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Look Back Anime Film Earns Estimated US$72,724 in 1st Few U.S. Screenings

The Box Office Mojo website estimates that the anime film of Chainsaw Man creator Tatsuki Fujimoto's "Look Back" one-shot manga earned US$72,724 in its first few screenings in the U.S. The film screened in two theaters and earned an estimated US$31,952 on Friday, US$23,298 on Saturday, and US$17,474 on Sunday. The film ranked at #25 in the U.S. box office.

Box Office Mojo estimates the film's international earnings to US$9,786,315, while the website The Numbers estimates its international earnings to $1,670,349. (Box Office Mojo's international earnings include gross earnings from Colombia, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Vietnam. The Numbers only lists the film's estimated earning from South Korea.)

GKIDS screened the film on October 4 in New York and Los Angeles, and then on October 6 and 7 more widely in North America. GKIDS confirmed the screenings also include Canada.

GKIDS announced that a screening of the film in California will include a live Q&A session with director Kiyotaka Oshiyama. GKIDS posted an image of the screening on Sunday, and corrected that it was an in-person introduction by Oshiyama, not a Q&A session.

The film opened in theaters in Japan on June 28. It ranked at #2 in terms of ticket sales (but #1 in weekend earnings) in its opening weekend and sold 135,000 tickets earning 227 million (about US$1.40 million) in its first three days. The film has sold over 1 million tickets in Japan and has earned over 1.73 billion yen (about US$12 million) at the Japanese box office as of August 23.

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) directed the anime, and was also in charge of the screenplay and character designs. Oshiyama's Studio Durian produced the film.

Singer urara performs 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.

Sources: Box Office Mojo, The Numbers