In February 2024, an anime film adaptation of the manga Look Back was announced.[4] In March 2024, it was announced that Kawai and Yoshida had joined the voice cast as Fujino and Kyomoto, respectively.[5][6]
Music
The music is composed by Haruka Nakamura; the film's theme song, "Light Song", is composed by Nakamura and performed by Urara.[7][8]
Release
Look Back premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, which took place in Annecy, France, from June 9–15, 2024, in the "Annecy Presents" category, a non-competitive category created to showcase a variety of international animated films to audiences.[9][10]
Look Back received a theatrical release in Japan by Avex Pictures on June 28, 2024, screening in 119 theaters nationwide. Due to positive critical and commercial response, including positive word of mouth, its release expanded to 11 more theaters on July 5.[11]
In the United States, the Japan Society screened the film on July 14, 2024, in Japanese with English subtitles, as part of the "Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Cinema" event at New York.[12] The film has been licensed in North America by GKIDS and premiered in theaters on October 4, 2024.[13] Singapore-based film distributor Encore Films licensed the film in Southeast Asian countries and released it in theaters.[14][15] The film was released worldwide on Amazon Prime Video on November 7, 2024, by Amazon MGM Studios;[16] it includes the original Japanese audio with English subtitles, as well as an English dub.[17]
Reception
Box office
Look Back grossed US$2million in Japan and US$10.7million in other territories, for a worldwide total of US$12.7million.[1] The film grossed over ¥227 million (around US$1.47million) in its opening weekend at the Japanese box office.[11] By July 17, after 18 days in theaters, it had made ¥1,017,961,780 (around $6.41million).[18]
IndieWire's David Ehrlich gave the film a grade of "B+", praising the character design and the emotional weight of the story; Ehrlich wrote that, "the fleeting nature of Oshiyama's film, which so fluidly renders eons of labor with the lightness of memory and the brilliance of a shooting star, is what ultimately allows it to crystallize a truth that most artists can only hope to accept for themselves [...]: Making things isn't a waste of time or a way of isolating oneself from the world, but rather the most beautiful way of belonging to it."[22] Robbie Collin of The Telegraph gave the film a score of five out of five stars, praising its visuals as "wildly yet unassumingly beautiful" and its plot as accessible "yet philosophically rich"; he concluded: "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. And if something so beautiful also feels too brief – well, that may be the idea."[23]
^"Look Back (2024 Movie)". Behind the Voice Actors. Retrieved November 22, 2024. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
^"Look Back (2024 Movie)". Behind the Voice Actors. Retrieved November 22, 2024. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
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