Look Back - A Mangaka's Bittersweet Message To The Readers

Disclaimer: This review is a thorough analysis that includes spoilers ................................................................................................ # Introduction Look Back is a oneshot written and drawn by Tatsuki Fujimoto, the mangaka that is well-known for his works - Chainsaw Man and Fire Punch. While we fans waited impatiently for Chainsaw Man Part 2, Fujimoto released Look Back sometime in September 2021. It tells the tale of a girl who draws manga and her one-sided rivalry with another girl whose artwork is marginally superior than her own. I went into this story as a reader expecting it to be somewhat like Bakuman, but boy, was I mistaken. There is something here, something that has a much deeper meaning and impact. After reading my analysis, I hope you will see the beauty of Fujimoto's storytelling and the unspoken connection between a mangaka and his readers. To explain this I have to go from top to bottom, so it is a long review, but please bare with me till the end. If you do end up liking this review, be sure to leave a like to appreciate the effort, since this took roughly 7 hours of work.
................................................................................................ # Fujino & Kyomoto For staters, the names Fujino and Kyomoto is a direct reference to Fuji and Moto; Fujimoto. These 2 character represent 2 factions of people, I will dig deeper into this later. The opening of the story provides a glimpse into the life of Fujino, an elementary school student. She creates a 4-panel manga for the school paper, weekly. We can see that her classmates adore her work and think it's humorous based on how they react to her. Even more, one of them exclaims, "This art is so good". In response, Fujino boasts about how she came up with the idea in just five minutes. This provides some proof of her character's personality. She exudes a sense of pride and self-assurance. This does not last long, though, as she is asked to give up one of her spots on the paper to a student named Kyomoto who does not go to class but wants to submit a 4-panel strip for the paper from home. To this she, scoffs and yet accepts because of her confidence. All of the people, including Fujino, are enthralled by Kyomoto's artwork when the next paper is released. The same student who claimed that Fujino's art is so good, now claims that "Fujino's art looks totally average next to Kyomoto's". This is true, and it lights a spark of jealousy within Fujino which makes her decide to actually put in the effort to get better at drawing. She searches on the internet, buys books and even looks for shortcuts. I believe this is a direct reference from Fujimoto of his own career. He is conscious of the fact that he cannot compete artistically with other manga like Berserk, Vagabond, or Tokyo Ghoul. Fujimoto is better recognized for his storytelling. However, some Internet readers go out of their way to criticize Fujimoto for being overrated based only on his artistic output. The previous events are a smack in the face to the haters. See, Fujino isn't as good as Kyomoto when it comes to art, but her storytelling is clearly on point because you can see in Kyomoto's strip, it's just a drawing; there is no plot. This is Fujimoto's way of indirectly telling to world to look at the bigger picture as well as the minute details
Throughout the course of the following several pages, we can see Fujino working very hard to refine her art. She does this whilst doing the weekly strip for the paper. She became so overwhelmed with work that she had no time for socializing and even ended up receiving lower marks. It should be clear by now that this is an allusion to the difficulties faced by manga creators. It is not an easy undertaking to carry the weight of needing to submit a manga chapter every week. You should be able to tell that mangakas rarely have time for friends or other leisurely activities if you observe their everyday lives. All the time, it's about the work. And to be quite honest, most readers don't appreciate this enough. At this stage, Fujimoto is incorporating a facet of what it means to be a mangaka into the story.
After some time has passed, Fujino is depicted in a scene from middle school, where one of her classmates is whining because Fujino doesn't spend enough time with her friends. Fujino takes a quick glance at the next issue of the paper and decides to give up. Despite the fact that she has made significant progress through her hard work, Kyomoto's art was still far superior than hers. Fast forward to her graduation day, she is tasked by her teachers with delivering the graduation certificate to Kyomoto. This is where things start to get spicy. Kyomoto doesn't answer as she enters her home and leaves her certificate by the door. She draw a hilarious skit about Kyomoto becoming the world champion of being shut in, on an empty comic strip. A gust of wind blows the strip through the door, and into Kyomoto's room. In literature, wind is used to symbolize change, and indeed, change was coming.
Kyomoto recognizes the art style of the manga strip that entered her door, and she runs out calling out to Fujino. She calls her "Fujino Sensei". She adds sensei because Kyomoto accepts Fujino as a mangaka. She also turns out to be a huge fan of Fujino, and even goes so far as to asking her autograph. She compliments her saying, "you ran your strips every single week by going to school". She even claims that she saw a massive improvement in both art and story around 5th grade. This was when Fujino was working hard to improve her art. When asked why she stopped drawing manga, Fujino replies,
Now this was a lie, but Kyomoto does not know this. This was also one of the most pivotal moments in this one shot. Fujimoto agrees, and he signifies this moment by making it rain. Rain also like wind, signifies change, or growth. Let me explain about this in detail. ................................................................................................ # Dependancy Firstly, let me explain more about what Fujino signifies. Fujino is how Fujimoto represents himself, the mangaka. In elementary school, why did Fujino decide to work hard to draw better art? The answer is simple, Fujino is a character that thrives on getting appreciated. In the first pages of the manga, she, and her work is loved by all her classmates. She was the center of attention until Kyomoto intervened with her superior art. She decides to work hard in order to get back the appreciation that she deserves. In middle school, when her friend asks her why she's still drawing, she probably got heartbroken. It was at this point she realized, her work does not get appreciated by any of her classmates anymore. So she stops. She doesn't stop because she gives up on being better than Kyomoto. She stops because she simply does not get enough appreciation for her work. When Kyomoto says that she is a fan of Fujino and gives her all those compliments, this lights back her spark to draw because she suddenly got the appreciation that she longed for. Even if it's just one person, it's more than enough to light that flame in Fujino's heart. You see, Fujimoto wants us the readers to know that it is very important that managaka get appreciation for their work. He wants the readers to clearly show it, as it motivates him to continue with his work. You can see how happy Fujino (Fujimoto) is in this beautiful panel Now onto Kyomoto. Kyomoto is Fujimoto's representation of the readers. I know what you guys are thinking. Why would Fujimoto choose to make another mangaka in the story, a representation of the readers. My dear people, this is Fujimoto we are talking about. He has done way more confusing things. He mind boggled us in Sayonara Eri; what's stopping him from doing the same in this one shot. From the earlier explanation, you should be able to match the reader to Kyomoto, but there's more depth to these 2 characters.
Fujino and Kyomoto are like the ends of a spectrum. Fujino is good at writing manga, whilst Kyomoto is good at drawing manga, specifically the background scenes. If you have read Bakuman, you should know that Mangaka draw the general characters, and most of the backgrounds are done by other assistants. Both Fujino and Kyomoto cannot exist without each other. The Mangaka can't exist without us, the readers, and we the readers cannot exist without Fujimoto. There's more to this theory which I will explain later. Anyway, back to the story. Fujino and Kyomoto team up and come up with a one shot together, which they submit for the manga awards.
Fast forward some more, they get serialized. But Kyomoto wants to leave for art school. She wants to become a better artist. Fujino, does not seem to care. Fujino claims that she can just have other assistants do the background. She does however ask Kyomoto to stick with her because she thinks Kyomoto can't handle herself in a social setting. But Kyomoto still goes through with art school anyway. What is Fujimoto trying to say here? Maybe he means to say that even if readers, be it fans or haters leave him, he didn't care at this point in the story, meaning at this point in his life.
................................................................................................ # The Aftermath To put it briefly, Fujino draws a weekly manga called Shark Kick which is an obvious reference to Chainsaw Man and Fire Punch whilst Kyomoto goes to art school. Notice how she uses the pen name "Kyo Fujino" where Kyo is from Kyomoto. Around the 11th volume, she is interrupted by the news of an attack on a school; an art school. Turns out that Kyomoto had died in this attack at the hands of the murderer. Shark Kick goes on hiatus and Fujino visits Kyomoto's house. Why does she go on hiatus? She didn't seem to care that Kyomoto left for art school, so why? The thing is Fujino had begun to grow attached to Kyomoto, even if she was far away. At Kyomoto's house, Fujino cries and regrets that she ever drew the manga panel which made Kyomoto come out. Fujimoto then shows an alternate timeline where Fujino's manga panel did not make Kyomoto come out.
In this timeline, Fujino becomes a manga artist herself, and somehow Kyomoto still ends up at art school. As the murder appears in front of Kyomoto, Fujino punches him in the head using the Karate she learnt when she stopped drawing manga during the 6th grade. Fujino ended up saving Kyomoto, and asks her to be her assistant to which Kyomoto agrees. Kyomoto then goes home and draws a manga strip of what just happened and titled it "Look Back". A sudden gust of wind blows the strip through the door into the arms of Fujino. Now, I know what everyone is thinking. How did a paper from another timeline, reach the Fujino who is in the original timeline. Did Fujimoto just pull a Fujimoto like he did in Sayonara Eri? The answer is no.
Let's look back at what happened. The alternate timeline follows a story where the manga strip doesn't cause Kyomoto to come out of the house. Then how did she end up at the art school. This is because Fujino seems to think that she had no impact in Kyomoto's life, when in truth, Kyomoto would never have left that house if wasn't for Fujino. Fujino completes Kyomoto, and vice-versa. This can be beautifully seen in an early manga panel where Fujino and Kyomoto are on the streets holding hands and enjoying themselves. So Fujimoto wanted us to figure out that the alternate timeline happened inside Fujino's head. It never happened in reality. There was no strip titled Look Back in reality. That part happened in her head as a coping mechanism
In the end, Fujimoto cuts to a scene when Kyomoto asks Fujino why she draws manga. Fujino doesn't answer. Instead some scenes of their time together are shown. What does this mean? Why does Fujino draw. The answer is pretty obvious by now. Fujino draws to impact lives. And she will continue to impact lives, as shown when she sits down and takes up the pen in the last manga panel.
................................................................................................ # Fujimoto's Signature Touch In addition to the complexity of the story, there were also some other elements that added a certain sense of uniqueness. For starters, the repetition. Anyone who has read Sayonara Eri will know about Fujimoto's use of repetition. He sometimes uses the panel with small tweaks to show small timeskips or different environments. For example, About the art. There is a clear improvement on the artwork of the panels of the events that take place after Kyomoto leaves to go to art school. The added details and strokes could be used to represent her emotions or just Fujino's improvement as an artist in general.
Fujimoto also used an abundance of references to his own creations. The manga that Fujino draws is Shark Kick, a parody of Chainsaw Man and Fire Punch. The one below is also a clear reference to Fire punch.
I bet some of you are also wondering why Fujimoto killed Kyomoto, the reader. My theory is that it's a message to the reader. If you know Fujimoto, you know that he does not care about his characters. He will kill of anyone if it helps develop the story. The reason why he killed Kyomoto here is to represent rebirth. Remember, Fujimoto released this after Chainsaw Man part 1, whilst the fans awaited part 2. Him killing off Kyomoto is his way of saying that he will be sticking to his true style in Chainsaw Man part 2. If you have read Fire Punch, Sayonara Eri and Look Back. You will know that Fujimoto did not stick to his original style when making Chainsaw Man. He tweaked it a bit to fit the general demographic. This one shot is Fujimoto's way of saying that he is coming back, and this time he is going to stick to his own guns.
Finally, what does the title mean? Look Back is a direct reference to a quote from a certain manga panel. If you look at this one shot as a whole, you should be able to find countless panels that show Fujino's back. It's a request from Fujimoto that we stay with him through the journey, and he will make us grow.
................................................................................................ # Final Thoughts When I read this for the first time, I started to understand after the ending, so I ended up reading again. The 2nd time made my cry. The dedication and devotion of this man is nothing to scoff at. This one shot felt so raw and genuine and I believe Fujimoto will go down in history as one of the greatest mangaka of all time. This just happened to be his beautiful, bittersweet message to his fans. Thank you for reading. Leave a like if you appreciate the effort.

Written By: Shehan Reshin