Koreeda presents beloved manga tale of friendship

By the Editorial Team · Wednesday, September 9, 2026

Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda premiered his film Look Back at the Venice Film Festival, adapting Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga about two schoolgirls bonded by their passion for drawing. The film highlights the evolving cultural respect for manga and showcases the cast’s intensive training to authentically depict the creative process, competing for the festival’s Golden Lion award.

VENICE — Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda has debuted his latest film, Look Back, at the Venice Film Festival, marking his first live-action adaptation of a work by Tatsuki Fujimoto, the bestselling manga author. The film explores themes of friendship, ambition, and loss through the story of two schoolgirls united by their shared passion for drawing manga, who take divergent paths as they grow into adulthood.

Koreeda, known for award-winning films such as Shoplifters, Like Father, Like Son, and Nobody Knows, discovered Fujimoto’s 2021 manga during the COVID-19 pandemic. He described the work as a source of comfort during a challenging time and expressed a desire to repay Fujimoto by bringing the story to the screen. Speaking at the festival through a translator, Koreeda said that adapting the manga into a film was a natural step to show his appreciation.

The filmmaker highlighted both the evolving perception of manga in Japan and its global cultural significance. “It used to be said that you didn’t grow up properly if you only read manga, but the perception has changed,” Koreeda noted. “We now live in a world where we read manga like classical literature.” He was particularly interested in portraying the creative process of manga itself, focusing on how the characters’ development parallels the changing sounds and styles of their pen strokes—from hesitant scratches to confident lines and the eventual transition to digital tools.

To authentically represent the art form, the cast—including Natsuki Deguchi, Aju Makita, Furi Nanase, and Rokka Okada—underwent extensive training in manga drawing. Some of their artwork appears in the film. Furi Nanase, who portrays the younger version of the character Fujino, described the experience as eye-opening. “The hardest part was definitely practicing drawing manga,” she said. “I hadn’t really grasped just how tough making manga is. It’s genuinely difficult.”

Look Back is among 21 films competing for the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, with the prize scheduled to be announced on Saturday.

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