Medalist - The Best Manga (Almost) No One Is Reading
“I want to strongly believe I can do it. I hate how much I know about the no-good side of me. I want to be more like the girl Coach Tsukasa believes in. I want to be someone I can believe in!”
Sometime last year, I was overhearing talk from manga bloggers/reviewers about a certain under-the-radar Kodansha title that deserves more attention. I later found out that it was licensed in the U.S. and also won several awards in Japan. This manga is about a sport that I’m not knowledgeable about (but has gained a lot of attention due to a anime series I’m sure people know called Yuri!!! on Ice!!), figure skating. This past week, I got to read the 1st 4 volumes of Tsurumaikada’s critically-acclaimed Medalist and finally saw what I was missing.
I don’t know a damn thing about figure skating, but I sure as hell know a great manga when I see it. And Medalist is just that.
Anko Uguisu’s Past (Call of the Night) - Finding Peace in the Night
Shonen Sunday titles have gotten a lot of popularity over the past few years and one of its stand-out titles is Kotoyama’s Call of the Night, a comedy-drama anime/manga about what it’s like to possibly fall in love with a vampire. I’ve gotten to appreciate the various storylines and characters in a setting I’m fond of - nighttime in a modern urban environment with fantasy elements.
I talked about one short storyline in a previous post about Call of the Night and this time, I want to talk about one of its most important characters, Anko Uguisu, a private detective who has a desire to take out all vampires. Mostly because of how her past trauma caused her to focus so much on one thing to the point that it robbed her of life.
Spoilers for later volumes of the manga after the jump.
However, as I noted a year ago about this series, there’s a certain part of the story that’s eerily similar to an incident where a major Japanese celebrity killed themselves due to cyberbullying.
Here we are now and episode 6 of the anime finally showed it all. Spoilers after the jump.
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)
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.
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.
Over the past couple of months, I experienced some personal grief over the loss of relationships. It was somewhat long overdue. I thought I was ready to handle it, but I wasn’t.
I’ve been figuring out how to take new steps towards the lifestyle (not career) I want for myself. Not only am I dealing with that and interpersonal grief, I’m unpacking certain labels I put on myself that have limited me over the years.
People say I look okay, but I’m not so sure. I’ve been re-reading Tokyo Revengers lately and the following scenes from its final arc (particularly Volume 27) were relevant to me (and probably some of you as well).
