Let go of the anime version first, then listen
Tatsuki Fujimoto's one-shot manga "Look Back" is back in theaters. This time it is a live-action film directed, written and edited by Hirokazu Kore-eda, released on September 11. Natsuki Deguchi and Ajyu Makita co-star, and the film was selected for the competition section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. There is plenty to talk about, but for those of us who follow film scores, only one question matters: who scored this story this time, and how?
The 2024 animated feature was a major hit, grossing 2.04 billion yen at the Japanese box office, and its music came from haruka nakamura, a quiet, spacious score built on piano and ambient textures. With that sound still fresh in audiences' memories, whoever scored the live-action version was always going to be compared to it. The composer who stepped up was Yuta Bandoh, and the instrument he chose as his backbone was not the piano but the classical guitar. That single decision sums up the design philosophy of this soundtrack.
From the Akutagawa Composition Award to the Japan Academy Prize: a composer who crosses borders
Bandoh's résumé is unusual for a film composer. Born in 1991, he graduated at the top of his class in composition from Tokyo University of the Arts and completed graduate studies there. In 2015 he won the 25th Akutagawa Composition Award, the gateway prize of Japanese contemporary music. His starting point, in other words, was the concert hall, and in 2016 he founded and still leads the contemporary ensemble Ensemble FOVE.
In screen music, he won the Japan Academy Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Music at the 45th awards for Mamoru Hosoda's "Belle" (2021). His operatic approach to the drama "Mameo Towako and Her Three Ex-Husbands" (2021) drew attention, and in anime he scored "Kaiju No. 8" (2024). He is also known for his string arrangements on Kenshi Yonezu's records, and the story that Yonezu once called him "a giant of music" is familiar even to pop listeners. Contemporary music, film, drama, anime, J-pop: a composer who walks through genre walls has now teamed up with Kore-eda, a director famous for using music with extreme restraint. The pairing alone raises expectations before a single note is heard.
Four guitars, a year and a half, and film shot across four seasons: the architecture of 30 tracks
The soundtrack was released by Nippon Columbia on September 12: one CD, 30 tracks, 3,500 yen including tax. The tracklist alone reveals how the film's sound is built. It opens with "Enpitsu" (Pencil), moves through "Sketch: Theme," "Solitude I" and "Sketch: Variation I," and places the "Look Back Main Theme" at track seven. From there, short pieces named directly after the act of drawing follow one another: "Sharp Pencil," "Inking," "Pen Tablet," "Serialization," "Hiatus," "Dessin." The album closes with "Look Back Main Theme (Orchestra ver.)," "Solitude III" and "[Reunion]." The way "Sketch" and "Solitude" keep returning as variations mirrors the structure of the story itself, in which the time shared by Fujino and Kyomoto overlaps and then drifts apart.
The performers are a luxury lineup. The guitars are played by Kyuhee Park, Takuya Okamoto, Gensuke Kanki and Ohzora Kimishima. Adding Kimishima, who is also active as a singer-songwriter, to a trio of top classical guitarists is a very Bandoh choice. Strings come from Ensemble FOVE, with Kyoko Ogawa on violin, Rachel Yui Mikuni on viola, Shun Ishiwaka on percussion, Marty Holoubek on bass, and vocals credited to Toko Miura and Inae Jung.
Bandoh has spoken of his deep attachment to the original manga and revealed that composition took roughly a year and a half. The film was shot entirely on film stock, across four seasons, and he has cited the landscapes of Nikaho, Akita Prefecture, as an inspiration. His remark that the process was "an endless stretch of days making tiny adjustments over and over, while feeling apologetic toward the master players" is telling. The guitar carries far more of the "presence of fingers" in its sound than the piano does. A pencil rubbing against paper, a pen nib scratching the page: when you translate the physical act of drawing into music, few instruments fit as naturally as a plucked guitar.
Kenshi Yonezu's "friendship performance" is not on the CD
One more topic cannot be left out. Kenshi Yonezu appears in the film credited as "Shark Kick Guitar (friendship performance)." Yonezu has written multiple theme songs for "Chainsaw Man," also based on Tatsuki Fujimoto's work; he collaborated with Kore-eda on the music video for "Kanariya"; and he has worked with Bandoh for years. All three connections converge in one film, an almost too-perfect coincidence.
The caveat is that the "Shark Kick Guitar" piece is officially confirmed not to be included on the soundtrack CD. The tracklist does contain a piece called "Shark Kick Waltz," which is easy to confuse with it, but Yonezu's guitar sounds in one scene of the film only. If you want to hear it, you have to go to the theater. One way to enjoy this is to absorb the soundtrack first and then watch the film, listening for the presence of "another pair of hands" woven into the score.
Where haruka nakamura told this story through empty space in the anime version, Yuta Bandoh retells it through the friction of strings. The same source material and the same story have produced two scores with completely different design philosophies within two years. For the genre of film music, that is a rare and generous comparison experiment. Pick up the CD, listen to all 30 tracks, and then head to the theater. That order is the one I recommend.
