Goodbye Eri Gets You Thinking About Perception

Now that Chainsaw Man is such a success, other works from Tatsuki Fujimoto are being released and appreciated worldwide. Among them is Viz Media’s Goodbye Eri, a one-shot, original manga that just ended up in-print. While it does contain a hint of the fantastical in its own way, it’s also a look at what it’s like to deal with the harder elements of life, connecting with other people, and what happens when we tell others’ stories.

When Yuta Ito finally gets a phone, it’s a bittersweet gift. His mother gives it to him for his birthday, but also directs him to use it to film her. She’s suffering from an illness that could kill her. So for the first portion of the manga, it really isn’t Yuta’s story. It’s more of his family’s and mother’s as he chronicles everyday moments in case she dies. Which she does. He pulls together a movie from the 100 hours of footage he’s collected, which he screens for his classmates. Due to the ending, he’s ridiculed and chastised. However, when he’s about to commit suicide on the roof of a hospital because of it all, he meets his classmate Eri.

That’s when Goodbye Eri really picks up. She tasks Yuta with not only watching movies with her every day, but creating a new film together. Because out of every student there, she actually enjoyed what Yuta created before. The two brainstorm what sort of concept to go with, and he again goes about the process of collecting hours of footage of the two of them together.

It’s an interesting dichotomy. Because with the initial film, we’re getting glimpses of what life with Yuta’s mother and family might have been like. The film he creates showcases a dynamic, and it conveys to the audience a particular message. When it comes to the new movie he’s creating with Eri, we’re more clearly “on the inside” when it happens. The two are putting together the clips with a sense of purpose, and we get an idea of the new tale they want to tell by recording their own experiences. As they do, it feels like we see a relationship coming together between the two of them before our eyes.

But how it really excels is the way in which Fujimoto tackles it all. As we learn more about both Yuta’s movie about his mother, and later the one about Eri, we see what happens when a creator becomes a storyteller. How even when someone is recording “real life,” the editorial process and design direction is determining what the viewer sees. There could be more to what’s going on. For example, when Eri and Yuta are recording a scene with Yuta’s father, initially it seems like it’s just a normal meeting. But then after the discussion, it turns out his father was reading from a script prepared for the movie, then it turns into an actual moment between all of the characters.

Which means at a certain point, the whole of Goodbye Eri feels subversive. Fujimoto is showing us only certain parts of things, after all. The tale we’re being told is the one he decided to show us. And the further you get into the story, you start questioning some of the things we’ve seen and heard. It’s a fascinating approach, and the decisions mean the manga hits even harder.

Goodbye Eri is available via Viz Media both digitally and physically.

---