Don't look back in anger.
(contains spoilers)
I just finished the movie, and these are my thoughts before going to read the Manga when I'm done bawling my eyes out and feeling horrendously empty!
The story is so simple at its core, yet so, so genuine, and so lovely. The entire thing felt like a letter or a memory.
When Kyomoto asked Fujino why she draws, and the silence that followed with a series of images of the both of them drawing together, then Kyomoto smiling. Fujino draws because it's something she gets praise for, something she's good at, then she continued drawing because it was Kyomoto who praised her, and because it strengthened their connection. It made Kyomoto smile.
And even when apart, that connection remained because of their art. Kyomoto kept up with shark punch, bought every volume and filled in fan questionaires. She kept the Manga strips from elementary school, she made her own inspired by them. Art connected them, art got her out of that room and into a dear friendship, art gave her the courage to look forward, and in the same vein, art was the vessel that helped Fujino look back on their past and better cope.
In the end, she goes back to drawing. In the end, she went back right to where it all started— a desk, and a pen in hand.
Maybe in another universe, she could've built upon another hobby, something more practical. Maybe then she could've saved Kyomoto, maybe then it wouldn't be her fault, as she thinks.
But in the end, it was art that gave them those magical years together. Kyomoto would've stayed a recluse, no matter what a grieving Fujino thinks, and Fujino wouldn't find that constance and home in her art and storytelling.
THIS HURTS 😃