Review: Goodbye, Eri

So, you know when you read a thing, and that thing is just… impossible to describe to someone without spoiling it? “Goodbye, Eri” by Tatsuki Fujimoto (Chainsaw Man, Look Back) is one of those things. I’ve just finished reading it - it’s a short work, and only took me an hour to get through - and I need to write my thoughts about it while they’re fresh. This is gonna be as light on spoilers as possible, so go and buy it, read it, and come back.

Make sure you do the “come back” part. The “sharing this post” part is also appreciated.

Yes, I physically bought it - there's something special about physical media.

The story’s POV is Yuta, twelve-year-old middle schooler who just got a smartphone for his birthday.

That’s… actually not entirely true, as the POV is Yuta’s phone. After his terminally ill mother asks him to record her while she’s fighting her illness, Yuta begins to habitually record his daily life, and even receives a computer to store the extra footage once the phone’s memory is exhausted.

The panels on each page are rectangular, presumably to indicate that we’re actually seeing this footage. It even has an occasional “blurry” effect to simulate the phone being shaken or out of focus - this was off-putting at first, as my eyes aren’t super clear at the best of times, but I got used to it.

Hey ChatGPT, search google for "astigmatism irritants"

As Yuta and his father are about to visit his mother for the last time, his nerve breaks, he runs for it, and the hospital explodes - or at least, that’s how the movie presented at the school festival finishes. In reality, he added the explosion to the recordings, and earned the ire of the student body for disrespecting his own mother. This was pretty early on, but at this point, it had me thinking this kid was a complete psychopath.

He isn’t though, and just before jumping to his death following the ridicule, he encounters Eri - a strange movie-obsessed girl who loved what was shown, and wants Yuta to make another movie that leaves the audience in tears.

What follows is a montage of movie-watching sessions, Eri rejecting each newly written script, and many, MANY absolutely gorgeous panels bursting with detail, that amaze me with the amount of time and effort that must’ve gone into them.

THOSE LEAVES - THIS IS NOT NORMAL

While the opening of the story was definitely attention grabbing, the strangeness of these panels is what clued me into something about this story being unique. Any creative worth their salt knows where to put the emphasis, in terms of time and effort - knowing what not to put in is just as important.

Eri and Yuta finally settle on a script, and begin filming. The first full-page panel features Eri, slightly blurred by the above-mentioned effect, while Yuta records her at a beach. This scene is pivotal, not just to the narrative, but to the manga as a whole - this is the mid-point, at which the whole world is turned upside down.

I’m not going to talk much about the second half of the story, as these are the truly important parts that make this manga worth a read. I will say though, that after the first reveal at the beach, I was expecting a certain kind of story that, while cliché, would absolutely work if done well. Fujimoto had other plans.

It’s soon revealed that Yuta’s father recorded his mother’s death in Yuta’s place, and the panel of her last lines made the bottom of my stomach fall out - the name of the game is “recontextualization”.

There’s an indie game that released a few years ago called Inscryption by Daniel Mullins. I bring this up because this game uses a similar narrative tool called the Magic Circle - at first, you think it’s just a roguelike card game against a mysterious pair of spooky eyes floating in the dark. Then, at the behest of said eyes, you’re given the opportunity to stand up and walk around a small cabin. Then, after you finally pick apart a series of puzzles and beat your adversary at their own game, the magic circle of context gets even wider, revealing…

Spoilers.

Likewise, the reason I don’t want to go into depth regarding the manga’s second half is because of this magic circle. Things you’ve seen, you’ll see in a new light, with a new understanding about the characters, the story and the manga as a whole.

Fujimoto’s work here is astounding, from the intense background details, to the clever paneling, to the way he presents a train of thought across multiple pages via the shifting expressions of the subjects.

"Tell me human, what are these 'emotions' you speak of?"

An extra thought on the facial expressions: I have high-functioning autism, which means I can do most things that anyone else can, except when it's time to review the funding for my disability pension. One of the quirks of my condition is an aversion to faces - while it’s not too hard to look at people if I try, strangers might get the no-eye-contact treatment without me realizing it. Even if you’re not a stranger, unless you’re a relative, I might end up speaking to your mouth rather than your eyes.

A lot of the nuance of this manga comes from the facial expressions. The faces are very well done, but unfortunately, the realism made me skip over the faces for the first few dozen pages before I realized. It’s not a problem with the manga itself, just an interesting observation - I don’t think I’ve done that before, because this probably the first manga I’ve read with realistic facial art, as opposed to moe-blobs or inhuman Shinigami.

I’m not sure how often I’ll post reviews, especially for non-game media, but I wanted to do this write-up as a recommendation for my friends who might be on the fence, and for my brother who is going to read this whether he wants to or not.

So, in conclusion, go buy the bloody thing. The experience is absolutely worth it.

When I’m not procrastinating on the thing I’m supposed to be doing, I can usually be found on Bluesky or Discord. I also have a Patreon, which is in serious need of TLC.