Look Back

Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto is about a young girl in fourth grade who is proud of her role as the manga artist in her class newspaper.

Another classmate, a recluse that avoids school sends in their artwork and she's stunned to discover it is significantly better than her own.

She works harder and her artwork improves but her social life suffers but when she sees another example of her reclusive classmate's work she realizes it's hopeless and gives up.

At the end of the year her teacher asks her to take something to the home of this reclusive classmate. She objects at first but then goes to her classmate's house and slips a quickly scribbled little comic about wanting her to come out under the door. As she's leaving her classmate comes running out and confronts her.

Her classmate says as soon as she saw the scribbled cartoon she she knew who it was, that she's a big fan, and she's been eagerly reading her comics over the years. Stunned by this news, she lies and tells the reclusive girl the reason she stopped drawing is because she was working on a big idea for a contest.

The next few panels are the reason I'm making this post. This girl was proud of her skills, crushed by the realization there are others with greater talent, had given up, and then her pride dragged her back in. The panels following this revelation don't have any dialog but you can see her anguish and pride.

The plot continues but this really is the moment that makes the whole comic shine. The artist behind this one-shot, Tatsuki Fujimoto is the same artist that did chainsaw man.

posted by na on March 11, 2024 16:33