Tatsuki Fujimoto has followed up his acclaimed one shot, Look Back, with another excellent manga, Goodbye Eri. The story follows Yuta, a middle school teen with a love for filming. He created a movie filming his mother’s last few months for his school festival on her request. However, it was not well received. While depressed he decided to kill himself, but the moment he was going to jump he met a girl, Eri, who drags him off to watch movies. This story focuses on both as they create a movie.

The art style itself is decent, Fujimoto’s ability to use facial expressions for nuanced emotions stands out very much. Fujimoto’s main strength is the uniqueness of his art choices. Being about film most of the manga is shown via the perspective of a camera filming a movie. This is a very interesting choice. I enjoyed it a lot. Fujimoto uses this artistic choice to its full advantage, effectively using it in various situations, whether happy or sad, to its advantage. An example is blurring the camera in sad moments while Yuta runs or holds it down, due to the erratic movements. Simultaneously this evokes the feeling of tearing up as well as movement.

Fujimoto handles pacing well using the art, with some of the scenes being reminiscent of long shots in a movie, with the art showing multiple panels in a row with only the subject moving. Additionally making transitionary scenes where massive amounts of time pass feel like the scenes in a movie.

The story overall is very well done. I found it entertaining and it did not overstay its welcome. I feel like the ending was full of moments that were indistinguishable from being film or not and that uncertainty was something that I liked. The vagueness between reality and film towards the end was a choice that kept me thinking after reading this manga.

The characters were very well done. I found no real inconsistencies in the characters and their decisions. The theme of grief and choosing how to remember someone after death was very well executed.

I would compare this manga to Look Back, it seems to me that Fujimoto has a lot of similar things that carry across in his work, such as focus on artforms and grief over death. The focus on movies makes me think of Chainsaw man and Fire Punch, some of his other manga that took a lot from movies. If you enjoyed these, you would enjoy this.

In conclusion this was a very good manga, I enjoyed it and the ending was very strong for me. I love endings that invite discussion and if you enjoy that then this is perfect for you.

I would give this a 4.8/5

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