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It's a great movie, but it could've been a masterpiece.

For some background, I have not read the original manga or knew anything about the movie when I went to cinema. My friend just invited me because it was possibly a yuri movie and I'm a lesbian (who's also a professional filmmaker with focus on video editing and storytelling), but he didn't tell me his suspicions or anything.

About the movie... The animation, voice acting, music, characterization—everything was on point. The friendship/romance was extremely cute and realistic. So why did this movie not reach its peak?

[Spoilers ahead] In the last half of the movie, one of the ... characters dies and we're introduced with a new mechanic. Fujino inserts a comic paper through the door and this comic is sent back to the past where Kyomoto is still alive. In this scenario, Fujino doesn't befriend Kyomoto and dedicates herself to sports. Years later, Fujino saves Kyomoto from the incident that kills her and they meet for the first time again. We go through this angst only to find out this change didn't actually happen in reality and we cannot change the past. Sure, this ending is realistic and emotional. A harsh truth we have to accept.

The problem is... This is anime!

You cannot introduce a new mechanic last minute and then say SIKE. It's unnecessary from a screenwriting perspective. That whole sequence doesn't amount to anything but pain for the viewer.

This movie could've been an hour longer exploring this new mechanic and time travel. I thought they were gonna go for a Steins;Gate kind of ending when they met again for the first time, but again... SIKE.

This movie had so much potential. I understand they adapted the anime according to the manga, but anime is fun because you can change a miserable fate.

Look Back will either make you feel sad or angry once you finish it. Everyone in the cinema stayed until the credits finished because "this couldn't be it, right?" It's not a sense of catharsis you experience but your heart being stabbed, betrayed.

Honestly, Adachi and Shimamura’s story is one of the best out there in the yuri/lesbian media. It’s not your typical slow burn, angst-romance story. Something I really get annoyed with is that 90% of female characters in shoujo act like genuinely good people. I know that’s something weird to get annoyed with, but it just doesn’t feel real or human. Everyone has selfish desires, everyone goes through this limbo of not knowing what to do with their lives, we question our existence and we wonder whether we are good people despite our flaws. Adachi and Shimamura's story not only takes time to build the most ... beautiful love story ever, it also takes time to build up the ugly tears and the thoughts of any teenager who doesn’t really understand why we have to interact with other people to keep ourselves sane. I’ve never related more to a couple of characters, even when they are so different. Adachi's gay disaster tendencies, Shimamura's existential crisis, and their fear of loss. What a great story Hituma Iroma has written.