Chainsaw Man Creator Turns Goodbye, Eri Into a Found‑Footage Film

Tatsuki Fujimoto, the award‑winning creator behind Chainsaw Man, has already treated readers to one of the most cinematic manga one‑shots of the decade with Goodbye, Eri. Now the found‑footage style comic is taking the next step: a new film adaptation that leans directly into the story’s faux‑documentary roots.

Fujimoto, whose breakout hit Chainsaw Man has collected multiple Harvey Awards between 2021 and 2023, has always worn his movie obsessions on his sleeve.* With Goodbye, Eri, he effectively storyboarded a found‑footage film on the manga page—and now he’s helping shepherd that vision to the screen.

Goodbye, Eri Was Already a Movie on the Page

Published in 2022 between Parts 1 and 2 of Chainsaw Man, Goodbye, Eri follows Yuta, a boy tasked with filming his terminally ill mother’s final days, only for that footage to become the centerpiece of a controversial student film. The twist? We’ve been watching his completed movie all along. The only person who loves it is Eri, a mysterious girl who drags Yuta into an intensive film‑watching apprenticeship.

The one‑shot is laid out like phone footage: four long, rectangular panels per page that mimic a smartphone screen, frequent time jumps between panels, and blurred drawings to suggest shaky camerawork.* It reads like a found‑footage movie disguised as manga, complete with Fujimoto’s signature “pinch of fantasy”—Eri may or may not be a 1,200‑year‑old vampire, a nod to how film grants a kind of immortality.

That built‑in cinematic language makes the material a natural fit for adaptation. The new film leans into the same blurred line between reality and performance that powers the manga’s best scenes, splitting Yuta’s life into raw footage, staged moments, and finished films. Expect it to sit comfortably alongside emotionally charged coming‑of‑age stories like Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and semi‑autobiographical artist tales like The Fabelmans.

Fujimoto Joins a Bigger Wave of Creator‑Led Adaptations

Goodbye, Eri isn’t the only Fujimoto one‑shot making the jump from page to screen. His devastating manga Look Back is already getting a starry live‑action film directed by Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore‑eda in 2026,* following an earlier animated version on Prime Video.* Together, they signal a serious push to adapt his self‑contained one‑shots with the same care as long‑running shonen hits.

That trend extends beyond Fujimoto. Shueisha recently launched its MANGA Plus One‑Shot Anime Project with WIT Studio, CONTRAIL, and Production I.G to fast‑track adaptations of experimental shorts and standalone stories.* Meanwhile, other blockbuster creators like My Hero Academia’s Kōhei Horikoshi are becoming much more hands‑on with their adaptations, giving notes on everything from casting to scripts.*

For readers fascinated by how books and comics evolve once cameras get involved, that shift echoes across the industry. From Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King projects to deep‑dive looks at how streaming platforms lean on book IP, creators and studios alike are rethinking what a “faithful” adaptation looks like—and how far you can bend a story without breaking it.Netflix data shows just how much adaptations drive what we watch, while pieces like Mike Flanagan’s quest to finally crack The Dark Tower spotlight the pressures on anyone trying to translate beloved narratives to screen.

If the new Goodbye, Eri film lands, it could do more than introduce a wider audience to Fujimoto’s quietest heartbreaker. It might also prove that one‑shot manga, especially those built around bold formal experiments, deserve as much adaptation attention as blockbuster series—and that sometimes the best found‑footage movie starts life as a comic.