I used to hate 500 Days of Summer. One summer night when I was in my late teens, I watched 500 Days of Summer with a girl I was seeing. I really liked her and she really liked 500 Days of Summer, Zooey Deschanel’s portrayal of our titular character Summer in particular. That girl would go on to break my heart and for nearly a decade I viewed 500 Days of Summer as “that movie where that try-hard girl treats that really nice guy like crap”. It was not until loving Zooey Deschanel’s titular character The New Girl from New Girl that I decided to man up, sit down, and re-watch 500 Days of Summer, and 1 hour 35 minutes later I realized that nice, sweet, perfect gentleman Joseph Gordon-Levitt was not just portraying nice guy Tom Hansen, but also a liar. Tom “filthy liar” Hansen was a selfish boyfriend who only accepted Summers feelings when they lined up where he wanted them to. You cannot force someone to love you, nor should you try. Accepting someone for where they can be painful but trying to chisel at their heart until it looks like yours is, well it’s unhealthy at best.
Like far too many things in life, I used a piece of advertiser tainted media to look deeper at my own life, and nearly a decade after that girl broke my heart, I realized that if my heart were actually broken it wasn’t her that broke it, it was me. I broke my own heart by not accepting the reality that she did not like me in that way, not anymore, and those weeks after the first time she tried to break things off only to “give us another chance” at my request, I was doing exactly what that garbage bag dressed as a beautiful man was doing in 500 Days of Summer; I was refusing to accept her feelings while requesting she cater toward my own. In my dumb brain I had remembered a relationship and a film incorrectly based on the way I perceived them, and it was not until I went back and rewatched that film that I realized just how wrong my memories of it and that relationship were. I understand that therapists exist to help us examine and process our memories and emotions, however, while those clumps of carbohydrates, protein, and salts in our skulls may have created therapists they also created money and co-pays so in lieu of proper treatment allow me to recommend to you a one shot that takes a hard look at the way we choose to remember our memories, Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Goodbye, Eri.
On his 12th birthday, Yuta Ito receives a smartphone from his father and terminally ill mother. Elevated, Yuta records his birthday cake then his smiling parents as they gesture to the camera and after a beat Yuta’s mother asks:
“You know how I could die from my illness? How does that make you feel?” The camera keeps rolling. “I want you to start shooting videos of me…on video you can hear my voice and see me move, that way even if I’m gone you can still remember me.” “Can you do that for me?”
I want to avoid spoilers because I want you to read this one shot. I would prefer you close this tab and never return to my dead website if it meant that you left and read Goodbye, Eri (which is available on the Shonen Jump app at $3/month currently). Some plot spoilers will happen here, and I kind of spoiled the theme almost immediately but don’t let me ruin things for you, in fact don’t let anyone ruin anything for you. Video games, manga, anime, and film critics are a bunch of nerds, don’t let the way they remember something change the way you experience it. Yuta films the remainder of his mother’s life and turns it into a short film to be presented at his school. This is what we have been experiencing up until now. We are not exchanging nods with the narrator comfortably from our own reality-stricken match, we are sitting in this theater watching a families happiness expire frame by frame. “I’m unwell all the time now. It feels like his might last until I die.” We, still in the audience, ride behind the lens of Yuta’s camera as he pulls up to the hospital with his father. I am 32 years old now, a non-prime nor interesting number, but I have lived long enough to have lost people. Usually quickly and unexpectedly.
The more eagle-eyed reader may recall that I once wrote about my final interactions with my late father. I was in my late teens when I was told my father was in the hospital, was unwell, and that this was the end. My mother asked if I wanted to visit him. I did, but I never did. I cannot tell you why from an educated standpoint (that goes for anything I ever say or write), but I can tell you that I wanted my own reality to be the only one I acknowledged.
Yuta makes his way from the car towards the hospital’s entrance, his camera’s battery life competing against his mother’s.
“Yuta? Come here where are you going?” “Yuta?! Hey! Come back! Yuta!”
Reach into your mind palace and pull out a memory of someone you no longer know. Do you miss them? What did they do to you? What did you to do them? Plenty of my friends are very aware of the tedious editing process (shout out to Nth, the server, and even the Youtubers whose interviews I botched). As an editor, you control the tone and viewers experience. You play the ominous music to let the viewer know “hey, pay attention, we’re getting spooky”, you throw a shot Chekhov’s Gun and rip it away, maybe you add a few jump cuts because your audience doesn’t respect narrative principle and you just need them to last long enough to see that mid-roll ad. Editors are manipulative and systematic liars and Goodbye, Eri is about biggest dirtbag editor of all…our brains. Lets hope the team of suits running Adobe doesn’t read this manga.
This is where I will leave it. Those of you who know me knew what to expect. I want you to read Goodbye, Eri (or Sayonara Eri if you pay for Duolingo). This manga has become part of my cognitive process (read Fujimoto’s Just Listen to the Song to understand why Fujimoto may find that to be funny). Quickly, I want to thank everyone who has written for the site this year including Nick, Baldy, Rhomega, and even the folks I never got around to publishing. I’m not sure why I never got around to doing that, but if I remember correctly it was definitely not my fault.
