Look Back

There’s a haiku-like purity to it: Look Back is as neat and yet also as overflowing as the four-panel strips in which its leads once diligently honed their craft.

The heady buzz of creation. The stillness of grief. The heart-expanding-five-times-its-size joy of a perfect day with a friend. It’s all there. I just wanted more of it.

Look Back exudes love for its source material, this medium, and the very act of creation in every frame. It’s crushing and visually vibrant in equal measure, so much so that it may even help AI art freaks inch back a bit closer to the light.

This lilting tale’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brevity proves inseparable from the lasting power of its punch-to-the-gut impact. Life is short, “Look Back” reminds us in both form and content..

This 2024 Japanese anime movie is immaculately paced and powerful in its simplicity.

'Look Back' tells you what it wants to tell you, and also leaves you a little broken inside. [Full review in Spanish]

Fujimoto’s work seems to open itself up to plenty of misinterpretation, but Look Back still has enough tenderness to make for a touching short story.


An emotionally heartbreaking, gorgeously animated, wonderfully scored, incredibly well-written, and acted film that properly adapts its source material while carving out its own identity.

With lovely artistry and a short running time, this beautiful tragedy is a love letter to anime lovers and creatives alike.

Look Back has a lot of surprises in store, even in its short hour-long runtime. The most obvious surprise will come towards the end of the film. But for me, there was another, more subtle surprise. One which really, deeply impressed me.