This Is Not Spoiler Free

I'm a major consumer of Fujimoto's work as I really love his art, how he structures his story from the build up, all the way to the resolution, and most importantly, his outstanding ability of not being afraid to kill off fan favorite characters as if it's nothing. This man will really break your heart and have you coming back for more.

So when he dropped this one shot “Look Back” I was surprised to see the slice of life genre slapped on there. It had me fooled at first, but hey, I ended up loving it in the end. Some of the major key points that I really loved was the focus on the world of a Mangaka, and even life throughout. For instance, let's take a look at Fujino. While art may have been her passion, it was eventually the opinions of others that got in the way. After hearing all the not so great opinions from others in her circle, she felt maybe she should quit, and well she did, and that carried on through graduation. It wasn’t until after meeting Kyomoto and finding out the impact she left on her, that it inspired her to try again.

A little message you can pull from this is that when you live a life leading you to believe what you are doing is useless or nothing but a waste of time, you believe it and it makes you reconsider a lot. I guess a little take away is that having someone tell you they are a fan of your work can really get you motivated, even if what you're doing doesn't seem to be paying off. It really helps to bring the meaning of, if you always let others control your life, you'll never really be you. By doing that, that's how she reached her dream, after releasing many oneshots with Kyomoto, she began her very own successful series even after the two departed.

But this is fujimoto we're talking about, no happy endings here.

The news popped up and reported there had been an incident at an art school, the very one Kyomoto attended. When they started talking about the details of what had happened, I instantly got nods back to the Kyoto Animation Studio incident that occurred on July 18th 2019. Where the studio was burnt down and claimed the lives of 36 innocent people. May they all rest in peace, and their families have a long healthy life. As for the reasoning behind this attack, it was led by a man who had believed the studio stole one of his ideas and set fire to the building.

So much like this, that's what the attack was depicted as in the story, except it was by a man wielding an axe, and it was launched at an art school. So if you already pieced it all together, the one shot was released on the anniversary of this tragedy, which I can't help but feel it was a tribute in a way. So by adding something like this really made the death of Kyomoto hit even more. It also proved that Fujimoto has a great sense of the world, and knew how to write in such an event without making it seem forced.

So as expected Fujino didn't handle it well, she blamed herself and even thought of a way to prevent her death, all while creating a whole new scenario where they ended up making it big together. Which as we all know, life doesn't work that way. We could imagine multiple different scenarios, try and blame ourselves. At the end of the day, what's done is done. No amount of wishful thinking can change that. It really goes to show how powerless we really are, we really are just 1 in a couple billion.

So in all, I gathered the story isn't just about two people who worked together and aspired to make it big and suffered one major loss. It's about how unexpecting life is. How just because something seems out of reach, all it takes is the right push to make it happen. You may not have natural talent, or be able to do something as often as another. So it's important to know that hard work always beats talent, as without the effort put in, there's not really much to show for in the end. Also how someone so close to you might be gone the next day, without a goodbye. As all it takes is just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Life is filled with lots of misfortunes, but it also has it's high points. You can learn from others, get inspired by them, and even change for them. Nothing is guaranteed, but yet at the same time, nothing is denied. Not sure if I hit the hammer on the nail with that one, but that's how I perceived the story. If my time in literature taught me anything, it's that a story can be depicted in my different ways and carry a different meaning for everyone. As the story can be a representation of struggling towards an end goal, and facing many misfortunes and not knowing if the path you chose will work out. While it also could represent jealousy towards those that are better than you, and living with that resentment only to realize it was meaningless in the end.

In the end I loved how she became resolved after visiting her room and finding out how supportive she was of her series. So seeing the little comic strip taped on in front of her desk was just really heart warming.

So as expected Fujimoto really nailed this story as the art and the message it conveyed couldn't have been better. The characters left a certain appeal to them that made them easy to learn from. Even with the environment and how he was able to depict real life events without making it seem forced and unrealistic. Which really says a lot about the society we live in, but let's not step into that minefield.

Anyways, thanks for reading another one of my video scripts that ended up becoming a review here.