Note this is less a review and more a recommendation video I wrote for my YouTube. This is just my script but I still think people interested in getting into Tsutomu Takahashi's work or the zankyou manga can take away some stuff from this. link I would recommend that you watch the youtube version for the audio and visual experience but it is here either way.

Intro
The Japanese word "Zankyou" is translated to the English word "Reverberation" roughly meaning "the persistence of a sound after its source has stopped," and this definition would become an unlikely metaphor that would center the main theme of this manga. A manga about a scumbag in society on his way to change his life, on the edge of sanity, with a gun, and 5 million yen. A story about resisting the absurd.

Tsutomu Takahashi

Tsutomu Takahashi is a man who puts his heart and soul in his craft and by reading any of his works this is instantly apparent. He has a distinct philosophy which he writes and illustrates in his works. The man has a large history infecting several of his works, as the man has been a rock star, bike gangster, ECT but it's his philosophy writing manga that gives his work an interesting air. While he has many things to say about the manga writing process the most prominent ideal he has would be about how he writes his characters. As he said in his Manban to mangaka Naoki Urasawa, speaking on his ideals in relation to "character resistance."

"It’s like resistance against the absurd. Standing up to it, you know?
Maybe you could say I draw humans resisting.
Which means I believe in them. That humans aren’t so stupid.
You could also call that resistance “rock and roll,” I think."

He writes about characters resisting and relates this to music. When he draws, he likes to draw like a 'live performance" and when he writes he writes to change people. He said in his Manban about the impact he trys to create in the people who read his Stories.

"It’s impulse. I want to give them an urge.
When I heard the Sex Pistols for the first time, I felt like a bolt of lightning hit me.
It was like a shock strong enough to change someone’s life.
If I could give people that kind of shock too. I would be happy."

And so the stories he makes are very raw and real and alive. They have lots of emotion and heart that can be heartbreaking and beautiful. Always working to not only to shock the reader but to impact their hearts. It's special because he backs it up with substance, he is not making these harsh and juvenile moments for nothing. They all work to build or reveal a certain impact in our characters or us the reader. Making his work feel alive. All working together with the theme, giving you somewhere to place that impact into. Because what could be more impactful than the abnormalities and unpredictable nature of out own lifes.

"I want to create things that have ambiguity.
I want to create things that aren’t calculated.
It’s a blast, you know? Way more fun than the predictable."

This is the way he writes these stories, human resistance against the absurd, this story is the journey of Satoru's resistance against his cruel and absurd circumstances.

Synopsis

"There's a heat wave, but every year I feel the heat less and less. Maybe my body isn't the way a normal person's is?"

The story starts with Satoru, living next to a dying former Yakuza. When asked if he wants anything in life he says "no," that's the kind of boy Satoru is. But when presented with an offer of a gun and 5 million in exchange for the Yakuzas life, Satoru's life is given the chance to change, to continue flowing along, and staying a useless empty sound, or to make a change to leave the water's grip. So he decides to change his life and take up the man's offer, and now instead of flowing, he starts to fly. He kills the man and crosses a line, to become the stopping force to end the sound and change his fate.

"I'm crossing a line, will I be all right? All right, what does all right mean? Do I want a normal life, no I don't, I just, want to feel the warmth of summer.

The warmth of summer, this change Satoru wants in his life in order to feel this warmth. This is the selling point of the story, it's these characters arcs changing their life's and changing the sound they don't want to hear in their lives. The structure of this manga and it's overlying message is the definition of reverberation itself. Reverberation or known in Japanese as the manga's title Zankyou. "the persistence of a sound after its source has stopped," the persistence of sound being the sound in our lives or the absurd in our lives that lives endlessly. This is different for everyone but it's something we try to shut out. The force that stops the sound is the resistance, this is different for everyone but it is the change we need to excape the sound or absurd. This is the structure of these characters arcs. As Satoru goes to change he brings others with him and they start to change too, this is how the story combines the theme of man's resistance to the absurd along with the amazing character arcs of our characters.

Characters

Its character and their arcs in learning to change and becoming that stopping force or resistance they need to be in their life to stop the sound or absurdity they live in. Everyone in this manga has an endless sound or absurdity in their life that they need to become a force to stop. For Satoru is it his life as a scum in society with no meaning in his life. For Daigo it is her life as a slave and endless ridicule for being a crossdressing man. For Kaiya it is his life afraid if his parents will leave him again. They all fill the Sound or Noise portion in the metaphor of reverberation. And the emotional journey that comes with them becoming the force to stop the sound portion of the reverberation, is the beauty of Zankyou and it's character journey.

Satoru
To avoid spoilers on our other characters journey I'll focus on Satoru, this guy is an asshat. He seems emotionaless and only cares to fulfill the old man's request. Killing becomes a escape for him and an answer to his problems, what is he escaping though? His weakness, his sound. He believes that if he gives in he will only be trash, just like how he was before he crossed the line. And so he heavily is dependent on his weapons to give him artificial strength, a desperate hold needed for him to change, at least that's what he thinks. This is apparent as Daigo got to see him when he was strong and when he desperately pretended to be strong, saying to him that it truly "made him lose his charm" but even with this they can bond over one thing, a need to destroy something, to end their sound. Then time goes on and as he gets to understand Daigo and Kaiya and he starts to learn how to have a family. To feel and care for others and find some meaning in his life through family, it's very faint but it's there. He crosses more lines and slowly changes. And then after a unfortunate series of events in this shitty world that trys to keep them down, he has to become desperate to change his family's fate and brings change upon his family along with him. Put simply and to not spoil, the ending made me cry, one of the best I've ever seen. I would love to talk about it but I feel this is something I shouldn't talk about and you expirences it. It's what these characters do to fight it back that is a blast to read. Because it tackles many different subjects and ideas personal to our characters and gives them a feeling for what the sound and stoping force means to them, and in return we start to reflect on ourselves as the readers.

Meaning

Even with all the serval things I mentioned, the meaning in Zankyou is open to interpretation and I think the only right answer is the one you find. I spent days thinking about this story after reading it, loving what I read but not being able to put my finger on why. Only writing and rambling could express why I loved it so much. This is a story about resisting your fate, and becoming a force to stop the sound you don't wanna hear in your life. This is a message everyone can relate to. Because the sound will echo on if you let it, the noise we block out may never stop but by becoming the force we need to be in our lives, we can change the sound. We can turn the pain to happyness, we can change our fate, that's beauty in resisting the absurd.