Look Back Anime Film Wins Kineko Int'l Film Fest's Teens Feature Award
The anime film of Chainsaw Man creator Tatsuki Fujimoto's "Look Back" one-shot manga won the Kineko Grand Prix Teens Feature award at the Kineko International Film Festival in Tokyo on Tuesday. The category includes both Japanese and foreign films aimed at 13- to 18-year-olds, and judges of the same age decide the winner of the category.
The film opened in theaters in Japan in June 2024. It ranked at #2 in terms of ticket sales (but #1 in weekend earnings) in its opening weekend. The film sold 135,000 tickets and earned 227 million (about US$1.40 million) in its first three days.
GKIDS screened the anime film in October 2024 in North America. The film earned US$688,253 at the U.S. box office in its opening weekend.
Yūmi Kawai and Mizuki Yoshida star in the film. Kawai plays Fujino, a fourth grader who draws four-panel comics in the school newspaper. Yoshida plays Kyomoto, Fujino's classmate who has been skipping school.
Kiyotaka Oshiyama (Flip Flappers) directed the anime, and was also in charge of the screenplay and character designs. Oshiyama's Studio Durian produced the film. Singer urara performed the film's theme "Light song" by composer Haruka Nakamura.
Fujimoto debuted the one-shot manga on Shueisha's Shonen Jump+ in July 2021. The manga had over 2.5 million views on its first day. Viz Media and MANGA Plus launched the manga digitally in English. Viz Media published the manga in print in September 2022.
The manga inspired a live-action film that opened on September 11 in Japan. Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters, Our Little Sister, Air Doll) directed and edited the film, and also wrote the screenplay. GKIDS will release the film in theaters in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Ireland. The film will screen in select theaters in North America on December 30, followed by a wider release in theaters on January 15.
Fujimoto (Fire Punch) debuted the Chainsaw Man manga in Weekly Shonen Jump in December 2018 and ended its "first part," the "Kōan" (Public Safety) arc, in December 2020. The manga's second part, titled "Gakkō-hen" (School Arc), started on Shueisha's Shonen Jump+ service in July 2022, and it ended on March 24 (March 25 in Japan).
Sources: Kineko International Film Festival website, Comic Natalie
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.