In each and every issue of her elementary school’s magazine, Ayumu Fujino never fails to impress her peers. But her status as the class favorite comes tumbling down when she encounters Kyomoto, a prodigious artist in her own right whom nobody seems to know about. For the first time, Ayumu is not only pushed but left behind by someone else. However, things take a turn in high school when Fujino is tasked with delivering Kyomoto’s diploma, it turns out that Kyomoto can’t leave her room due to severe agoraphobia. This unexpected meeting leads the girls to collaborate on and self-publish their own professional manga with all credit going to Fujino. Their exciting journey comes to an end when Kyomoto reveals plans of dropping everything to attend Art School, a decision which will change both their fates forever.
Moreover, Oshiyama shows a lot of other skills as an example a technically impressive shot when Fujino is running. This scene starts with a zenith angle, flips to a long travelling shot leading to a panoramic view. We can also mention a very soft use of blur (out of focus) on Fujino’s hair when she learns about the tragedy that befell her old friend or even the subtle use of a split-screen, evocating in this way patchwork of various manga panels. What Oshiyama wants to do is an animated film based on manga, but let him create his own work. This is understandable from the beginning where he transposes messy sketch by 10-year-old Fujino into very bright-colored short-feature film that could’ve been directed by novice.
The rest of the movie contrasts greatly with this real fake “novice film”, especially in terms of character movement. In just few shots without any dialogue audience clearly feels and understands pride of Fujino and timidity of Kyomoto. Animation culminates when both young women are in harmony, running hand in hand lighting and colorization used here are worth mentioning.
There is one more thing that sets Look Back apart from other anime movies: sound. Or rather lack thereof? Music composed by haruka nakamura is fantastic nevertheless sometimes reminding Yoko Kanno musical musings but it’s the final rather long scene which was deeply affecting. Not only one note, not single word nor sound it left everyone at Annecy where world preview was held dumbstruck. Before screening Kiyotaka Oshiyama apologized for showing non-finalized version still being edited film so some little details may be missing yet Look Back has been warmly received by (very demanding) audience gathered at biggest animation festival in the world. The finished picture will certainly be praised by most people.
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