"Look Back Anime Theatrical Exhibition" teaser visual
(C) 藤本タツキ／集英社 (C) 2024「ルックバック」製作委員会
It has been announced that an exhibition of director Oshiyama Kiyotaka's animated film "Look Back," titled "Animation Theatrical Film Look Back Exhibition - Oshiyama Kiyotaka: Emotions of Lines," will run from January 16 to March 29, 2026, at the Azabudai Hills Gallery in Tokyo.
A teaser visual for the exhibition has also been released.
The exhibition is being organized by Oshiyama himself, and will unravel the trajectory and attention to detail that went into transforming the manga into an animated work, focusing on how the creators who worked with him on the film wove the world of the original work.
The animated film "Look Back," released in June 2024, is based on a one-shot manga published in "Jump+" in 2021 by Tatsuki Fujimoto, the manga artist known for "Chainsaw Man."It depicts the youth of two girls who devotedly continue creating manga, and the "incident that shatters everything" that soon follows.
Animation director and animator Oshiyama, who has worked on various anime such as "Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance" and "The Boy and the Heron", served as director, scriptwriter, character designer, animation director, and key artist for the film, which became a hit with cumulative box office revenues exceeding 4.4 billion yen.
Director Oshiyama's comments and an overview of the event are as follows:
[About the event - Kiyotaka Oshiyama]
The film "Look Back" was a question and a survival strategy in response to the inevitable changes of the times.
In an age when AI can generate everything, including pictures, why do people still persist in drawing?
This work is my attempt to answer that question in my own way.
For this film, I borrowed Tatsuki Fujimoto's original work,
and was fortunate to be able to explore the act of "drawing" in a way that is unique to animation.
I have no intention of rejecting technology.
While acknowledging its power, I believe that the essence of a work lies in the impulse and clumsiness of humans who choose to draw anyway,
and that there is meaning in preserving it.
"Look Back" is my own version of a hymn to creators and to humanity.
This exhibition is not a record of the finished film,
but an attempt to visualize, especially in our current age, what was drawn, what was not drawn, and the traces of emotion and thought that slipped through the cracks along the way.
Anime and manga are supported by the collective knowledge accumulated through the tireless exploration of our predecessors.
This work is part of that flow, and we continue to draw lines over time, making mistakes,
with a variety of emotions.
Drawing is an accumulation of thoughts and an expression of the body itself.
Everything about the person who drew it resides in those lines.
I hope this exhibition will be an opportunity to reexamine the question, "What does it mean for people to draw pictures?"
[Outline of the "Look Back Animated Film Exhibition - Kiyotaka Oshiyama: The Emotions of Lines"]
■Dates: January 16–March 29, 2026
*Open daily during the exhibition period
■Venue: Azabudai Hills Gallery
(5-8-1 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Azabudai Hills Garden Plaza A, MBF)
■Organizers: Azabudai Hills Gallery, Studio Dorian, Avex Pictures
■Supported by: Shueisha, Mixed Green
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