Matsu "Tokimatsu" Shouan

About

Matsu is a man who practices traditional Chinese medicine, and makes a living out of concocting rudimentary cures from herbs and human bodies he finds. One night, while out looking for a corpse during a heavy snowfall, Matsu comes across a man with a slit throat, whom he brings back to his house and nurses back to health. He names the stranger "Yuki" and offers him shelter on the condition that Yuki bring him a corpse as compensation. Eventually, Matsu learns his real name from Sakichi, but, when Yuki asks if Matsu wants to know his name, Matsu replies that, to him, he is "Yuki".

Matsu is usually living on the edge of poverty because he only accepts payment once his patients begin feeling better, though Yuki considers him a quack at first. Although he often acts like Yuki is a nuisance in the beginning, Matsu eventually grows attached to him, even pleading with him to stay whenever it looks like Yuki might leave. Matsu has an energetic personality and often speaks what's on his mind.


Matsu is the son of Tokijiro Tanbaya and a girl from the village he lives in. After getting her pregnant, Tokijiro left for Edo to establish a shop, leaving Matsu's mother on her own. Following in his footsteps a few years later, Matsu and his mother found him running a shop with another woman. Distraught, Matsu's mother ran off, leaving him on his own at the age of six. He was then picked up by doctor Takimoto Touan, who taught him medicine and whom Matsu still regards as his actual father. When telling this story to Yuki, Matsu reveals that his name was "Tokimatsu", adapted from his father's, but he prefers the "Matsu" that his mother used to call him.