{"id":676399,"date":"2026-09-07T06:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T06:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/676399\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T06:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T06:20:11","slug":"kore-eda-hirokazu-talks-look-back-manga-adaptation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/676399\/","title":{"rendered":"Kore-eda Hirokazu Talks ‘Look Back’ Manga Adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cLook Back\u201d is Kore-eda Hirokazu<\/a>\u2019s third time working from manga source material, but never before has the arthouse filmmaker drawn from such a commercially popular and internationally beloved work.
A one-volume story from \u201cChainsaw Man\u201d mangaka Fujimoto Tatsuki, \u201cLook Back\u201d follows the converging, then diverging, fates of two classmates, Fujino and Kyomoto, who achieve their professional manga-making dreams while still in school.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film premieres in Venice competiton.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was drawn to the image on the cover \u2014 the back of a child who\u2019s sitting drawing manga\u201d reflects Kore-eda. \u201cI read it all that evening. It\u2019s an incredible manga which I was very moved by.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t
The book provided a light in the midst of a pandemic-necessitated slump. \u201cMovie theaters had closed,\u201d says Kore-eda. \u201cIt was as if the work that I loved doing was being negated by the world. Encountering this manga encouraged me to confront why I do what I do. To convey my gratitude towards the person that wrote it, as an answer of sorts, I decided to make a film \u2014 because I am a filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe result is a fascinating fusion of Kore-eda\u2019s stylistic trademarks \u2014 working naturalistically with child actors \u2014 and the heightened panel-to-panel tempo of the original manga.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019d be able to adapt Fujimoto\u2019s action works, but I felt I could attempt this one,\u201d says Kore-eda. \u201cWhen I met Fujimoto, he mentioned how, when you work with a veteran manga assistant, you can tell just from hearing how they draw a single line that they are highly capable in that medium. I realized that manga doesn\u2019t have sound. I carefully recorded first the sound of a single pen, then two pens, still hesitant \u2014 then going from pen to paper to a digital process. I knew depicting those changes would translate into a rich film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaker delved deep into the process of making manga. \u201cI watched documentaries about mangaka; I read tons of manga; I read manga about the process of making manga,\u201d says Kore-eda. \u201cWe hired an instructor for the four girls who star. They\u2019d take home weekly assignments, just as in an actual manga school. Then we\u2019d get together and learn from their instructor how to confidently draw lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKore-eda\u2019s live-action rendition softens the protagonists, though: where Fujino in her manga and anime incarnations is brash and arrogant, Nanase Furi, portraying the character in her school years, is quieter in expressing her competitiveness. \u201cIn the original work, these utterances are often in the form of monologue,\u201d explains Kore-eda. \u201cTo have someone explode emotionally while talking to themselves doesn\u2019t work in a live-action film if you\u2019re wanting to stick close to a sense of reality, so I transformed monologues into dialogues, and words into actions. In that sense, her expression becomes relational.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLooking back on his own formative years, Kore-eda remarks: \u201cI grew up reading a lot \u2014 at least that\u2019s what I thought, until I got to junior high. I had a classmate who was on another level. I went to his house, and his bookshelf was full of the kinds of novels that grown-ups read. I was shocked in the same way that Fujino is shocked when she finally encounters someone like Kyomoto, who\u2019s able to draw manga better than her. From that day of seeing his bookshelf, I knew I wanted to be able to talk about novels on the same level as him. So I began reading voraciously. He and I are still in contact today. When he watches my films, he sends me feedback \u2014 and I would say that he is far harsher than the harshest of critics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cLook Back\u201d is Kore-eda Hirokazu\u2019s third time working from manga source material, but never before has the arthouse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[18,117,19,17,286282,327,11492],"class_list":["post-676399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kore-eda-hirokazu","tag-movies","tag-venice-film-festival"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117228314642667626","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}