Goodbye, Eri... What?

We're quite sure we have Tatsuki Fujimoto's "Goodbye, Eri" figured out. A mother is dying of cancer, and she pleads with her son, our hero, to film her ultimate struggle with the disease, so that he may keep the memories of her throughout the rest of his life. Our hero is diligent; he eventually acquires hundreds of hours of footage depicting his mother as she was, a charming, caring figure in his life, and yet, at the climax, he, overwhelmed with emotion, is unable to film her final death throes. In silence, accompanied by the violent shaking of his camera symbolizing the chaotic state of his mind, he runs away from the hospital, chased only by his father's shouting.

And as he enters the parking lot, the hospital explodes.

And so ends "Explosion Death Mother".

...What?

In the aftermath of our hero's film, we see the reactions of his classmates: some are offended by the crass content, others think it's simply stupid. One classmate, genuinely wounded, tells him that her own mother had cancer and died, and that it's unforgivable that he made such an insipid movie about the struggles of a cancer patient. And what the heck was the explosion about?

Perhaps we, as the audience, share this character's viewpoint: that it's really not cool to frame the process of death like an action movie. Or we think it's just a high schooler's movie, who cares what the ultimate result is? We may even think it's funny (as I did, reminding me of Tig Notaro's famous standup or "Dick Johnson is Dead"). In any case, our hero, burdened with negative attention, decides to commit suicide, by jumping off the roof of the hospital his own mother died in.

But before he can jump, we meet the titular character, Eri. She happens to be a big fan of his film.

Now we're quite sure what "Goodbye, Eri" is about.

And so now we understand that "Goodbye, Eri" really revolves around our cinephile Eri, who is the instigator and subject of the story. Eri is our hero's emotional support through his second attempt at making a film - this time a good one - and through her our hero also learns things about himself and things about life. Yet, consequently, we learn Eri is at the end of her life, as a result of a terminal illness. And so our hero crafts a film demonstrating the beauty of life, in spite of death, to a tearing audience.

I mean, we've seen this type of movie literally a hundred times. "Moulin Rouge", "The Fault in Our Stars", "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time", "Garden of Words". Roger Ebert called it Ali MacGraw's Disease. "South Park" did a wonderful parody of this. How else could it have ended?

Except...there is one disconnecting moment from this story. Some time in the middle, our hero's father has a tense argument with Eri - who I noted never seemed to have exchanged dialogue with any other human being in the entire story - about our hero's growing obsession with filming things and making movies. Which, though he could have made a more refined, logical argument, you honestly have to agree with a little. I mean, the kid has several laptops' worth in memory of footage that probably does not matter.

Yet, after the father's emotion and tears, and his grief over his wife's death manifesting in physical form, we come to see...that this is a scene. This is fabricated. The emotion was not real. I mean, it could have been inspired by his own life, but ultimately it was a scripted affair.

Not only that, the father explicates that our hero's mother was not at all the kind person depicted in the film: her son was a tool for her to tell a very specific narrative about her struggle with cancer.

And now we return back to the film's end, where we see an emaciated Eri lying on her death bed. We return back to the audience's tears. Everyone is profoundly affected.

And yet that same character, who could not forgive our hero at the beginning of the story, approaches our hero once more to say: The truth was, Eri was a huge bitch. The Eri put on film is not real. To which our hero acknowledges: almost nothing in that film was real. They absolutely were never in a relationship to begin with. Everything had been scripted.

Cut to black. The story resumes again with our hero, older, recounting, though the story had ended with his victory, and Eri's immortalization into film, how he had never gotten over the editing of the film - the cut shown to his high school never satisfying him, he obsessively tinkers, to the detriment of his health, with the footage for a final cut. He has a life with a wife and a son, and yet he believes he will likely be editing the perfect film, only in his mind's eye, forever.

And in a fatal car accident, his wife, his son, and his father all die. He is the sole survivor.

Now we're quite sure what "Goodbye, Eri" is about.

Our hero runs to the house where he met Eri, in order to end it all.

He discovers that Eri is still alive. As a vampire. No, really this time.

And this time, we're very sure that Eri will give him the fulfillment his life has been lacking. She'll make him into a vampire, or she'll give him worldly wisdom that allows him to move on from the tragedy, and finish making the perfect film.

To some extent, she does. She gives him one final analysis of his films: that their true sole strength was that they had a bit of fantasy in them. The only issue with his last film, from high school, was that there was no fantasy - she is a vampire in plain fact. She also leaves him with the sentimental thought that, in spite of being immortal, because, you know, vampire, she'll at least have the movie to remember our hero by.

And so our hero, understanding now the importance of death and memories, bows, takes his leave of Eri, and walks away, for the last time, from the building where he and Eri watched so many movies.

Which subsequently explodes.

...What?

A story about stories

At the end of the story, we are not sure what is real anymore. We are certain we cannot be sure what about the story is real, although we have some sense the deaths of our hero's mother and Eri are real. Again, we're not sure who is doing what sincerely.

The interesting thing about Fujimoto's career is that he has been willing to tackle subjects relevant to contemporary society in an intellectual way. As with "Look Back", he treats the topic of perception - not of public perception necessarily, but our own perception of the world around ourselves, of our identity, and of our destiny (or lack of) over our lives. This is a very important subject in our society now, where a person can connect with a great number of people in multiple audio/visual channels, which can be manipulated technologically and artistically to communicate a specific narrative (as exemplified by these commercials). In contrast to other mangaka who rail exclusively on how bad this development is (looking a bit like luddites as a result), it's very refreshing that Fujimoto addresses the issue on a personal level - he begins with an individual's, a flawed but decent individual's, need to edit reality a little bit in order to deal with the difficulty of living.

Human beings have always been disconnected from reality; only now in our media-saturated lives we are given so many alternate realities we are free to jump to another when we are bored of one. Heroes now need never die. We can even pretend to be them. People talk seriously about having main character energy.

The cleverness of the story is that it plays on the audience's awareness of tropes. "Goodbye, Eri" seems to be fully aware it is a story and critically, and subtly, takes away from the audience the denouement they are searching for. Everyone, in the stories within the story, is willing to play a specific part for the audience. But once the story is over, and the tears have been shed, Fujimoto always pulls the audience back, pointing to them the truth behind the camera.

Yet that is what I struggle with the most concerning this story: I'm not sure if Fujimoto is implying something about our need to edit our memories. My confusion is heightened by the ending, where, after a "tearful" exchange with Eri, our hero walks away, determined, from an explosion. In my mind, this is Fujimoto's final pulling back of the audience, his final magic trick. He is telling us we cannot believe that even this heartfelt ending is real. We want to believe our hero has evolved, we want to believe he has moved past his trauma. But what if he has merely edited reality to convince himself he has? And, is Fujimoto saying that this editing is crucial to our development as human beings?

This is where I admit my weakness as a critic, as a member of the audience: it is my tendency to break down, to remove sentimentality, to be doubtful, cynical even. It's difficult for me to believe that this internal editing, which is essentially lying, is worthy of sentiment.

If Fujimoto is saying that we must edit our lives, then I, as an individual, have to disagree, though I admire his artistry in demonstrating this idea. If Fujimoto is not saying that, and is merely making an observation, then I, as a critic, have to wonder why it took two hundred pages to demonstrate that observation.

Because I think the one-shot is a little dull. That the manga is composed to appear as if it were filmed entirely from an iPhone, is Fujimoto's great trick in convincing the reader they are seeing real life, when they assuredly are not. But it's dull visually, and the dialogue is forced, halted. Eri is not a particularly interesting character, nor is our hero, but one could argue that that is the point. The sole interesting thing about the one-shot, that invites re-reads, is the execution of the twists, and the twists alone.

This is in contrast to "Look Back", which introduced the world to Fujimoto's excellent talents as a storyteller. "Look Back" is visually exciting. A girl dances in the rain, shouting exultantly. A passerby karate-kicks a murderer. A mangaka holds her manga to her face and, in the darkness, tears it up, disavowing it.

"Look Back" convinces me somewhat that the cynical interpretation of "Goodbye, Eri" is the rightful one. The surprising quality of "Look Back", especially from the author of "Chainsawman", is that it was very grounded in reality. Creating manga sucks. It's an incredibly lonely hobby, and occupation. At the end even our heroine realizes her manga means nothing. Ultimately it's the personal connections she has made that redeems the labor put into the thankless task, demonstrated by a heartfelt ending that is totally deserved.

I wonder if Fujimoto was mindful of his audience's reaction to "Look Back". People tend to overlook the brutal reality surrounding that one-shot's story. If this is the case, then we should admire him all the more: he has created an aesthetic takedown of not only his own stories, but all stories. He is inviting the audience to think for themselves. Storytellers should be horrified, as their bread and butter comes from roping the audience along. His is an act of downright bravery, a quality rare indeed in popular fiction.