In an era of perpetually ongoing franchises that don't know when to die, it's refreshing to read something that feels like the perfect example of a complete package. Imagine reading a story with love, tragedy, suspense, mystery, fantasy, and at least one mindfuck within 200 pages. These are accomplished without any extravagant fight scenes or incredibly flashy effects. This might sound like a weird descriptor, and I will do my best to make my case without spoiling it. Goodbye, Eri is a quiet story that plays with your expectations to the point where it feels like you're questioning reality by the time you reach the end.

I'm not talking about reality in the real world, but rather the reality and rules of the story itself. Goodbye, Eri begins as a very personal tale of a boy who loses his mother and how he copes with that by filming everything he sees. We never lose that literal and figurative narrative lens from beginning to end. The whole story is told from the perspective of Yuta's films. However, this idea of “filmmaking” is pushed to an extreme as a narrative device. When a writer creates a first draft or a film crew finishes the initial cut, it's often longer than the final version due to revisions. You could say The stories we read or films we watch are abridged versions where the writer or director trimmed the fat. What if a story's buildup and payoff rely on what's deliberately shown and withheld?

That can be very cheap sometimes, and it almost feels like the creator is cheating. It can be immersion-breaking if a storyteller withholds too much information from the audience. I assume Tatsuki Fujimoto is aware of how delicate the relationship is between a creator and their audiences. Not only is Fujimoto a talented mangaka, but he is also a gigantic movie buff. Flexing his narrative skills and taking full advantage of the manga and filmmaking mediums, sets up a shining example of this man's psyche. If that was the intention, then I'm just going to say that he succeeded with flying colors as Goodbye, Eri is probably one of the best celebrations of what it means to be an author and a filmmaker.

Since our protagonist is a boy who constantly films, the book has a sort of found footage feel to it. We see his journey as a young adolescent dealing with grief, and how others react and come to terms with difficult circumstances through his lenses. However, how many of these feelings are genuine, and which are part of this film our protagonist is creating? Without giving too much away, some scenes feel like genuine reactions to the characters' situations. But then, the characters will turn to the camera which will make you realize that it's part of the making of a film. You start to question almost every scene that comes off as either pretentious or confusing. I did not find it frustrating at any point. Up until the final moment, I realized it did not matter whether everything was "real" or part of the fiction within the fiction. The sense of genuine pathos was present throughout.

When I say the book reads like a found footage film, I mean that. Goodbye, Eri tells its story using a unique form of presentation that I haven't seen emulated by any other mangaka before. The book uses an orthodox comma style, with most pages having just four stretched-out panels. Everything seems very basic at first glance. Sometimes the panels look like they are used to depict a conversation between unmoving characters in the same space. However, the way Fujimoto manipulates pacing and expectation using this layout is extraordinary and subtle to the point where you don't realize it until you're already halfway through the book. The story feels cinematic in the way that it allows scenes to breathe, even for a few panels or pages without dialogue after a character delivers a punctual line.

The story isn't particularly dialogue-heavy, with as many pages having no dialogue as those front-loaded with it. When the manga does ditch the four-comma style to use a double-page spread, it feels deliberate, much like an indie film that blows its budget on a big scene after being conservative throughout the film. I even like some of the more subtle details, like how some panels would have overlapped drawings to create a fuzzy look, like a screenshot of a camera in mid-movement.

It felt like Fujimoto was telling me he was only showing me what he wanted me to see. Despite this, all those winks and nudges also came with a promise that what I will walk away with was ultimately a good feeling. That might be frustrating, and maybe even pretentious, to some people. But for me, it felt like a genuine conversation with the creator. I could be reading too much into this—it almost felt like Fujimoto was expressing a love for that manipulation and how sometimes it's OK to give into the illusion and blur the lines between fantasy and reality. Because, sometimes, a little pinch of fantasy can make real life more interesting. I can't speak for everybody. But I was pleasantly happy with being manipulated the way that I was because I ultimately had the opportunity to walk away with a new favorite to add to my collection. If you haven't already, Goodbye, Eri is an absolute must-read and receives my highest recommendation!