Look Back - Creative survivor's guilt
To me, Look Back is about survivor's guilt. I had the opportunity to see the animated film adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto's one shot manga. I was profoundly affected by the story when I first read it. The film hits just as hard. It's beautiful, poignant, and deeply personal. It imbues the characters with animated humanity and warmth. I start to get misty eyed just hearing the film's theme song, "Light Song" by Haruka Nakamura and Urara.
Kiyotaka Oshiyama's directing choices tread lightly on the source material, mostly allowing the strength of it to stand on its own. One of the neat visual touches is the relatively unprocessed lineart, giving the entire film a sort of draftsman like quality. Any artist can tell you that often rough drafts and sketches seem better than the final artwork because you can feel the energy and life in those early lines, where boldness and ingenuity take precedence over precision. It's remarkable that Look Back was able to capture that in animated form.
Fujimoto's rumination on art's ability to connect and enrich peoples' lives is raw, especially for anyone who's tried to create something. He keenly understands that the act of creation isn't always a beautiful thing. It's grueling. It will hurt you. But all of us who keep doing art have their own reason for why they keep going. Look Back speaks directly to the soul of every creator in a way few other works have ever accomplished.
Enough words have been spilled about the meaning of creating art, so I wanted to talk about an angle of the story I hadn't considered when I first read the manga, but hits much harder now that I'm a few years further down the road of my art career.
My perspective has changed somewhat. I think every artist who does this long enough starts to know people whose art careers literally or metaphysically died. Maybe career prospects didn't line up, maybe they permanently burnt out, or maybe they actually, literally, died. It's rarely announced, you probably don't even realize it at the time. Maybe you notice you haven't seen a familiar name in a while. So you look back. They're nowhere to be found. No final will and testament, no smoking gun. Just a vacant space in reality where a person used to exist. When this happens you can't help but ask, "why am I still here?" What did I have or do differently? There is rarely a satisfying answer. It wouldn't be inaccurate to call it a form of survivor's guilt.
The last exchange in the story is a flashback to Fujino and Kyomoto at the beginning of their art career. Fujino bemoans how grueling art as a craft can be. It can be tedious, unrewarding, and it rarely ever comes together as you envisioned. Kyomoto asks a simple question. "Then why do you draw?" If Fujino has an answer, the film doesn't say. It doesn't need to because Fujino's answer is obvious. More broadly, because every artist has a different answer.
If you ask me why I draw, I don't really know. I can give you an answer, depending on my mood and mental state. Maybe my love of mecha, my desire to bring my vision of them into the world, an instinctual need to share my passion with others, a sense of responsibility to the foundational works that created me. But does that really answer the question? You don't have to stay up late drawing endlessly in the pursuit of an unrealized ideal, just because you love giant robots.
There's something else in there.
The actual core driving it all is a lot more nebulous. Sometimes, I can barely make out its shape. All I can think is, "why me?" It isn't fair that artists so much better stopped earlier. I think maybe for them, I keep drawing. Out of obligation to those no longer with us. It sounds a bit morbid, but I think one day the voices in my head will finally break me. They chase me everyday, and that obligation keeps me running.
I'm sorry it was me, maybe it should have been you. For now, I'll keep going. And when I fall, hopefully someone else will carry on.