Look Back (part three)

Time to finish the first half of "Look Back" for this month's fast lane. I actually might go a bit over the halfway point, due to where the second post left off. It's an awkward work to split into pieces; not really any chapters or obvious stopping points. Anyway, we left off with Fujino and Kyomoto approaching the end of high school, already an accomplished mangaka duo with several Shonen Jump-published comics to their names. Well, mostly to Fujino's name. As the writer and character artist, she's the one whose name gets printed larger and more frequently. Combined with Kyomoto's clinical social anxiety, that makes Kyomoto basically an accessory for Fujino's art as far as most of their readers and publishers are concerned. Fujino seems to be, if not quite *actively* exploiting this, at least settling into the dynamic a little too comfortably.

Let's see how it goes from here!


With the girls about to finish high school, the Weekly Shonen Jump editors have a proposition for them. They're willing to serialize them; give them a slot for a longrunning manga series that they can keep writing for as long as it sells or until their last dried-out crusts of creativity are finally depleted. For a pair as promising as them, it's only natural for the company to make such an offer.

Just sign the contract and take the second stairwell on the right down to the manga serial salt mines.

After the meeting, Fujino and Kyomoto go for a walk along the edge of town. Fujino is ecstatic. Kyomoto, however, looks anxious even after the meeting is long over and her social anxiety is no longer acting up. Eventually, Kyomoto tells Fujino what the problem is: she wants to go to art school, and she's not going to have time to do that and also run on the Shueisha treadmill full time.

Fujino is silent at first. Then, her first reaction is to say "Well, why not. You just do the backgrounds, so I should be able to get assistants to cover for you easily enough."

Wow. You really know how to make someone feel valued, Fujino. I wonder why Kyomoto would ever want to stop working with you?

Then, virtually without any prompting from Kyomoto, Fujino turns on a dime and starts lecturing her about why she shouldn't want to do art school, how it's a waste of time that won't lead to any jobs or recognition, how she should just stay in manga with her because it would be better for Kyomoto's own future, etc.

When that fails to persuade her, Fujino goes really far below the belt and starts basically negging Kyomoto about her ability to tread her own path in life. Reminding her of how much her social anxiety restricts her. Pointing out that she couldn't even bring herself to make eye contact with the editor just now, and that even salespeople at stores have her sweating and looking at the floor, so how does she expect to survive college? It's not subtle at all. Like, some of Fujino's lines could straight up be lyrics from Mother Gothel's song in Tangled.

...

You know, the way Fujino's attempts at manipulation and emotional sabotage are written actually remind me of some of Makima's scenes, just a little.

I might be grasping at straws with just these two data points, but it does make me wonder if there was an abusive personality who left a big mark on the author at some point.

...

Fujino keeps lecturing Kyomoto about why art school is wrong for her and she should stick with Fujino, not that she needs her help or anything of course. Kyomoto is as stressed and anxious-looking as we've ever seen her, but she keeps saying no. When Fujino finally bullies her into justifying her life decisions to her, Kyomoto just lets go and tells it like it is.

Well, she's still being very politic in how she phrases it. The meaning is clear, though. If she doesn't want to be "Kyo Fujino's background artist" forever, she needs to distance herself from Fujino entirely. Fujino may not realize that she coped with Kyomoto being a better artist than her back in elementary school by essentially conquering and claiming her, but that's what she did, and it set the dynamic between them that's been calcifying ever since.

Kyomoto just tells Fujino that to her, art is life. Her life's goal was always to become the best artist she can possibly be. Drawing comic book backgrounds for Fujino all day is not going to let her realize her full potential; only proper training and study can do that.

As far as the comic shows, this is the last time Kyomoto and Fujino talked to each other before Kyomoto left for college and Fujino signed a longterm Shonen Jump contract. We next see Kyomoto in college, sitting before a window in either an unusually casual school library or an unusually opulent dormroom, drawing the city out the window with textbooks all around her and multiple monitors open.

The fancy giant window says library. The inflatable ball-chair says dorm room.​

I guess it's her room after all, because when we see a close up of that bookshelf it has a collection of Fujino's work on it. Damn, this art school has nice accomodations. Apparently, Fujino was indeed able to get a satisfactory (if perhaps not quite as exceptional) replacement to do her backgrounds. I figured as much; her desire to keep Kyomoto on a leash wasn't born of need so much as ego. She's started publishing a serial called "Shark Kick," which I dearly hope is literally about kicking sharks and/or being kicked by them.

...

As an aside: since first posting this review on Patreon, I was reminded that Fujimoto's first major manga publication, before Chainsaw Man, was called "Fire Punch." Fire Punch. Shark Kick. Cute.

...

As summer becomes winter and winter warms into spring, "Shark Kick" keeps racking up volumes. Kyomoto makes room on her shelf for all of them as they continue to be printed. And, as Kyomoto completes her freshman year and begins her sophomore, the printing doesn't stop.

And not just printing, either. Kyomoto hasn't finished her degree yet before work begins on the adaptation.

I can already picture the flame wars over whether or not Funimation fucked up the English dub. Well, at least the studio had the budget to improve on the manga's background art. Serious, the Shark Kick panel backgrounds look like shit.

...

As another post-Patreon aside: after realizing the Fire Punch thing, I poked into this a little more. "Look Back" was written during a hiatus from Chainsaw Man, right after its eleventh volume. In these panels, we see that Shark Kick went eleven volumes before going on hiatus and announcing an anime adaptation. So, Shark Kick is basically an amalgamation of Fujimoto's first two real life shonen serials.

...

Kyomoto keeps collecting Fujino's work, semester after semester as she works toward her degree. Seemingly overcoming her anxiety problems, at least to the point where she's able to stay in school if not thrive there.

Then, one January day, Kyomoto looks up from her work in her dorm room in alarm. Across the country, Fujino in her studio looks up as well, as if in some kind of sympathetic mental connection.

We don't see exactly what happens, but the newscast makes it pretty clear by implication. And also brings this comic's real life publication date back to the reader's attention.

It's not exactly the same as the Kyoto Animation incident. Smaller death toll, due to the weapon being an axe rather than a fire. But still, lone maniac does a mass murder at an art-related institute. This is pretty clearly what the author is using to point at the Kyoto fire.

Well. Looks like Fujino was right after all, if not for any of the reasons she thought.


Second half of this comic review will be coming the month after next.