Live-Action Look Back Film Wins Student Jury's UNIMED Award at Venice Int'l Film Fest
The film opened on September 11 in Japan. GKIDS will release the film in theaters in 2026 in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Ireland. The 79th Cannes International Film Festival showcased the film on May 15. The London Film Festival will screen the film in October.
The Cannes International Film Festival describes the film:
Spanning more than a decade, Hirokazu Kore-eda's tender coming-of-age story follows two girls who bond over their passion for and dream of becoming manga artists. Fujino, a gifted artist and aspiring manga artist, meets Kymoto, a shy admirer of her work. Seemingly opposites, they create the perfect team with their shared love of the form. But as their work draws praise and attention, they find themselves confronted with decisions that threaten their artistic collaboration. Koreeda's beautiful love letter to friendship and the creative process offers keen insight into the craft.
Aju Makita (Child of Kamiari Month, Happiness) plays Kyōmoto, while Natsuki Deguchi (I Have a S/e/c/r/e/t/, Blue Spring Ride) plays Fujino in the film.
Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters, Our Little Sister, Air Doll) directed and edited the film, and also wrote the screenplay. Yūta Bandō (BELLE, Kaiju No. 8, also known as Taku Matsushiba) composed the music.
The staff also includes:
- Photography: Senzo Ueno
- Lighting: Masachio Nishida
- Sound: Kazuhiko Tomita
- Art Direction: Shinsuke Kojima
- Costume Design: Sachiko Ito
- Hair and Makeup Supervision: Katsuhiko Yūmi
- Assistant Director: Kensei Nakayama
- Scripter: Ryōko Taguchi
- Casting: Toshie Tabata, Yōko Yamashita
- VFX Supervisor: Rinto Ueda
- Line Producer: Shinichi Muraoka
Musician Kenshi Yonezu, actress and singer Tōko Miura, and animator and director Yōko Kuno have special guest staff roles in the film. Yonezu performs guitar for the film, credited under the "Shark Kick Guitar" moniker, while Miura performs vocals for an insert song in the film. Kuno directed a rotoscoped animation sequence based on their performance, with Shinei Animation producing the animation.
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 anime film adaptation of Fujimoto's "Look Back" one-shot manga 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.
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).
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.