REVIEW: Fujimoto's Look Back Lures You In and Leaves You

I don’t know if I’ll ever read Chainsaw Man but after reading Tatsuki Fuijimoto’s one-shot manga Look Back I might have to. Capturing youthful arrogance and harsh reality, Fujimoto bewitches you in this emotional exploration of the effects we have on each other.

Look Back

Tatsuki Fujimoto (creator), Amanda Haley (Translation), Snir Aharon (Lettering)
VIZ Signature
September 20, 2022

The back of a child sitting on stool facing a window. on the desk is a lamp and an open book. An out of focus tree is in the background. — The cover for *Look Back* by Tatsuki Fujimoto

CW for the book: Violence, blood, Discussion of mass violence at a school

This review contains spoilers. Though the print version will be released 20 September 2022, the complete manga was available for free online throughout 2021. A review of the online edition was previously published on WWAC as well.

Fujino is an arrogant fourth grader who thinks she’s the best artist ever. That is, until Kyomoto, whose social anxiety is too high for her to attend school, starts submitting work to the school newspaper too. And Kyomoto turns out to be on another level.

Two pages, from different parts of the manga. On the right is the 4th grade news with cut of headings. The first four panel comic has four very realistic looking black and white drawings of a stairwell landing with posters on the walls and a window present, the interior of a classroom with tables and chairs facing the blackboard. The entrance of a japanese styles school with cubbies for shoes on the right; the extier of the school in faiding light and with windows that swing open. It's titled After School by Kyomoto. The next series is called Cunnig Mika by Fujino and has a person saying "hey no running in the halls" to the person int he foreground. the next panel says "sports day" and has stick figures pushing large circles; the next image is a simple drawing that says "sensie, you'll hold all the studnets to the schoool rules right? then the teacher saying what?! she, then the last panel is the character Mika as a stick figure in a race competition but she's the only one with non-hall flooring in her late. The left half is a different page with a similar layout. The first on the right is titled "Sumer festival" by Kyomoto and has four realistic depictions first of some outdoor stalls in a Japanese public space followed by some people seen from above but at an angle, a drawing of some plant stalks, and then the exterior of a more traditional japanese style house. The next four panel set is called "The truth" by Fujino. THe first panel has a description box of "in the classroom" with a student raising their hand saying Dad! Oops Sensei I need to sue the bathroom. The next panel has less detailed students saying "ahhh! he called the teacher his dad" and laughter. The next is the teacher holding his head and struggling with an arrow pointing to him saying "teacher" and also laughing along. The last panel is the student looking determined and thinking to himself "I confirmed it. he touches his hair when he's nervous, Sensei you're my real dad after all aren't you" — Excerpts of the comics paper Kyomoto and Fujino both submitted to and a comparison of their talents and styles. Pulled from different sections of the manga.

The other kids at school, seeing Kyomoto’s, think Fujino’s art is “totally average,” which of course infuriates Fujino, and pushes her into her lifelong obsession: drawing. Fujimoto captures this obsession through a scene reused throughout the book of Fujino anywhere and everywhere in the same hunched position, back turned away from the reader. With one small hitch in sixth grade, Fujino never turns away from drawing.

A black and white image of two children working in the same room but in different spaces. one sits on a stool with their back to us in a sweater and dark hair at a desk that faces a window. the other sits facing the left edge of the frame at a low table on the floor. — Rivals to Friends Kyomoto and Fujino co-working on their manga

However, the comparison of their art next to one another also highlights that each miss something. Fujino captures people, dialogue and plot. Kyomoto captures details and setting. And comics need both. For each of them though, while they both improve their styles, they don’t add what they lack into their art. So it isn’t until they combine forces as friends that their work transcends the sum of its parts. However, even when Kyomoto and Fujino collaborate, Fujimoto centers Fujino clearly in their coworking frames.

A single black and white page read from right to left the upper right panel has a single image of a person with long hair sitting at a desk in a hoody on a yoga ball in front of a drawing tablet and a monitor or TV screen. the panel below it is broken to three and each image is a zoom in of the previous person but with slight differences that suggest movement to turn her head. the panel below that has a close up of the same person's face as it keeps turning and the entire left half of the rest of the page is a shocked detail depiction of that person's face — Fujino gets word of a violent attack at an art school

Then, Fujimoto breaks the lone artist image of Fujino. Almost exactly halfway through the book, after we’ve witnessed Fujino and Kyomoto’s friendship blossom and wilt, we see what it takes to pull Fujino’s focus away from drawing.

This page illustrates the dawning realization of what Fujino hears from the screen next to her. That there has been a horrific massacre at an arts college. Specifically, the one that Kyomoto attends, where she decided to improve her art rather than assist Fujino’s career.

The art hints at how the story will shift away from Fujino and towards Kyomoto. The page gives Fujino movement out of her static drawing stance and this combines with a shift in the art’s style, from cartoonish to realistic, reflecting a return to reality. Besides the symbolic implication that Fujino is brought back to reality by this news, I love that the style change also reflects Fujino and Kyomoto as characters. A shift from Fujino’s style to Kyomoto’s.

And I thought to myself at this point halfway through the book “Holy Shit, what is Fujimoto going to do with this?” And what he does is some of the most impactful visual storytelling I’ve ever read.

The second half of the book is a condensed retelling of the first. Exploring the earlier symbolism, this half focuses on Kyomoto. For the price of their childhood collaborations, Kyomoto’s life is saved by a Fujino who, having given up manga, focused on karate and uses those skills to prevent the massacre.

And Fujimoto skillfully uses a page turn to transition us into this alternate reality, as a torn panel from one of Fujino’s comics tells a jarringly young and very much alive Kyomoto to stay in her room. A new page and a new story.

a grey scale single scene image across to pages comprised of three panels. The first is of a torn comic panel sliding under a door. the second is a zoom in of that panel that has angry cartoon people on them saying "Dont come out" the majority of the page is taken up by a detailed illustration of achild's bedroom filled with manga books and notebooks all over the bookshelves and floor. on the far left side is a child with dark hair in a cardigan who looks back and says "WAH!" — Kyomoto looks back and doesn’t come out, saving her life

In one of the only clearly illustrated moments of someone looking backward, Kyomoto turns around to heed the warning. This sets us up for the next transition, which is when we cut back to Mangaka Fujino. Barging into Kyomoto’s room, I was as shocked as her to see no one inside. Based on the preceding pages, I thought Kyomoto would be there. Not just an empty room.

a two page spread of comics panels that read from right to left and top to bottom. They depict in black and white a piece of paper on the ground being picked up by a woman who reads it. the next set of panels is a four panel comic within it that depicts a cartoonish man trying to kill a cartoonish girl who is saved by a karate kicker who defeats the enemy the hero says Are you Fujino sensei, you aren't hurt. the last panel says "thenn my work is done" but the karate kicker has the weapon in her back. the next page's panels have the woman looking up from the paper to the door, a zoomed out shot of that, and then her stepping through the door. the final panel int he bottom left is a shocked but empty looking expression on the woman's face — Fujino walks through Kyomoto’s door after receiving a message from it

What I love about this is that we’re left wondering. Did what we see actually happen?

Why? Well, the preceding page depicts a comic drawn by Kyomoto sliding back under the door, which beckons Fujino to enter. But Fujino prime doesn’t get to change the past and restart her relationship with Kyomoto. Instead she has to look back, first at a sweater hanging on the door and then in her own memories to cherish the relationship she did have with her friend. And as she looks around the room she realizes that her biggest fan was just as devoted as ever.

Upon seeing that room filled with Shark Kick, her solo manga, and looking back on their lives, Fujino does go back. Back to her desk. Returning to what Kyomoto would have wanted her to do, make manga. And when tragedy strikes, that’s all we can do. We look back, so that we can move forward.