The latest anime adaptation of the work of manga superstar Tatsuki Fujimoto isn’t a balls-to-the-wall action cartoon like his hit series Chainsaw Man. Instead, it’s a quiet study of two young artists, and the rivalry, admiration, and tragedy that connect them across their careers. It’s also one of the best depictions I’ve seen of the complex emotions that an artist experiences as they relate to the work of their peers. In the opening scenes of Look Back (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video), middle schooler Ayumu Fujino draws a series of absurdist comic strips in her school’s newspaper, to wild acclaim from her classmates. The praise has clearly gone to her head, and she scoffs at the suggestion that another student could draw something alongside her comics that would hold a candle to it. But soon the reclusive Kyomoto does just that, publishing a series of naturalistic sketches that blow Fujino’s work out of the water. It’s the first of many scenes that capture the whiplash that comes with grappling with your self-esteem as an artist. That whiplash is something I’ve experienced over and over both as a visual artist and musician. The high when I would make something that I actually liked, and the inevitable crash when I would be faced with someone else’s work that was better than anything I had ever made. It‘s a special kind of envy: a combination of jealousy, self-criticism, and genuine appreciation for the work of the other person. In Look Back, we also get to see what that envy can transform into. Some artists give up, figuring they’ll never be good enough to overcome their jealousy. Others hunker down and work, practicing their craft in the hope that someday they’ll be able to meet the new standards they’ve set for themselves. When Fujino discovers the mountain of used sketchbooks in Kyomoto’s house, a monument to her rival’s monstrous work ethic, she has a moment of recognition: this is what it takes. Most touchingly, Look Back shows us how envy can blossom into genuine friendship and collaboration, and how that envy isn’t always as one-sided as it seems when we’re in the depths of our self-criticism. Fujino and Kyomoto go through all of these cycles of processing their relationship as artists and, eventually, as friends, over the course of Look Back’s 56-minute runtime. Thanks to beautiful character animation by director Kiyotaka Oshiyama and an emotional score, I found myself swept up in their journey much more effectively than I did in Fujimoto’s original manga. And it was hard not to see my own experiences in those of Fujino and Kyomoto: times when I’ve deeply envied someone else’s work, only for them to tell me how much they appreciated mine, or times when seeing a single piece of art from someone else drove me to learn a new skill like a man possessed. Look Back is easily one of the best anime releases of 2024, but it’s especially essential for artists and creatives, who will find so much of themselves in its story.
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