Tatsuki Fujimoto has a habit of discussing deeper topics through a sometimes hysterical lens, and yet, he always finds a way to make it work. While Chainsaw Man sensationalized work so far, his latest manga oneshot, Goodbye, Eri, takes the cake when it comes to this talent the mangaka has for throwing strange things into a pot and seeing what comes out. Much like its predecessor, Goodbye, Eri is poised to become a modern classic.
The story follows a young and depressed high school student named Yuta Ito. One day, he receives a smartphone on his birthday and a strange request from his mother. His mother is terminally ill and wishes to have the final days of her life filmed for future generations. Yuta obliges, and decides to turn the footage into a film that has a shocking ending which he concocted to make the piece more exciting after his mother passes away. The response to his film when he showed it at a school festival is one of outrage, and the bullying he experiences after forces Yuta to consider taking his own life. That changes when he meets a girl named Eri who confesses that she loved his movie and urges him to make another. The two decide to work on a new and improved version of Yuta's project and as they grow closer, it is revealed that the strange Eri has an even stranger secret.
What makes Goodbye, Eri stand out is how it handles grief and how people have different ways of processing it. It has slice-of-life elements, but doesn't fall into the typical, safe, tropes of the genre, instead spinning it and gives a supernatural twist. The best part about this twist is that it is hinted at but is left without enough ambiguity to allow readers to develop their own theories in regard to what they have just read. The ending, which is a conundrum in its own way, not only makes the reader question if everything they have read is real but also imparts the lesson that -- unlike what's seen in a majority of fiction -- real life isn't clean cut.
The translation work is also praiseworthy. Amanda Haley, one of the translators at Viz Media, makes the dialogue feel natural for English speakers. Every panel of dialogue flows well and is easy to read, the conversations within give a feeling that these could be had by real people and not what is to be expected in a lot of other manga of the same vein. This gives Goodbye, Eri a universal appeal despite any language barriers that may be present.
Goodbye, Eri is almost dreamlike in its presentation as if the reader, much like the plot itself, could interpret that the whole experience of Yuta is all in his head. The strange paranormal events that Yuta experiences, whether they were real or not, bestow upon him a reason to live. Ultimately, that is the power behind this manga. Grief is strong, but finding a purpose, a reason to keep living is even stronger--themes that all of us can relate to in trying times. Sometimes the hardest decisions to make lead to the best of possible outcomes.