[[SPOILER ALERT]]
Goodbye, Eri is a one-shot manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto. It was released online on Shonen Jump+ in April 2022 and published in print in July 2022.
Story summary
The story is about a boy named Yuta who gets asked by his mother to keep filming her activity until the day she dies. After she dies, Yuta premiers the movie at his school festival event. Instead of getting praise, everyone laughed at him because of the ending of the movie since everyone thought it would be sad. Instead, he ended it by adding what others think is an unnecessary explosion. Everyone is disappointed and bullies him. Yuta decides to commit suicide by jumping from the roof of his mother’s hospital. He’s stopped by a girl named Eri, who reveals she actually loved his movie and urges him to make another one. Both of them decided to work together. They started by watching a lot of movies for inspiration and filming together.
They both become close as time goes by until Eri suddenly falls unconscious. Then, she reveals that she is ill just like Yuta's mother, and doesn’t have enough time to live. Yuta is kind of giving up after hearing the news but his dad encourages him to keep working on the movie project while also revealing to the reader that Yuta’s mother was actually abusive towards her son and husband. The film she had Yuta make was an attempt to either capitalize on her illness if she survived or memorialize her in a positive light if she died. Yuta and Eri complete their movie, not long before Eri dies. Yuta screens his new movie, which is met with praise this time around. Yuta is later confronted by one of Eri’s friends, and the two admit that Eri was not the idealized version Yuta filmed and edited for their movie, but both agree they prefer to remember their mutual friend this way.
After that, Yuta spent his time balancing between his normal life and his obsession with re-editing Eri’s film. Several years later, the adult Yuta loses his wife, child, and father in a car accident. Losing the will to live, Yuta decides to attempt suicide once again in the screening room where he and Eri usually watch movie marathons.
When he arrived there, Yuta found Eri who was still alive and youthful. Eri reveals that she is truly a vampire who experienced repeated memory loss due to cycles of brain death during her immortal life. Eri from her previous life had left behind special instructions for her future reincarnation, as well as a film she and Yuta made to ensure that he would remember her forever and know what kind of person he should strive to be. Yuta’s zest for life returns, he says goodbye to Eri and leaves without worry when the screening room building explodes, similar to the end of his film about his mother, so that the reality of the previous scene becomes blurred.
Review
This manga makes me cry A LOT. I will never forgive Tatsuki Fujimoto for making me cry like a baby. Finally, I get what people mean when they say that reading this one-shot manga feels like riding a roller coaster.
An emotional roller coaster.
It is a hell of a journey. I remember after finishing reading this I have to put away the manga and collect myself for several minutes. Since I thought this would be like a sad-romance-cliche kind of story but it is not. At some point after reading it, I’m having a moment where I can’t differentiate whether this is reality or just an imagination. Peak fiction!
Yuta (the main character) uses his love for movies to cope with his miserable life, as he was never loved by his mother, who always considered him a useless son. Even so, he still tries to portray his mother as a good maternal figure through the movies he makes. It breaks my heart with a revelation at the end of the manga. The Mom’s movie she had Yuta make was an attempt to either capitalize on her illness if she survived or memorialize her in a positive light if she died. How can a mother be that cruel to her own son?!
The idea of the mother considering him a “useless son” due to his perceived inability to capture her death adds another layer of emotional complexity to the narrative. It delves into the expectations placed on children and the idea of what it means to be “useful” or “courageous” in the face of such challenging circumstances.
My heart drops when I read this page. She is so selfish. The surprising truth about Yuta’s mother makes the story more interesting and changes what we think about her. Also, Eri’s illness and her coming back as a vampire add a magical element that explores memory, loss, and living forever. Yuta and Eri working together help them grow and understand each other better.
The ending is very bizarre and quite fascinating. Tatsuki Fujimoto is able to craft a poignant narrative filled with complexities of grief, love, and fantasy. The manga explores the strong impact of a mother’s request for her son to document her life, especially her impending death. The manga, through the process of making films, talks about family, being open about one’s feelings, and the pressures kids face. It makes my heart warm to see Yuta’s journey from the beginning to the end of the story. From initial hesitation and fear to emotional growth.
I also love the way Tasuki Fujimoto created the ending for this story. Very goofy yet iconic. He makes Yuta accept his life by ending it in an artistic way. Explosion!
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