{"id":593212,"date":"2026-09-07T20:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/593212\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T20:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:12:09","slug":"look-back-review-hirokazu-kore-edas-moving-tribute-to-friendship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/593212\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Look Back’ Review: Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Moving Tribute to Friendship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere\u2019s barely an adult in sight in Hirokazu Kore-eda<\/a>\u2019s \u201cLook Back<\/a>,\u201d where anyone out of school age is marginalized practically to the point of superfluidity. Like much in the first half of this sweet \u2014 at times too sweet \u2014 adaptation from Tatsuki Fujimoto\u2019s manga of the same title, also made into an animated film in 2024, the preciousness of a child\u2019s world can create a barrier for those who don\u2019t automatically melt at the sight of a youngster\u2019s smile. But then, as often happens in Kore-eda\u2019s child-focused body of work, there\u2019s a moment when, unexpectedly, what\u2019s on screen suddenly hits a point of transcendence and resistance falls away. That moment can take a bit of time to come, but the payoff is worth the wait.<\/p>\n

\n\tFujino (Furi Nanase) is the undisputed star of fourth grade, encouraged by her teacher Mr. Tamai (Kankuro Kudo) and exalted by her peers for the manga strips she draws and shares at school. She thrives on being the queen, so when impressively advanced manga strips appear in school drawn by Kyomoto (Rokka Okada), a reclusive classmate no one has seen, Fujino is not pleased. In response, she redoubles her efforts, neglecting her friends and family in order to once again be the best.<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo years later it\u2019s elementary school graduation time and Mr. Tamai asks Fujino to deliver Kyomoto\u2019s diploma to her home. Though not thrilled with the assignment, she enters the girl\u2019s home, down a corridor piled high with notebooks, looks at the \u201cdo not enter\u201d sign and turns away, but not before one of her manga strips gets blown under the door. Just when Fujino leaves, out runs Kyomoto in a tizzy \u2014 because she recognizes the girl as the creator of the school\u2019s beloved manga strips, a true master, or \u201csensei.\u201d This adulation is all Fujino needs to take Kyomoto under her wing, and soon the two are inseparable, collaborating on strips where Fujino writes the stories and draws the figures while Kyomoto does the backgrounds.<\/p>\n

\n\tClearly more advanced than the average schoolgirls, the two enter a competition sponsored by the Shueisha publishing house, whose editor (Masaki Suda) recognizes their talents and publishes their first story. Success comes rapidly to the teens, now played by Natsuki Deguchi (Fujino) and Aju Makita (Kyomoto), but their roles remain the same, which suits Fujino just fine. When high school ends the Shueisha editor offers them a series, but Kyomoto wants to go to art school instead. Fujino sees it as a betrayal and determines to be a manga star with or without Kyomoto\u2019s help.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor all of Fujino\u2019s rather full-on sunniness, the truth is she\u2019s a prima donna who lashes out if she doesn\u2019t get her own way. What happens next at first feels like a dreadful narrative misstep, seemingly reinforcing the idea that cutting oneself off from others can save them from life\u2019s travails. Those already familiar with the original manga know better, but so should audiences acquainted with Kore-eda\u2019s humanistic approach to characters: who we are and how we experience the world together, rather than our achievements, is our real saving grace.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs long as audiences accept that this is basically a two-hander, the absence of any other characters with more than stick-figure attributes becomes less problematic. Fujino\u2019s mother exists solely to feed her family and clean house, while Kyomoto\u2019s mother is barely glimpsed \u2014 at times it\u2019s difficult to be sure whether the withdrawn girl is real or just a figment of Fujino\u2019s imagination, since for some time that\u2019s the only place she seems to legitimately inhabit.<\/p>\n

\n\tSound design is a key element of this world, from the sounds of graphite on paper acting like a musical accompaniment in tandem with Yuta Bandoh\u2019s pleasant score, to the more mechanically produced noise of digital pencils on computer screens. The director\u2019s partiality for seasonal changes is on full display, from brightly colored, sun-tinged summers to autumnal glows and winter\u2019s snowy pleasures. Each season is given major prominence in the children\u2019s world, though why Kore-eda chose a generally pale palette of diffused light isn\u2019t clear. Unless, that is, it\u2019s designed as a contrast to the later saturations of the girls\u2019 more elaborate designs, and the manga animation insert that stirringly helps to bring things to a bittersweet, though deeply satisfying, close.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s barely an adult in sight in Hirokazu Kore-eda\u2019s \u201cLook Back,\u201d where anyone out of school age is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,82537,292431,409,111,139,69,4900],"class_list":["post-593212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-hirokazu-kore-eda","tag-look-back","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-venice-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}