Look Back: A Celebration of Artists

By: Kenric Hoang

Nowadays, artists can feel unmotivated by pressures from the crazy chaos of life and daunting things like the recent boom in AI art. Look Back asks artists to celebrate and continue creating art in the face of these pressures.

In modern times we are experiencing the explosive burst of Artificial Intelligence in all facets of life. It permeates our education, sources of information (e.g. Google AI overviews and AI written articles), social media, advertisements, and much more. One of the most contentious spaces it has found itself in is the art community. Debates have been raging between artists and AI bros ever since the big boom. Is AI art real art? What even is “real” art? What is the value of art? Such questions have multitudes of answers, but one question arises above all in our real world.

What is the point of creating art if AI art exists?

This is the question big corporations ask. In our capitalistic society, money is the limiting factor and efficiency is key. Why commission artists to produce a piece after hours of work when a cheaper generative model can do it in seconds? This puts many professional artists at risk of losing their livelihoods, especially as AI progresses. 

Unfortunately, this question also plagues the minds of young artists. What is the point of dedicating so much time and effort into practice when a machine can instantly produce an image that looks good with a few iterations? This thought can discourage all artists — especially those in the youth. Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Look Back tells us that, despite these negative thoughts, we should continue to create art.

Look Back was written as a one-shot (short story) by acclaimed manga artist Tatsuki Fujimoto and published on July 19th, 2021. It was later adapted into a film in 2024, which is now available on Prime Video for those with an Amazon Prime subscription. I myself watched it in theaters when it first released with the original Japanese audio and English subtitles and then later again on Prime with the English dub. Both were great and did well to bring Fujimoto’s vision to the big screen. 

The story starts with a girl working hard into the night on a comic strip. We go to the 4th grade classroom with students passing the school newspaper down the aisles. Ayumu Fujino, our young artist from the night before sits loose in her seat as her classmates praise her art in the daily newspaper. She responds smugly that she took only five minutes to work on it, although we as the audience saw otherwise. 

Later, Fujino’s teacher pulls her aside and asks her if she can lend a spot in the newspaper for another girl to contribute to. Due to unnamed circumstances, a girl named Kyomoto can’t attend school, but she really wants to draw for the newspaper. Fujino relents as she makes a snarky comment about how Kyomoto can’t be that good.

The newspaper is being passed around the next morning. She is that good. To Fujino’s horror Kyomoto’s simple, but detailed backgrounds seem to blow her childish art out of the water. Fujino begins to work hard, spending all of her possible free time practicing her art and after two years she has improved by bounds. So has Kyomoto, though. Facing this mountain of an artist, Fujino decides to quit. 

This is a point that is sad to see in a person’s passions: the seeming end. There are all sorts of pressures that cause people to lose hope and give up. Burn out, grief, conflict; all are certainly explored in Look Back. In the introduction to our two young artists though, comparison takes center stage. Fujino is driven by her rival to become better, but after making so much progress, she starts to associate Kyomoto with being unbeatable and quits. The first rule of art should be that everyone has their own journey. The way you learn, the art forms you try, and your inspirations are unique qualities that guide your art. No one else has that, so comparison is unnecessary. 

The AI art all over the internet is made by a machine with none of those qualities. Even thinking about comparing yourself is a waste of time. If you think about it, we humans are the lucky ones as we get to experience the process of creating art with the motions of the work and emotions throughout.

Look Back celebrates the creative process and the artists behind it. Its art is rough, imperfect as humans are, while its animations of the once-still panels burst with emotion. It really does well to preserve Fujimoto’s original story and message while giving it a new varnish of the director’s own vision. In the director’s commentary, he mentioned AI and highlighted celebrating artists in the wake of it. Intent is another essence that AI art lacks. Look Back uses manga techniques for its backgrounds and mixes them with colors to match emotional scenes. AI could make them with some direction, but an artist knows that they were trying to preserve the original author’s style, or that this scene is going to be followed by something powerful. 

Looking back (heh) at where we left off in the story, Kyomoto currently represents an unbeatable competitor to Fujino. Earlier she was a rival who motivated Fujino to improve, but unfortunately, Fujino became sour. Others can definitely have a positive or negative impact on our lives based on your interactions and preconceptions. Fujino sees Kyomoto as a shut-in loser who is still better than her, but when she actually meets Kyomoto, she is mainly right. Fujino does learn much more about Kyomoto, though. This changes her outlook and ignites the passion that died down. The story covers the rest of their interactions, with their victories, losses, and everything in between. You get to see how they both change for the better because of each other. 

I would love to talk more about this movie. I could gush about Look Back for a while, although not too long. It is only an hour long, but filled with some of the most emotional and beautiful scenes that burn with the passions of everyone involved in its creation. It even has a tinge of Fujimoto’s signature zaniness despite being one of his more serious works. That contrast can really punch or warm you in the right places. It all culminates into Look Back: a celebration of art, but more importantly the artists behind it. Anybody can be an artist, so everyone should watch this movie. We could all benefit from celebrating others and ourselves a little more. Even when the world gets you down and the future seems bleak, you can take a look back at those around you and keep creating, together. 

(image credit: Look Back production staff)