Look Back

Look Back (ルックバック, 2024) is an animated drama you can watch online on iFILM, adapted by Kiyotaka Oshiyama from the one-shot manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto, the creator of Chainsaw Man. In barely an hour it follows two girls bound by the same urge to draw.

Fujino is the fourth-grade star of her school paper until the teacher hands half the page to Kyomoto, a shut-in classmate who never shows up to class. Her artwork is staggering. Stung, Fujino hunches over her desk for months on end, driven by pure stubbornness. Jealousy slowly turns into friendship, then into a working partnership built around a shared dream. Durian Company animated nearly every frame to feel like a living pencil sketch.

The film lives in small things: the scratch of a marker, a back curved over paper, years compressed into a couple of walks down a hallway. Oshiyama skips the speeches and gets at why you keep drawing at all when someone better sits beside you. A quiet piece that hits harder than most blockbusters. Stream Look Back (2024) online on iFILM.