Tatsuki Fujimoto is the mangaka who wrote Chainsaw Man, a series that undoubtedly gave him wider recognition given the relatively recent anime adaptation and popularity. Before that, he had written Fire Punch, another fantastic story that portrays a gritty dystopian world (it is a series that would deserve a separate article). It comes as a surprise however that someone mostly known for shonen works, which admittedly do touch on darker and deeper topics, can write breathtaking one-shots. That is why I wanted to dedicate this article to Looking Back, both the manga as well as its recent anime adaptation.
I will start by saying that anyone who has anything to do with any sort of creative process should definitely give this brief volume a read; it is, in a simple word, stunning. It is the story of two girls, Ayumu and Kyomoto, who want to write manga and eventually end up working together. For a one-shot that is just under 150 pages, it manages to depict a bittersweet story of the two protagonists touching on the themes of life, dedication, hardship, sacrifice and loss. Given its length and hour-long adaptation, I will not say much more than this, not about the plot and not about what happens to the two protagonists.
There is however one simple scene that I want to insist on. After hours of dedication to getting better at drawing, portrayed as Ayumu sitting in the same position and filling notebook after notebook with practice sketches, for a moment she decides to give up. She thinks that all of her hard work is insufficient when compared to raw talent. Subsequently she has to visit Kyomoto (who is a shut in) and give her the graduation diploma. In the hall of her house, Ayumu sees an enormous quantity of practice sketchbooks. In a simple panel, Tatsuki Fujimoto shows how much work Kyomoto had put in order to reach her level of proficiency. The scene needs no words; the piles and piles of notebooks express the unseen dedication and work that go into the simple process of getting better. It is not about reaching perfection, as there is no such thing, but it is about the difficulty of advancing just an inkling beyond one’s current capabilities.
What I am left to say is just how every single panel of the manga is perfectly crafted. In such a brief work, where every page counts, Fujimoto succeeds in telling a story without even necessarily needing words. His insistence on certain postures and repetitions to mark the passage of weeks, months and even years is simply masterful. Likewise, the anime does the manga justice: by using a cruder and rougher technique at certain moments, it captures the spirit of the manga and elevates it even more. There is certainly praise to be given to the team that worked on the adaptation.