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Japan Cuts Film Festival Screens Live-Action Blue Period Film, Tatsuki Fujimoto's 'Look Back' Anime Film

The Japan Society revealed on Tuesday that it will hold the international premiere of the live-action film adaptation of Tsubasa Yamaguchi's Blue Period manga on July 13, and the East Coast premiere of the anime film of Chainsaw Man creator Tatsuki Fujimoto's "Look Back" one-shot manga on July 14 in Japanese with English subtitles, as part of the JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Cinema event at New York on July 10-21.

The Blue Period live-action film will premiere at the JAPAN CUTS event on July 13 at 3:00 p.m. EDT, ahead of its August 9 premiere in Japan.

The film stars Gordon Maeda as Yatora Yaguchi, Fumiya Takahashi as Ryuji Ayukawa, Rihito Itagaki as Yotasuke Takahashi, and Hiyori Sakurada as Maru Mori. Kentarō Hagiwara (live-action Tokyo Ghoul) is directing the film, Reiko Yoshida (Blue Period anime) is writing the script, and Yūki "Yaffle" Kojima is composing the music.

Kodansha USA Publishing is publishing the manga in English and describes the story:

Yatora is the perfect high school student, with good grades and lots of friends. It's an effortless performance, and, ultimately … a dull one. But he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst—and he's about to learn how savage and unforgiving art can be!

Yamaguchi launched the manga in Kodansha's Afternoon magazine in June 2017. Kodansha published the manga's 15th compiled book volume on November 22. The manga went on hiatus in November, and was slated to return this spring.

The manga won the 13th Manga Taisho awards in 2020, and was nominated for the awards the previous year. The series was also nominated for the 24th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in February 2020, and also ranked at #14 on the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! male readers list in December 2019, and ranked #15 on the same list in December 2020. The manga also won the Best General Manga award in the 44th annual Kodansha Manga Awards in 2020.

The series inspired a television anime adaptation in 2021. The anime debuted on Netflix in Japan in September of that year, and then later on Japanese television in October.

The series received a stage play adaptation in March 2022.

The "Look Back" film will premiere at the JAPAN CUTS event on July 14 at 1:30 p.m. EDT. The film will open in theaters in Japan on June 28.

Yūmi Kawai and Mizuki Yoshida star in the film. Kawai plays Fujino, a fourth grader who draws four-panel comics in the school newspaper. Yoshida plays Kyomoto, Fujino's classmate who has been skipping school.

Kiyotaka Oshiyama (Flip Flappers) is directing the anime, and is also in charge of the screenplay and character designs. Oshiyama's Studio Durian is producing. Singer urara is performing the film's theme "Light song" by composer haruka nakamura.

Fujimoto debuted the one-shot manga on Shueisha's Shonen Jump+ in July 2021. The manga had over 2.5 million views on its first day. Viz Media and MANGA Plus launched the manga digitally in English. Viz Media published the manga in print in September 2022. The company describes the story:

The overly confident Fujino and the shut-in Kyomoto couldn't be more different, but a love of drawing manga brings these two small-town girls together. A poignant story of growing up and moving forward that only Tatsuki Fujimoto, the creator of Chainsaw Man, could have crafted.

The manga won the first Rakuten Kobo E-book Awards in May 2023, and it ranked at #1 in the 2022 edition of Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! (This Manga Is Amazing!) guidebook. It was also nominated for last year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, and was second place at the 15th Manga Taisho awards.

The JAPAN CUTS event will also screen Akihiro Nishino's "Bottle George" animated short on July 14, and the black-and-white Shin Godzilla: Orthochromatic film on July 14 and 21.

Source: Press release