Popverse's top stories

• Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar: The Last Airbender set was created in part to counter the Final Fantasy crossover
• Watch now: WATCH: The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reunited as Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen and Chloe Bennet came together for NYCC 2025
• Stranger Things finale runtime revealed - and we know what movie theaters are playing it December 31

Though Chainsaw Man is certainly his most popular work, it isn’t the only critically acclaimed manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Not only is his Fire Punch manga absolutely ripe for an anime adaptation, but Look Back has proven that Fujimoto can do more grounded, emotional stories. Now acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda is bringing Fujimoto’s Look Back to the big screen with a live-action adaptation of the Chainsaw Man creator’s manga.

While Chainsaw Man is focused on things like adolescent coming of age and overthrowing the shackles of capitalism with the power of devils, Look Back is a much simpler story. It focuses on two young women pursuing their dreams of becoming manga artists. It has been widely celebrated for its characters and art, which resulted in it getting an anime adaptation in 2024. Even though it is more grounded, Look Back is similar to Chainsaw Man in that both focus on seemingly unlikeable protagonists and force them to grow and change over time.

Look Back is also coming to the big screen in 2026, with Hirokazu Kore-eda directing. Kore-Eda said that he picked up a copy of the manga “without thinking” on a trip from Kyoto to Tokyo. “Though manga and film are different genres, as a fellow creator, I felt the desperate resolve behind this work. I could feel, almost painfully, that Mr. Fujimoto simply couldn’t move forward without creating this piece.”

The Look Back live-action adaptation doesn’t have a specific release date yet, but it has apparently already hit the post-production phase and is aiming for a 2026 release.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• Aggretsuko vs Chainsaw Man: Two Wildly different anine with the same anti-capitalist message
• The Summer Anime season return of Kaiju No. 8, Sakamoto Days, & Dan Da Dan are forcing me to break my vow of watching less anime
• From Tomo-Chan to Oshi No Ko: How some of your favorite manga creators got their start in hentai
• Piracy is baked into anime's past, but, like Crunchyroll, we should move on from it
• Flying whales, mechs, and Miyazaki vibes: Inside Netflix's Leviathan anime with the people who made it
• How AI translations of manga continues the 'enshitification' of the medium, and why Japanese publishers are "less precious" about it
• I never wanted a Cyberpunk Edgerunners sequel, but God help me I'm going to watch it
• The Summer Hikaru Died delivers its cosmic horror at an agonizingly slow pace
• The one thing that Dan Da Dan does better than Demon Slayer ever did
• Studio Ghibli movies have never been as cozy as you think they are and that's what makes them magic