made me think so are:

• Release date: This was released on July 19, 2021. The arson attack happened on July 18, 2019.
• Kyōmoto’s name: Japan uses kanji for the big majority of their words, while there aren’t that many sounds in Japanese, there are thousands of kanji, this means that there are many homophones — different words that share the same pronunciation. Yet Both use the same kanji, 京.
• Murderer’s motivation: While the perpetrator here was wielding an axe as a weapon, and wasn’t an arsonist, the motivation for both is thinking they were being “plagiarized”.

I wouldn’t think much of each of those if they were alone, but the combination makes me think that the parallels with the arson incident is more than just coincidence.