Highlights

Studio Durian, founded in 2017, is gearing up for a big break with an adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto's "Look Back" hitting theaters on 6/28/2024.
Director/animator Kiyotaka Oshiyama and producer Yuki Nagano lead the team, aiming to create intense and unforgettable high-quality animation.
The raw detail in the art for "Look Back" promises to capture Fujimoto's style, offering fans a strong and captivating adaptation experience.

Title	Look Back
Director	Kiyotaka Oshiyama
Studio	Durian
Release Date	6/28/2024

A new animation studio is always exciting, but save for the rare instances when one comes out of the gate with a smash hit, it takes time for a studio to make a name for itself. While many might not be familiar with Studio Durian, they've been around for a while, and they're potentially about to make their big break with an adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto's Look Back.

Published on July 19, 2021, this one-shot is about two young girls with a shared passion for creating manga for their school newspaper, telling how they met, and how their lives changed forever. On June 28, a film adaptation animated by Durian will hit theaters in Japan, making this the second adaptation of Fujimoto's work after 2022's Chainsaw Man by director Ryu Nakayama.

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Who is Durian?

Durian was founded in 2017 by longtime director/animator Kiyotaka Oshiyama and producer Yuki Nagano. To paraphrase a statement from their website, Oshiyama describes their mission to create high-quality animation that - like the smell of the fruit their studio is named after - is intense and unforgettable.

Getting to Know Its Founders

Oshiyama is perhaps most known as the director of 2016's Flip Flappers, a dazzling adventure fantasy series from Studio 3Hz, but he's had a lengthy career as a key animator, designer, and animation director. Some of his biggest projects include the Fullmetal Alchemist movies, Space Dandy, Devilman Crybaby, and Evangelion 2.0: You Can (NOT) Advance.

Yuki Nagano was a producer at Studio Bones, where she had a hand in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Space Dandy, Mob Psycho 100, and Snow White with the Red Hair. Combining a seasoned industry veteran as well as a producer from one of anime's biggest and most innovative production houses makes for quite a promising start to a new name in the business.

What Has Durian Done So Far?

Like with many studios in the beginning, things have started small - mostly collaborations on other studios' projects and occasionally a commercial or PV. For instance, they designed the logo animation for BL anime production company Blue Lynx, as well as contributed designs for shows like Studio Nut's Deca-Dence. They were even the designers behind the Devils in the Chainsaw Man adaptation, so they're no stranger to adapting Fujimoto's work to the screen.

The Staff Behind This New Movie

For the studio's first major project, Look Back will be directed by none other than Oshiyama, who is a triple threat on the production team, serving as director, character designer, and screenwriter. Kiyoshi Sameshima - a background artist on Heike Monogatari, Maquia, and Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises - is the art director, assisted by Yoshihito Harisaki and Takashi Oomori. Color design will be handled by Maya Kusumoto.

Director of Photography Kazuto Izumida has worked on a lot of hits in the past few years, from WIT Studio's Great Pretender and Ranking of Kings to Kinema Citrus' Revue Starlight movie. Interestingly enough, in addition to working on Look Back, he will also be the DP on this fall's adaptation of Dandadan from Science Saru, and he's not the only one. Longtime anime sound director Eriko Kimura will also be working on both projects.

Kimura has worked in the sound department on such projects as Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway and Heavenly Delusion and is a frequent collaborator with Masaaki Yuasa. Speaking of sound, the music will be composed by haruka nakamura, who performed the ending theme for last year's Trigun Stampede, from Studio Orange and director Kenji Mutou. More staff info for Look Back is expected to be released closer to the film's release.

Why ‘Look Back’ Looks Like a Big Deal

The latest trailer for the film has many fans excited, especially those who felt that Chainsaw Man's adaptation didn't quite capture Fujimoto's style as well as they'd have liked. The line art alone is quite bold and has gotten people's attention. It has been stated that an effort has been made to preserve the raw detail of the key artists' illustrations in the final product to preserve that feeling of a manga jumping off the page.

Fujimoto is one of the most iconic mangaka in years and this is sure to be only the latest in a trend of adaptations eager to capture the soul of his works in motion. Chainsaw Man was already a critical smash, and while it might be some time before the Reze film graces fans, Look Back promises a similarly raw and captivating experience. If done well, it will hopefully be the first of many gorgeous projects from studio Durian as well.

Source: Studio Durian's official website.