The official website for the anime film of Chainsaw Man creator Tatsuki Fujimoto‘s “Look Back” one-shot manga revealed on Friday that this year’s Annecy International Film Festival will screen the film out of competition in the “Annecy Presents” category.

This year’s Annecy will take place from June 9-15 in the French town of the same name. Established in 1960, Annecy is the world’s oldest and largest animation film festival.

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.

The staff also includes:

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.

Fujimoto (Fire Punch) debuted the Chainsaw Man manga in Weekly Shonen Jump in December 2018 and ended its “first part,” the “Kōan” (Public Safety) arc, in December 2020. The manga’s second part, titled “Gakkō-hen” (School Arc), started on Shueisha‘s Shonen Jump+ service in July 2022. The manga has won the Best Manga award at The Harvey Awards for the last three years.

The manga inspired an anime that premiered on TV Tokyo and five other affiliated channels, as well as on Amazon Prime Video in October 2022. Crunchyroll is streaming the anime in over 200 countries and territories around the world. The series is getting an anime film adapting the “Reze-hen” (Reze Arc) of the manga titled Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc.

Sources: Look Back anime’s website, Comic Natalie