Readers, like me, who are indifferent to manga are likelier to enjoy the chaos. Readers who like conventional manga will probably avoid this book. In short, Yuichi turns manga into abstract art. Making the busy, chaotic action on the conveyor belt visually denser are lines indicating movement (horizontal, vertical, and spin) and overlain characters indicating onomatopoeia that take up about a third of each panel. Depending on the actions occurring on the conveyor belt, the audience either seems to be cheering, beating each other up, or ducking from being struck by a deadly instrument coming from the conveyor belt.Īnd what is on the conveyor belt? What appears constantly changes, like a parade, but bodies rise, descend, or swoop out of holes in the floor of the conveyor belt, projectiles are shot, explosions occur, long knives are swept across the audience, swinging long knives, and so forth -organized chaos, in other words, in which the challenge the artist set for himself seems to have been to design as many costumes, devices, maneuvers and actions he can with without repeating himself. Below it is a scrim of standing audience, humanoid in form but lacking discernable gender difference, with heads/masks/helmets that are spherical with a black cone attached where a nose might be. About the width of a suburban side street, the conveyor belt’s length would seem to be infinite. The setting appears to be something like a conveyor belt set at just above head level. Plaza’s story is all action, no plot or dialogue, but lots of transliterated onomatopoeia.

Travel by Yuichi Yokoyama