On October 7, 2022, VIZ Media granted countless Chainsaw Man fans wishes and announced Goodbye Eri will release in Summer 2023! The 200-page one-shot has Tatsuki Fujimoto’s signature art style and god-tier writing skills.
You won’t find devils or gore, but the plot contains heavy themes like suicide and abuse. Fujimoto will never be a baby’s first at anything, but Goodbye Eri has a charm that will resonate with you long after you finish reading.
What is Goodbye Eri?
Goodbye Eri appears to have no connection to Fujimoto’s previous works, but certain traits are present. Characters that appear to be nice turn out to be horrible or different near the end of the story.
Warning: There will be spoilers!
What is appropriate when it comes to grieving and creativity is debated. And the main character feels like a real person.
The plot centers on Yuta. His parents give him a smartphone for his birthday, and his mother asks him to record her while she battles an unnamed illness that she could die from.
Yuta agrees, and we see events switch from a camera’s perspective to what’s happening as Yuta’s mother dies. Yuta was supposed to film his mother’s final moments, but he ran away, and we realize that Yuta made a film using footage of his mother and other moments.
Such as random cats, and he made the hospital explode in the final scene. However, no one liked his film, so he decided to jump off the hospital roof.
But that’s where he meets Eri. The one person who loved his movie and wants him to make more.
The two form a bond over movies, and eventually, Yuta comes up with the plot for his second movie. He’s the main character, and Eri plays the role of a vampire.
But Eri is also sick, and she dies shortly after Yuta finishes filming. Yuta submitted the film, and everyone cried.
It was the reaction Eri and Yuta wanted, but fans debate the ending.
What does it mean?
Yuta grows up, gets married, starts a family, and continues to work on Goodbye Eri. He had a good life until his vehicle was caught in a traffic accident, and he was the only one in his family to survive.
Once again, Yuta decides to take his life, but this time, he chooses the building he and Eri watched movies in to hang himself in. Only to find Eri is alive and looks just like she did before she died.
She tells him that she is a vampire, but she doesn’t have any memories of her past life, and every Eri is the same. But she has the movie he made, and a letter from the last Eri, so she’ll always have those moments whenever she gets lonely.
Yuta and Eri have a heart-to-heart, and he says goodbye to her for the last time. The story ends with a smiling Yuta walking away from the building, blowing up like the hospital in Yuta’s first movie.
I hope Goodbye Eri gets animated. This is a story that everyone will love!