Goodbye, Eri Manga Review
Goodbye, Eri follows Yuta, a young boy grappling with the weight of recording his terminally ill mother’s final days. When his attempt to create a film in her memory ends in harsh criticism, he meets Eri, a mysterious girl who encourages him to keep filming. As they bond over their love of movies, Yuta finds himself on a journey where reality and fantasy start to mix together. This one-shot by Tatsuki Fujimoto dives into the heavy themes of grief, legacy, and the ways we tell stories to deal with life’s toughest moments.
Story: 5/5
Goodbye, Eri is one of my favorite one-shots that I’ve
...
ever read. Fujimoto shows his mastery over his craft by weaving a tale that explores legacy, grief, and a pinch of fantasy. It’s hard to describe the feeling I get while reading Goodbye, Eri.
One of Fujimoto’s strengths is his ability to write about themes. With the entirety of Goodbye, Eri focusing on legacy, as seen through Yuta’s mother’s and Eri’s life and death, he really touches the soul of the reader and gives them the ability to completely resonate with Yuta’s emotions. However, with Fujimoto always leaning towards the side of fantasy, he had to add an open-ended conclusion that could leave multiple interpretations for readers. This is where the beauty of Goodbye, Eri really shines.
A lot of Fujimoto’s work is based in fantasy, such as Chainsaw Man or Fire Punch. For most of the story, you’re under the assumption that the world of Goodbye, Eri takes place in one much like ours—a mundane world grounded in reality. That is until the epilogue, where we see an adult Yuta ready to give up on life after losing his wife, child, and father in a car accident. Driven by grief, he decides to end his own life in a place that meant something to him—the place he would watch movies with Eri back when he was a kid. Only, who does he find there after all these years? Eri, still as young as she was when she died.
It is here that Yuta starts to question if he is in a dream, and the reader starts to lose their immersion in the real-world setting that Goodbye, Eri seemed to be grounded in. While open-ended conclusions may be frustrating to some, like my wife, I find beauty in the feelings that these types of endings leave me with. What was real? What was fake? Was it all a dream?
All we know is that Goodbye, Eri ended with exactly what it needed from Fujimoto: “a pinch of fantasy.”
Art: 4/5
Fujimoto’s art, while stylistic, has never been something to write home about, apart from his bizarre depictions of devils. In Goodbye, Eri, where there are no devils to disturb us, the art isn’t the focal point of the story. So, why did I rate it a 4/5 instead of a 3/5? It’s because of the unique point of view that Fujimoto captures.
Fujimoto did something remarkable by telling the story entirely from the perspective of Yuta’s recorded footage. This choice becomes especially impactful in the final act, where it’s revealed that the footage of Yuta’s mother was curated to represent how she wanted the world to remember her. This artistic decision deeply resonates with the themes of memory and legacy, asking profound questions like, “Who will remember us after we die?” and “What legacy will we leave behind?” Fujimoto captures this existential urge to be remembered perfectly through the art and perspective in Goodbye, Eri.
Characters: 5/5
I think another one of Fujimoto’s strengths is his ability to make characters feel real—not just in their actions, but in their emotions, trauma, and grief. He has an uncanny ability to make the reader experience these feelings deeply, and in Goodbye, Eri, he masterfully immerses the reader in these experiences within a compact span of 201 pages.
Yuta's character is, like most of Fujimoto’s main characters, a tragic one. He’s put in a position where he has to record his mother and his newly acquired best friend as they die. Adding his father into the mix, through these four characters, we get to dive into the themes of legacy as we talked about before.
Yuta’s Mother
Yuta’s mother represents human selfishness in the pursuit of legacy. She was obsessed with appearing to be the perfect mother through Yuta’s recordings, despite actually not being the best parent. In fact, the only reason she got him a camera to begin with wasn’t out of love for her son, but rather as a means to immortalize her self-image and professional persona. Her representation is further solidified after her death when Yuta’s father reveals a haunting recording of her final words: “That boy was useless to the very end.” It’s a gut punch that highlights just how little she actually cared about Yuta, revealing how her so-called legacy was really just a shallow facade.
Eri
Now, opposite to Yuta’s mother, Eri represents escapism and the idealized version of reality. She shows up shortly after Yuta’s film is shown at school and is heavily criticized. Thinking the only option is death, Yuta proceeds to attempt to jump off the roof of the hospital, where he is confronted by Eri during his moment of hesitation. She recognizes him as the director of Dead Explosion Mother, Yuta’s film, and befriends him, inviting him to watch movies with her. As a fan of his film, she knows that Yuta has potential and wants him to experience as much of life as possible through movies. Through this, Eri also offers Yuta a way to process his grief and trauma by immersing himself in a fantasy, contrasting with the harsh reality he captured with his mother. As time passes, Yuta begins to direct a new video—a tale of a vampire who falls in love with “the filmmaker” as he films her until her death. As it turns out, Eri is actually dying and asks him to film her until she passes, just like his mother, and to use the footage to complete his new film. When it is complete and she passes, he showcases his newest film again at school. He captures this “over-idealized” Eri, as her only other friend puts it, much like how Yuta’s father said he did for his mother. Yuta is doing exactly what he did with his mother, but this begs the question: why does it feel so different? Personally, I feel that while his mother’s film was about constructing an artificial legacy, Eri’s film is about finding solace in a fantasy that is more emotionally satisfying, even if it’s not entirely real. This contrast deepens the understanding of why Yuta’s experience with Eri feels so different.
Yuta’s Father
This brings us to Yuta’s father, who represents human guilt and the avoidance of confrontation. Yuta’s father is very much aware of how his wife is treating their son, but he ignores it due to his inability to confront death (his dying wife). While having a talk with Yuta after his mother’s death, Yuta’s father brings up the fact that through Yuta’s recordings, he got to see only the best parts of his wife. He then goes on to say Yuta has the power to decide how people are remembered, and what an incredible thing that is.
Yuta
Which leads us finally to Yuta, our protagonist. Yuta represents the human struggle with identity and memory. In the course of the 201 pages of Goodbye, Eri, Yuta writes and films two movies, identical on paper but profoundly different in essence. His mother’s film is a constructed legacy, a reflection of her selfish desires, while Eri’s film captures a more genuine, albeit idealized, version of his emotional journey. Through these contrasting films, Yuta evolves from a boy burdened by the need to preserve his mother’s flawed legacy to an artist who seeks solace and understanding through his craft. His journey underscores the complexity of how we deal with grief and the stories we tell ourselves and others to make sense of our experiences. Yuta’s character ultimately illustrates the profound impact of reconciling personal trauma with the pursuit of an authentic, meaningful expression of self.
Personal Comments
As much as I love traditional shounen, I can't deny that my favorite manga are the ones that leave me emotionally stunned by the end, those rare stories that are so impactful they leave me at a loss for words. It takes a deep understanding of human nature to craft something that resonates on that level, and Fujimoto is undeniably one of those creators. His ability to explore complex human emotions and make the reader feel them so profoundly is nearly unparalleled.
I'd rate Goodbye, Eri a solid 9/10. While Fujimoto absolutely nails the story and character aspects, I wouldn't say his art is exceptional. If it weren’t for the unique perspective he used in this story, I might have dropped it to an 8/10. Fujimoto excels at drawing unsettling demons and devils, which are notably absent here, but being grounded in reality served the story well, especially with its twist ending.
In the end, Goodbye, Eri isn’t just a story, it’s an experience. One that will forever live on in my heart.
Aug 13, 2024
Sayonara Eri
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Goodbye, Eri Manga Review
Goodbye, Eri follows Yuta, a young boy grappling with the weight of recording his terminally ill mother’s final days. When his attempt to create a film in her memory ends in harsh criticism, he meets Eri, a mysterious girl who encourages him to keep filming. As they bond over their love of movies, Yuta finds himself on a journey where reality and fantasy start to mix together. This one-shot by Tatsuki Fujimoto dives into the heavy themes of grief, legacy, and the ways we tell stories to deal with life’s toughest moments. Story: 5/5 Goodbye, Eri is one of my favorite one-shots that I’ve ... |
