I love smash hit manga Chainsaw Man. It’s dynamic, fun, gripping, dark, hilarious, touching, dripping with aesthetic, well written, well paneled, it is everything I want in one of those crazy little Japanese comic books that are taking the world by storm. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t salivate over just the thought of Mappa’s anime adaption soon hitting my television screen. My love of Chainsaw has made me an immediate mindless follower of the great Tatsuki Fujimoto-sensei, leading me to his freshman effort, Fire Punch. Despite its deceptively Saturday morning cartoon sugar rush-type name, its subject matter is far darker than anything I could ever imagine household name Shounen Jump publishing, and that makes me love it all the more. But, as you can tell from the title of this blog, we’re not here to gush over those insanely worthwhile projects, we’re here to talk about Fujimoto-sensei’s new one-shot, Look Back.

Before we continue, while I will be keeping this blog relatively quick and spoiler-free, this very quick read is FREE ON THE SHOUNEN JUMP WEBISTE. Just go read it. If you read it, this blog was a success, so just go do that.

Alright, back to business. Look Back is a lot of things. It’s a story about creativity, friendship, following your dreams, the nature of following dreams and the motivation for doing so, a memoriam for the victims of 2019 Kyoto Animation arson, a look into Fujimoto’s life, a celebration of manga, and a meditation on the habits of the authors of an industry that demands 100+ work weeks.

To me, though, most of all it’s a story about the importance of friendship and how friendship can super-accelerate creative pursuits. Kevin Smith said that it costs nothing to encourage an artist, and he was right, but Fujimoto-sensei takes it a step further and shows the joys of creating something with someone, to find a like-minded individual whose art and creative energy doesn’t just compliment yours, it multiplies it, it motivates you to do better, even if just to see how stoked your creative partner can be over what you did. The high off of this can be so crazy that it launches an entire career of working in solitude, drawing until you can’t feel your hands, or maybe even something as insane as creating a weekly comedy podcast. Either way, this manga’s paneling and story structure all serves the purpose of showing how much fun you can have creating something with a friend.

Before we part ways, I’d also like to quickly highlight Fujimoto’s masterful use of parallels throughout the story. This hunched over drawing pose is a pretty obvious example (though I think that makes it all the more powerful), but keep your eyes peeled for others, like the reoccurring field outside Kyomoto’s house.

I do hope this convinced you to read Look Back, which I remind you is available for FREE! And, if that peaks your interest, get on Chainsaw Man, there’s still time before the anime drops! Shounen Jump’s online service is just 1.99USD a month, and unlocks not just Fujimoto-sensei’s works, but the entire Shounen Jump catalogue, which is much bigger in size and quality than say, Netflix’s, which costs three times as much. Hop to it!