Anime holy ground – A visit to the real-world location of Look Back【Photos】

We head north to the Akita town where Chainsaw Man’s creator grew up and see the sights that inspired the look of Look Back.

Manga creator Tatsuki Fujimoto has had two serialized manga series since going pro, and both of them, Chainsaw Man and Fire Punch, are full of bombastic action. Fujimoto can also craft stories of tender drama, though, as proven by his one-shot manga Look Back and its anime movie adaptation.

As the title alludes to, Look Back is, many ways, a semi-autobiographical story. Its paired protagonists, Fujino and Kyomoto, are both aspiring teen manga artists who share a kanji character in their names with Fujimoto himself, and the story takes place in Nikaho, the rural Akita Prefecture town where Fujimoto grew up.

▼ Trailer for Look Back

After reading, watching, and being deeply touched by Look Back, our Japanese-language reporter Saya Togashi decided to head north to Akita and visit this new anime holy ground. Arriving by train made her first stop in the city Nikaho Station, on the JR Uetsu Main Line.

Though Nikaho Station itself doesn’t show up in Look Back, the building proudly sports posters for the work in its waiting area, along with a displayed profile of Fujimoto. Inside the station you can also get a map of the town, so Saya grabbed one before she headed out to see the real-world locations that appear in Look Back.

Similar to how Fujino’s and Kyomoto’s names are close to, but not quite, the same as Fujimoto’s, Look Back’s “Bukkudo” bookstore, where Fujino buys her sketchbooks, is modeled after Nikaho’s real-world Burindo shop.

If you’ve watched Look Back, Burindo is instantly recognizable, and even the buildings on either side of it look just like the ones in the anime.

▼ The walk from the station to Burindo

Like a lot of budding manga artists dreaming of going pro, Fujino and Kyomoto enter the Shonen Jump manga contest for new creators. When the issue of the weekly anthology containing the announcement of the winners hits store shelves, the pair make a journey to their local convenience store to check and see if they’ve won. Within Look Back, the store is given a fictitious name, but it’s clearly modeled after the real-world Nikaho Hirasawa branch of 7-Eleven.

▼ Burindo to Nikaho Hirasawa 7-Eleven

It’s a snowy night when Fujino and Kyomoto make their way to the store, but if you’re there when the sun’s out, you can see the nearby mountains, though this bunch of clouds kept us from being able to see all the way to Chokaisan, the biggest mountain in the area.

Look Back also contains several scenes of Nikaho’s farmlands. These are a bit farther from the station, so you might want to go by car, or at least bicycle, to see them, but they’re beautiful enough that it’s worth the extra effort of securing some sort of wheeled transportation.

For example, there’s a scene where Fujino and Kyomoto are on the train and go across an elevated bridge. The model for this is Nikaho Ohashi, which is actually for cars, and painted a bright red that makes for a charming contrast with the surrounding greenery.

▼ It’s a 24-minute walk from the 7-Eleven to the bridge, if you’re feeling energetic, but be aware that there’s no sidewalk on it.

In another scene, the train passes by a crossing near fields and forests, which is based on this one near the Nikaho Hiramori branch of convenience store Lawson.

▼ Approximate walking route from the bridge to the above crossing

From there, it’s a little harder to pinpoint exact spots that are depicted in Look Back, but all around you you’ll see scenery that without question inspired the Fujimoto in crafting its visual design.

Saya got especially emotional when she stumbled across a pathway running between rice fields, reminding her of one Fujino and Kyomoto walk together on.

Nikaho is one of those quaint, quiet Japanese towns that can somehow make you feel wistfully nostalgic even if you spent your own childhood in a place that’s much more developed. Maybe it has something to do with how it feels at once big, with wide open spaces, and small, with not that many people or buildings, creating that special mix of familiarity and curiosity that’s such a big part of having spent all your days in one place, and inevitably starting to wonder about what’s out there beyond the borders of your life so far. That’s a feeling that pretty much any adult can look back on with warm wistfulness, and if you’re now looking forward to visiting Nikaho, the map that Saya picked up at the train station is also available online through the city’s official website here.

Related: Nikaho official website
Photos ©SoraNews24
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