Tatsuki Fujimoto is currently one of the biggest names in the manga industry, thanks to his Chainsaw Man, but that’s not to say his one-shot stories haven’t also been a great success. We previously discussed Look Back, a story of loss and moving on while losing someone important, and now it’s time for Goodbye, Eri.

Teenager Yuta enjoys making movies and carries his camera everywhere he goes. His home life isn’t currently perfect: his mom is dying and his dad is struggling to come to terms with it while staying strong for Yuta. One day Yuta’s mom makes a strange request. She asks him to record her treatment and initially, Yuta complies. We learn about these events through a series of movie-like panels that make up pages. But then it becomes obvious that treatment failed and Yuta’s father asks him to come and say goodbye. Yuta comes to the hospital but changes his mind last minute and leaves. As he is walking away from the building, it explodes.

Unexpected plot twits like this are somewhat that Fujimoto is quite good at. They leave the reader confused and wanting more. Such is the case with Goodbye, Eri too. Yuta edited his mom’s final months into a movie that he showed in his high school. But much like the readers, his classmates are also baffled and as it turns out not big fans of his directorial talents. Hurt and lost, Yuta tries to commit suicide but is interrupted by Eri, a girl around his age, who happens to be a movie buff. She makes Yuta promise that he will make a good movie while she mentors him. Although he was undecided at first, Yuta eventually agrees. We learn that his mother was abusive and used his interests to benefit her own image, by making him edit only the best of her. Yuta’s dad pushes him toward Eri by encouraging him to try again.

However, we find out that Eri is sick. The two decide to come up with a story that will celebrate Eri if she dies and offer a good story if she lives. What happens next is once again shown through a series of movie-like panels: they spend a lot of time together watching movies, having fun and even starting a romantic relationship. It’s quite difficult to tell if this was just for the filming or reality. But then Eri is also gone and Yuta is once again all alone. The movie they made is well-received by the public and the idealized version of Eri is forever remembered.

Yuta grows up and gets married. However, once again he is faced with tragedy: his father, wife and daughter die. Desperate, he decides to kill himself in a house where he used to watch movies with Eri. Upon arriving there he walks in and finds Eri, who tells him that she is actually an immortal vampire, stuck in a cycle of rebirths. She encourages him to live, stating that her predecessor would want that. Elated, Yuta leaves the house and as he walks away, the house explodes – leading the reader to believe that the final part of the Goodbye, Eri story was probably fiction and part of the movie he recorded with Eri.

It took me quite a bit to decide whether the time skip actually happened. Ultimately, it does not matter but I’d like to believe that it didn’t. Goodbye, Eri allowed us to see Yuta grow through Eri’s eyes. Ultimately, she was the only one who accepted and understood him until the very end. She gave his art meaning and allowed him to do what he loved.

The movie within a movie within a movie is quite an interesting concept and I’d like to see how it would carry over in an adaptation. MAPPA CEO, Manabu Otsuka, recently spoke about his desire to adapt all of Fujimoto’s works (the studio worked on Chainsaw Man). Goodbye, Eri has just enough material for a movie of a decent length and it’s already made to work for the format. Either way, if you enjoy Fujimoto’s works or unusual coming-of-age stories or even just movies, definitely give this short manga a go.

I am burnt out on watching films and shows about filmmakers, but a manga about a budding filmmaker? Sign me up. I remember when they said that Tatsuki Fujimoto was going to release another one-shot (after Look Back). A 200-page one-shot. Okay, just Fujimoto things, I guess. This is another example of Tatsuki Fujimoto's mastery of sequential art. If you know Fujimoto's work from Chainsaw Man, you already have an idea of what to expect, but if you know someone who couldn't quite get into Chainsaw Man because of all the blood and guts, this might be a way to ease them into Fujimoto's work.

Tatsuki Fujimoto will forever be known as the author of Chainsaw Man, one of the best-selling manga series of recent years with over 24 million copies sold. Whilst that title is ongoing, Fujimoto still has time for other projects, such as a couple of one-shot web manga including Look Back and Goodbye, Eri – the latter of which is finally getting published by Viz Media for Western readers.

If you have read the short stories that Fujimoto was doing before Chainsaw Man (and even Fire Punch), Goodbye, Eri feels more of a kind with some of those narratives where youthful outsiders are going through a coming-of-age journey with a hint of fantasy.

Shortly after receiving a smartphone as a birthday present, Yuta Ito’s terminally ill mother assigns him the task of filming her and compiling a movie about her in the event of her death. After she dies, Yuta premieres the movie at his school but is met with heavy derision over his decision to end the film with him running away from an exploding hospital. Bullied and ostracized, Yuta decides to commit suicide, until he is stopped by a girl named Eri, who reveals she actually loved his movie and urges him to make another one.

If Look Back was Fujimoto’s way of exploring what it means to be an aspiring manga artist, Goodbye, Eri is his weird love letter to cinema. Fujimoto has previously acknowledged his love of cinema – the opening credits of the Chainsaw Man anime is a montage of film references. As the story is directly driven by the dynamic between Yuta and Eri, you have the former with no real understanding of how a movie should communicate with someone, whilst the latter has the filmmaking knowledge to help instruct her Padawan. Though you don’t see any of the various movies that are watched for inspiration and education, Eri’s filmmaking advice is enough for any young aspiring soul to get into the medium.

Due to Yuta’s reckless decision on how he ended his documentary “Dead Explosion Mother” which left a bad taste to anyone who watched it, the element of fantasy plays a huge role in the narrative, where truths are revealed whilst providing enough ambiguity that can cleverly trick the reader. Although the central duo eventually decides to make a semi-documentary about themselves, albeit with various exaggeration and fictional elements, it reveals a warmth towards these characters, including Yuta’s father who felt initially distant due to his son’s recklessness and learns to open with honesty and positivity.

There are plenty of touching and witty scenes where Yuta and Eri bounce off one another, but the story is more impactful through the many silent pages. With nearly every page presented in four wide panels, the manga could have been an artistic exercise through panel division and other effects such as the video footage jitter. Fujimoto’s work (along with the number of assistants involved) is incredibly detailed from the expressions and little actions of the characters, to the mundane surroundings they inhabit.

Although Chainsaw Man remains as entertaining as it is popular, Tatsuki Fujimoto is at his best with the one-shot format as Goodbye, Eri is a masterful coming-of-age story that plays with reality and fantasy through its discussion of filmmaking.

I liked this but I am also confused that I did like it? It's an odd story that I certainly thought I understood where it was going in the beginning, however, it's more than that. It's circular and weird and I still like it.

Yuta is tasked with recording his dying mother during her final months, end eventual death. He does record her but runs away from her final moments and in the movie he made about her he makes the hospital explode. The movie isn't really well received and he plans to kill himself jumping from the very same hospital. However, he meets a girl on the rooftop named Eri who steals him away to watch movies. Recording people in photos and movies is a way of remembrance and dedicating them to immortality.

It's difficult to tell where the movie begins and ends in the story, which is part of the fun.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I reviewed this title for Booklist. Please see Booklist for the complete review and full feedback regarding this title.

Goodbye, Eri is one hell of read with a wonderful plot and characters that also tackles the theme of lost. Fujimoto is slowly becoming one of my favorite manga storytellers.

Goodbye, Eri is a one shot manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto, the creator of Chainsaw Man.

Goodbye, Eri
Written by: Tatsuki Fujimoto
Publisher: Shueisha Inc.
English Publisher: VIZ Media
Release Date: June 27, 2023

The main character of the story is Yuta. At the beginning, he’s a middle school student whose mother is ill and could potentially die. He gets a smartphone for his birthday, and his mother asks him to start shooting videos of her as a way to remember her if she passes. He starts taking so many videos that his parents get him a PC because his phone runs out of room.

As you read the early part of this volume, you think you’re watching what’s happening in real time. However, around 20 pages in, we discover that this is a film that Yuta made that’s being shown at the school festival. While it’s mostly a biographical piece, he livens up the end of the film by having the hospital explode when his mother passes away. This doesn’t go over well with the students and staff members watching the film, and Yuta is mocked or is criticized for making this choice.

The situation gets bad enough that Yuta wants to kill himself by jumping off of the roof of the hospital where his mother died. When he gets there, though, a girl from his school named Eri recognizes him and drags him to an abandoned location where she has a projector. She makes Yuta watch movies with her, then explains that she saw his film at the festival. She liked it, but thought it was just as frustrating as it was good.

Eri starts making Yuta watch more films with her, and encourages him to make a new movie to show at the school festival next year that will make the audience cry. Yuta agrees, and the two of them work on this movie together. Eri asks Yuta to film her, and during filming, Yuta discovers that she has a medical condition that could take her life. So now Yuta finds himself in a similar position to the one he was in with his mother.

At one point in the story, Yuta (along with the reader) is shown footage that Yuta’s father shot as Yuta’s mother was dying. We learn that what we saw in the film that was shown at the beginning of the story wasn’t an entirely accurate portrayal of how everything went down. It’s revealed that his mother wasn’t the person that the reader thought she was and that Yuta’s film portrayed her in a much more flattering and sympathetic light. I thought this was a nice little twist, and it also helps to emphasize how a film director (especially one for a documentary) can give the audience a very different perception of people and events through their editing choices.

For the art in Goodbye, Eri, I thought there was an interesting choice that Fujimoto made. There are a number of panels where the images look blurry and distorted, almost as if they’re trying to capture a “shaky cam” effect. The panels are obviously done this way intentionally rather than occurring due to a printing error. The effect usually occurs for the panels where Yuta is shooting footage with his smartphone, and this makes logical sense. On a surface level, it represents the fact that perhaps Yuta is having an issue holding his smartphone steady. But on a deeper level, this represents how Yuta is seeing the world differently when he looks at it through his smartphone camera rather than with his own eyes. This effect can’t go unnoticed by a reader, which helps to make it an effective tool for Fujimoto to communicate the points he wants to make with this story.

When it comes down to it, Goodbye, Eri is a story about dealing with loss. Shooting footage with the smartphone and making movies is an important part of the story, but the main point of the story is loss. Yuta has to deal with loss multiple times during this one shot, and it seems like the final loss has broken him. I have to admit that when I first read the ending for Goodbye, Eri, I was of a rather mixed opinion about it. But as I spent time thinking about it afterward, I realized that this was really the only way the story could have ended.

Even though this one shot is around 200 pages in length, it didn’t feel like it was that long of a read. In fact, I was so engaged and engrossed in what I was reading that the volume went a lot faster than I was anticipating. I give Fujimoto some serious props for creating and writing such a compelling story.

If you are a fan of Fujimoto’s work and have an appreciation for this kind of a drama/slice-of-life story, then I would suggest giving Goodbye, Eri a chance. If you’re not familiar with Fujimoto’s work and enjoy drama and slice-of-life manga, I would also recommend this one shot to you as well.

The way this twists and turns, and just continues to wrap itself around you, is amazing and breathtaking at the same time. This definitely makes you question the plot, how things are moving and if you even have an inkling of the right answer. But, that how Fujimoto does it and knocks it out of the park each and every time.

Okay, I'm not the target audience for this novel as I rarely read Manga and I've never read this author before. So for someone who is not at all familiar with his style, I was confused for much of it, but then I went back and revisited the story and I have to say it was very well done. I'm still confused by the ending, but I believe that is deliberate. If you, like me, have never read anything like this before, give it a chance--you may need to read it a couple of times but I think it's worth it. The story is about a teenage filmmaker (he is 12 at the beginning of the story) and the story reads like a film, from the blurry panels as you would see with a boy and his camera early on, to the way several panels look exactly the same, except for the facial expressions, as you might see with a close-up of a face during a film. There are some stories within stories, and as I said, the ending leaves itself open to multiple interpretations but the final scene (in my mind) pulls the whole thing together.

I'm so glad I took a chance on this. It was kind of a mind trip, but I really enjoyed trying to puzzle out what was going on, and then going back to reread it to better figure out how it all connected. The ultimate messages are for the reader to decide and I love that you might get something different about it each time, depending on your headspace at the time.

I received an advance review copy for free from NetGalley and the publishers, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing early access to this title in exchange for an honest review.

This is a single-volume manga by the creator of Chainsaw Man, but it's a completely different genre, exploring a teenage boy's judgment for his atypical response to grief and the catharsis of art. The panels are drawn through the viewpoint of Yuta's smartphone as he records the people around him, which I've never seen in a manga before. I've never even seen it in a graphic novel for more than a few panels here and there. It gives the story an immediacy and humility--the characters are regular, relatable people.

However, the format does mean it's literally told through the male gaze. The titular character, Eri, is a total manic pixie dream girl, which held the story back for me.

Overall, I enjoyed the message, the art style, and the unusual format. I'd be very happy for any of our teen boys at the library to try out this story, especially fans of Bakumon or Orange.

I really liked this. The art style was fantastic and I think it was a good look into the artist's story telling abilities. This was my first book I read by Task Fujimoto and it made me want to pick up more of their work.

This book is an interesting and insightful metacommentary about fiction. I really liked how it blurred the line between fantasy and reality. I can’t quite fully verbalize why I enjoyed it, but it tickled the weird part of my brain and I suspect I’ll be contemplating this story some weeks from now.

I think the biggest thing I took away from Goodybye Eri is emotional damage. This book is so good and so sad. I really enjoyed the story and the art was beautiful. I will be getting this as soon as I can get my hands on it.

Wow. Whatever I thought I was expecting I was not with this one. This is a thought provoking but also mind blowing manga about two teens creating a movie together and learning about each other while harboring secrets.
I would recommend this for fans of Junji Ito.
Thank you to NetGalley and Viz Media for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I thought that Goodbye, Eri was a really interesting one volume story by Tatsuki Fujimoto! The plot centers around a young boy named Yuta, who is gifted a video camera and tasked with filming the final moments of his mother's life as she suffers from terminal illness. From there, the story takes twists and turns, making you question whether the events you saw in pages earlier even happened at all. I highly recommend this title!

This was a pretty quick read surrounding the theme of loss and death, through an interesting lens of how we can prolong it through video. I enjoyed it, but wouldn't say that it's something I was blown away by. The whole story is definitely something that is open to each person's own interpretation.

Goodbye, Eri is a lovely exploration of how others' perceptions of oneself affects one's way of living. We view the story's events though the eyes/phone camera of the main character, and Goodbye, Eri uses the comics medium in unique way that elevates the text.

A beautifully drawn manga that touches on themes of loss, death, and disappointment. Twisty and turny plot, but one that is open to reader interpretation.

Book Review

Title: Goodbye, Eri by Tatsuki Fujimoto

Genre: Manga, Contemporary, Drama

Rating: 4 Stars

After binge reading the first part of Chainsaw Man I knew Fujimoto was going to be an instant read author for me so when I had the chance to request Goodbye, Eri I knew I had to read it. This was very different to Chainsaw Man as it didn’t really have a strong fantasy element or any gore but it did retain Fujimoto’s ominous atmosphere which I ended up really enjoying. Goodbye Eri follows a young filmmaker, Yuta as he is creating a film for his mother who is dying and she asks him to film her right up to her final breath and Yuta agree.

As more time passes and the day his mother is going to die gets closer we see Yuta struggling to come to terms with it and process his own emotions because he is literally experiencing everything through the camera lens and isn’t really taking it in. He ends up playing the movie at the school festival but it is poorly received as many, students and staff, believe that Yuta cheapened his mother’s death with the movie but they don’t know everything that was going on behind the scenes because those have been edited out.

On his way to commit suicide, Yuta ends up meeting Eri who loved his film and wants him to make another one. She begins by educating him on movie culture and the pair spend hours together watching movies and just being comfortable around each other but Eri eventually has to confess that she is also dying and that is why she wanted Yuta to make another movie, one for her. Yuta agrees knowing he is stronger than the last time and see the movie through to its ending which is loved by everyone that views it even though it was the true Eri because he allowed people to choose to remember her that way which was a beautiful message.

However, Yuta’s life doesn’t improve, he always felt there was something missing from Eri’s movie and has edited it a lot more over the years. He also grew up, got married and had a daughter until they along with his father were killed in a car accident leaving Yuta the only survivor. He once again wants to commit suicide but Eri is there waiting for him. It is unclear whether Eri is a hallucination and Yuta is dead or whether she appeared to him to convince him to stay alive but I liked that the ending can change depending on who is reading it much like Yuta’s movies within the story.

Fujimoto's expressive art and fast-paced storytelling combine to create a story about grief and explosions. The blending of film, fantasy, and reality have left me thinking about the end since I finished this one-shot. An interesting exploration of who people are after they're gone -- their true self or other's memories of them? Heavy questions for a funny one-shot that can be read quickly! If you're already a fan of Fujimoto's storytelling, or are interested in his work but aren't ready to commit to Chainsaw Man, check this one out!
Thanks Netgalley for the digital ARC.