Chainsaw Man Creator's New Manga Proves He Never Needed A Gory Gimmick
Warning! Spoilers ahead for Goodbye, Eri!
Some critics are either unable or refuse to grasp the inherent depth of mangaka Tatsuki Fujimoto's Chainsaw Man. This might be because they can't see beyond the amount of gore that saturates each page or the fact that Denji's head turns into a chainsaw. Something that ridiculous can't be profound, right? But Fujimoto's latest one-shot entitled Goodbye, Eri explores similar and diverging themes just as effectively if not more so without excessive violence — and the only gimmick Fujitmoto employs occurs at the very end. But even then, readers aren't sure if it's even real.
In Goodbye, Eri, Fujimoto explores the power of cinematography through the experiences of a middle schooler named Yuta Ito as he's forced to capture two traumatizing events on camera. In both instances, readers only have access to what Yuta chooses to film or wants them to see when he's not rolling. These scenes are viewed as fact since Fujimoto doesn't suggest otherwise until other people later on in the 200-page one-shot tell Yuta how differently he portrayed the characters he filmed to how they actually are in real life. Readers eventually learn that Yuta either chose moments that made the subjects in his film look kinder than they actually are or changed their wardrobe even though these projects were supposed to be rooted in reality. In each case, these choices change not only the reader's understanding of the filmed subject but how they actually affected Yuta off-screen in real life.
Related: Chainsaw Man Didn't Just Copy Another Manga, It Improved It
Then there are the times in which Yuta clearly incorporates otherworldly elements into his films. This video technique accomplishes two things. The first
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