GOODBYE, ERI
Manga
AUTHOR
Tatsuki Fujimoto
SYNOPSIS
With his mother dying, Yuta attempts to capture her last days on his phone. After her death, Yuta heads to the roof of the hospital to commit suicide, but a meeting with a strange girl leads him on the path to making a movie.
THOUGHTS
There is honestly nothing I can type out that will accurately describe what it feels like to read Goodbye, Eri. Just like any of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s works, the first time I finished reading this 200-page self-contained story I was speechless. I could barely comprehend what had happened, or why I had found it so deeply moving, but as I sat there with my tablet on my lap I knew that I had been lucky enough to read something very special.
Goodbye, Eri doesn’t read like your usual comic book, where panels flow dynamically on the page and are strategically sized and shaped for the biggest impact. Almost every page of this manga consists of panels of the same size and shape, stacked one on top of another, resembling more of a storyboard. Within the context of the story, this is the only possible layout. Every panel in each page is an image captured by the protagonist’s phone camera, portraying life as it is. From the ugliness of a family tragedy, to the boring meals sitting around the dinner table, including the shakiness of Yuta’s hands holding the phone. We are invited to watch his movie as it is conceived and filmed. But what is life as it is, and what is part of the movie’s narrative?
SNEAK PEEK
