I wanted to give a shoutout to one of my favorite supporting characters over the past couple of years, Chifuyu Matsuno of Tokyo Revengers (who won the 2022 Magademy Best Supporting Male Character after Manjiro “Mikey” Sano won the 2021 award).

He’s perhaps one of the best friends any anime/manga character will ever have. 

Chifuyu first made his debut in Tokyo Revengers’ second story arc, the Valhalla arc, where he is seen getting beat up by his gang division captain, Keisuke Baji. Baji was infiltrating Valhalla to help save the Tokyo Manji Gang and had to hurt Chifuyu to get in. Chifuyu would later get to know the series’ protagonist, Takemichi Hanagaki, and the two would work together to find a way to help Baji. Despite their best efforts, it was not a happy ending for the most part. However, Chifuyu and Takemichi’s friendship grew because of their shared concern for Baji. 

After the events of Valhalla and the Bloody Halloween incident that happened during that time, more crazy stuff happens (which I talked about this in the post). Chifuyu tries to comfort Takemichi, who believes he has to take care of all the problems himself. When Takemichi sees that Chifuyu is trying to cheer him up the best he can, he comes out to him that he’s a time-traveler from the future and explains everything. Chifuyu tells Takemichi that he sort of figured it out from some of the things the latter has said about people he knew (including Baji) potentially dying. He even says,

“You’re pretty incredible. You’ve been fighting all alone, right? With nobody praising you or anything. Be proud of yourself, Takemitchy. The results don’t matter! Nobody’s watching, but you stood and fought without running. I respect you, dude.”

Takemichi freaks out a bit and asks Chifuyu if he 100% believed everything he said. Chifuyu coolly replies,

“‘Course I do, dumbass! We’re partners, aren’t we?”

He then swears to Takemichi that he’ll have his back to the very end after coming out to him. Although Chifuyu does some really silly things and can be naïve to a fault, his devotion to Takemichi and his best friends in general knows no bounds. One scene with Chifuyu that stands out to me the most is during the Tenjiku arc of the manga. Takemichi is about to be attacked by the Tenjiku gang in public and a very cool-looking Chifuyu jumps in with a kick on a Tenjiku gang member to save his partner at the last moment.

I want to point to a Magademy judge’s comment about Chifuyu after he won the best supporting male character of 2022. (Note: this is in Japanese)

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This roughly translates to the judge saying that Chifuyu is the ideal companion and that the character inspires them to meet and support people just like him.

Chifuyu reminds me of someone who’s coming from a warmline. To explain, a warmline is a phone service operated by mental health peers who have gone through mental health challenges. They are different from crisis lines because when you call a warmline, they will not have police or some kind of law enforcement come in if your feelings sound irrational. Peers from a warmline will listen and won’t judge in any way, shape or form. Although they aren’t exactly “friends,” warmlines exhibit a decent level of compassion and empathy.

I see that with Chifuyu and I really wish we could nurture people like him in real life. Over time, I’ve noticed that there’s a movement that’s pushing communication of your problems towards therapy and not your friends. The narrative goes like this – talking about your innermost problems is only okay with a therapist. Don’t burden your friends or they will judge you (sadly, some of this is true). I think professional help is fine in certain cases, but not every professional will get you and they will NEVER truly be supportive in a way a best friend like Chifuyu can. Friends can definitely bear some of the emotional grunt one’s facing. I hate the many societal barriers that have caused friendships to decline over the past decade (and many more) and prevented people to be able to be great emotional support for their friends.

There’s people who talk about spreading mental health awareness, but they’re not walking the walk in actually addressing what people with mental health problems really need.

That’s compassion, respect, and people to believe them.

Chifuyu does all of this. He’s a true mental health champion in a world I sometimes feel doesn’t have many. If you know someone like this, don’t take their support for granted and treasure them always.