Look Back

image for Look Back

Short takes

Not suitable under 10; parental guidance to 12 (themes, violence, subtitles)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Look Back
  • a review of Look Back completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 29 October 2024.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 10 Not suitable due to violence, themes and subtitles.
Children aged 10–12 Parental guidance recommended due to themes and violence.
Children aged 13 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Look Back
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild themes, animated violence
Length: 57 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Fujino (voice of Yumi Kawai) draws Manga for her school newspaper and basks in the praise of her classmates who tell her how amazing she is. When Kyomoto (voice of Mizuki Yoshida), a girl who cannot go to school and does not leave her house, begins to draw for the same school newspaper, her Manga images get far more praise and a jealous Fujino drops everything in order to spend every spare moment practicing drawing to improve her skills. When Fujino graduates, her teacher asks her to take a certificate to Kyomoto’s home. This chance encounter leads to a friendship and Manga partnership that leads the girls to win a Manga competition and go on to make millions selling Manga series. When Kyomoto decides she wants to go to University to improve her skills, it threatens her friendship with Fujino who wants things to stay as they are and believes that it is better for Kyomoto to follow her and continue as they have been. Kyomoto leaves anyway and Fujino continues to draw Manga. When Kyomoto is killed in a university attack, Fujino is devastated. She looks back on their lives, blaming herself for the loss of her friend and wishing that she had done things differently. A final trip to where it all began leads Fujino to new beginnings and to a better understanding of her friend, their friendship and all they achieved together.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Anxiety; Jealousy; Identity crisis; Murder; Grief; Loss and Misplaced blame.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • Two Manga characters die following a car crash where their car rolls, skids and flips. One individual is thrown from the car and one is seen vomiting blood. They die together in the middle of the road in a blood-shaped heart.
  • A meteor is depicted as hitting the Earth and impacting and destroying part of Japan.
  • Enraged stick figures are depicted in a Manga segment that Fujino makes for Kyomoto.
  • A news report shares that students at a university have been attacked with an axe.
  • Fujino imagines herself fighting off Kyomoto’s attacker.
  • Kyomoto is shown being attacked with a pickaxe.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

  • Nothing further noted for this age group.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • A character slowly advances up a set of stairs, his pickaxe dragging as he slowly advances towards a room where Kyomoto is waiting. He begins to scream angrily as she looks on, terrified, before he swings his axe at her and it lodges into the couch cushion. She is later depicted impaled through the back with the weapon.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • Fujino creates Manga pieces entitled “First Kiss” and “Kiss me Again”.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • A character sits on a toilet but nothing explicit is shown.
  • Fujino sits, naked, in a bathtub but nothing can be seen beneath the water.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Wimp
  • Stupid.

In a nutshell

Look Back is a Japanese anime film with English subtitles. The film offers an alternate view of events that cannot be changed, and depicts dealing with grief and loss. Due to the content and subtitles, the film is best suited to audiences over the age of 10.

The main messages from this movie are that certain things will always be beyond our control; that persistence will pay off; and that some friendships change our lives and leave us forever transformed.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Courage
  • Persistence
  • Determination
  • Friendship
  • Helpfulness.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Being jealous of the abilities of others.
  • Attacking other people.
  • Allowing your fear of others or anxiety to keep you prisoner and hold you back from life.
  • Blaming yourself for things that are beyond your control.