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This article examines how healthcare professionals use encouragement. Focusing on GAMBARU ["to try hard"], forty-one scenes were collected from healthcare manga. Each scene of encouragement was analyzed from three perspectives; the contextual background of the communication, the relationship with the patients and the patients' response to the encouragement, and the evaluation of the imposition of face-threatening acts, social distance, and relative power (Politeness Theory). Further analysis was conducted using Leech's (2009) Grand Strategy of Politeness, and each chosen communication event was categorized among ten types of speech acts. The findings suggest some implications to enhance the quality of healthcare communication that offers patients encouragement. (Contains 1 table.)