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Look Back Anime Film Wins at 3rd Niigata Int'l Animation Film Festival
posted on by Alex Mateo
Director and animator Kiyotaka Oshiyama, animator Toshiyuki Inoue, and sound director Eriko Kimura all won the Kōji Fukiya Award for their work on the Look Back film. Composer Yuki Hayashi also won the Kōji Fukiya Award for his work on the My Hero Academia: You're Next film. Shinei Animation won the Hiroshi Ōkawa Award for its work on the Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window film. The awards honor technical achievements in animation and are named after Toei Movies founder Kōji Fukiya and Toei's first president Hiroshi Ōkawa, who were both from Niigata.
The third festival took place from March 15-20. This year's festival hosted a retrospective on Satoshi Kon. Anime films screening in competition included Ghost Cat Anzu and Look Back.
The first Niigata International Animation Film Festival was held in March 2023, and featured Mamoru Oshii as the judging committee chairman. The festival is planned to run every year, and it aims to be the largest festival of feature-length anime in Asia.
Mari Okada and MAPPA's original anime film Alice to Therese no Maboroshi Kōjō (maboroshi) won the Kabuku Award at the second festival in March 2024. The Kabuku Award is given to works that challenge convention to create something original and innovative. Winners of the Kōji Fukiya Award in 2024 included maboroshi art director Kazuki Higashiji, The Boy and the Heron animation director Takeshi Honda, and Lonely Castle in the Mirror scriptwriter Miho Maruo. Pompo: The Cinéphile anime studio CLAP won the Hiroshi Ōkawa Award.
Niigata has hosted the Niigata Anime and Manga Festival and Niigata Manga Awards. The city is also home to some anime studios.
The anime film of Chainsaw Man creator Tatsuki Fujimoto's "Look Back" one-shot manga opened in theaters in Japan in June 2024. It ranked at #2 in terms of ticket sales (but #1 in weekend earnings) in its opening weekend. The film sold 135,000 tickets and earned 227 million (about US$1.40 million) in its first three days.
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. The film earned US$688,253 at the U.S. box office in its opening weekend.
Sources: Niigata Animation FIlm Festival, Comic Natalie
