Life is a never-ending paradox. Having nothing, means nothing to fight for, but if fighting for happiness, brings unhappiness, is it all worth it at any point? “Zankyou” is bleak. Our protagonist, an absolute nobody within nobodies. Not an underdog, not someone with an objective of his own. A nobody, walking the earth with no human connections, only an old man he visits from time to time. A yakuza who hands him a simple objective. “Take this money, and kill me”. Hesitation, fear, the strange allure of an objective makes him pull the trigger, but he doesn't keep the money, he wishes to donate itto the old man's victims families.

A man with a gun, and some money. Nothing to lose, no ambition, just something to do, something to make him a somebody. As he advances, he meets someone, the only soul that actually helped him, a trans woman / crossdresser (I don't think it's clarified), and a kid, her nephew.

In essence, the story is about how his crimes rack up. How the world starts to catch up to the man with the gun, but about how now he does have something to fight for. A love for somebody else, someone he's willing to lose his life over, to do things he's disgusted about for.

There's something special about this person who had nothing, fighting so hard, hiding and risking his life for somebody. Like a glimmer of hope within the hopelessness of life. He clings to the small time he's got before the inevitable. He thrives with lies, he schemes behind the powerful people, he uses his body all in the name of a kid's happiness. Like a desperate mother, becoming that, and a father to a son he had no relation to. A mission.

Does he do it out of the good of his heart, or because he's got nothing else? Maybe none of these, maybe both, and more. The ending isn't entirely conclusive. You don't know if he's lying because he knows, pragmatically, the effects of whatever he'll say at the very end. However, and just perhaps, he was completely honest.

8/10. I loved this manga, so short too. The ending had me thinking for a long, long while, and I won't forget it anytime soon.