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Travel
The Japanese manga artist Yuichi Yokoyama's latest work, Travel, is a wordless journey into the contemporary Japanese psyche. It takes the not unfamiliar plot backdrop of a train ride and turns it into a psychological meditation on the vehicle's architecture and passengers (rather than focusing on the usual narrative-driven concerns such as destination, distance or landscape). Bookforum has characterized Yokoyama's style thus: "Concerned with phenomena rather than character and narrative, his comics resemble the output of a drafting machine: sequences that present multiple views of an object in action and look like exploded product diagrams. Yokoyama seems to enjoy the resulting images as much for the strange shapes that are generated as for what they reveal."
Yokoyama began his career in 1995, and has developed a body of work characterized in part by an omission of dialogue and speech (usually an indispensable part of manga storytelling); he relies instead on the power of his graphics and occasional onomatopoeia. Introduction by noted cartoonist and comics scholar Paul Karasik.
Yokoyama began his career in 1995, and has developed a body of work characterized in part by an omission of dialogue and speech (usually an indispensable part of manga storytelling); he relies instead on the power of his graphics and occasional onomatopoeia. Introduction by noted cartoonist and comics scholar Paul Karasik.
202 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
About the author
Yuichi Yokoyama
21 books61 followersYuichi Yokoyama is an Eisner Award-nominated artist who was born in 1967 in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Musashino Art University. Originally, he was making fine art paintings, but after 2000, started to release manga, feeling that through it he could "express time." These unique works would go on to be called "neo manga" and receive high acclaim in many fields. Presently, he is also active as a contemporary artist. His other graphic novels include Color Engineering, Travel, Garden, and World Map Room.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
March 14, 2016
Cold yet busy, detached yet penetrating, formalist yet atmospheric, depthless yet complex, alienating yet intoxicating depiction of a high-tech or futuristic train ride – a little avant-garde, a little postmodern. I don’t think this is what many people are looking for in their comics, but I found Yokoyama’s obsessive, almost autistic approach strangely fascinating. There’s the wordless, schematic, emotionless, aloof, hyper-disciplined storytelling without a story, and then there’s the wordy, over-explanatory “commentary” at the back of the book. Go figure.
January 10, 2014
This is fantastic. A simple train travel story, completely abstracted through obsessively meticulous representation and an unwillingness to use any sort of accepted visual comic shorthand for anything. The level of obsession borders on the autistic: for instance, the train contains an unending series of differing seat types, each isolated in schematic precision in their own frames within the "action", and every conceivable variation of exterior landscape or weather is given microscopic attention throughout. Really, such details become the action itself. i.e. Travel as its own ends, not a process requiring a defining destination (a concept I endorse in many forms). This attention to detail does not actually mean that the drawings are perfect in a traditional sense, rather they are extremely idiosyncratic (particularly the renderings of people), and highly exacting in their strange imperfection. Most exciting to me, Yokoyama's means of representing various tricky effects of motion or lighting are entirely his own: here, the view from the window is frequently inundated in great horizontal bands of speed-blur and hexagonal chunks of sun glare, and harsh shadows chop the train interior apart when the sun is at its brightest.
And then you hit the "commentary" at the back ("the man on the left is carrying a comb in his shirt pocket", "the station appears deserted") and the impression of intense, meticulous autistic over-explanation becomes even stronger. Is this the only real explanation for such a bizarrely focused work, or is the commentary really Yokoyama's way of winking at the reader, a way of acknowledging the oddity of this style and amplifying the effect a little more even. Either way, the commentary is kind of incredible and I found myself beginning to re-read with its (vague, not-really-helpful) guidance almost immediately.
And then you hit the "commentary" at the back ("the man on the left is carrying a comb in his shirt pocket", "the station appears deserted") and the impression of intense, meticulous autistic over-explanation becomes even stronger. Is this the only real explanation for such a bizarrely focused work, or is the commentary really Yokoyama's way of winking at the reader, a way of acknowledging the oddity of this style and amplifying the effect a little more even. Either way, the commentary is kind of incredible and I found myself beginning to re-read with its (vague, not-really-helpful) guidance almost immediately.
September 29, 2014
After reading Yuichi Yokoyama's Garden I took him to be a cold and calculating, even cynical (maybe?), observer of the present world as projected into an inhuman and paranoiac future. But is he cold? Now I wonder because after reading Travel I consider him cooler than cool. If there was humor, however detached, in Garden I didn't pick up on it, though now that a reread is in order I might pick up on it now. Travel, however, is full of some of the driest coolest wit to come down the tracks. Was that the purpose of his commentary at the end? To display the dry humor we missed while "reading" his wordless manga? It worked for me, especially as it helps provide that necessary remove, the artist's remove, from the surrounding events, that if taken at face value portray nothing if not hectic claustrophobia. It's all about the details. A world of details amidst movement. To miss the details is to simply move, without purpose, or perhaps with too much purpose. Sit back. Look. Laze and look, even as the world's speed keeps getting speedier.
March 13, 2016
Noisy for a wordless book, busy for a plotless book, meticulous but difficult to decipher at times. Demands that you spend time with each frame. Loved the nature, motion bits. There's a part where it begins to rain that I especially loved. I was so immersed into that scene that when I stepped outside a few minutes later I was surprised to find a clear sky and the streets dry.
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October 17, 2013This wordless graphic, er, is it still a novel with no plot, dialog, characters with actual identities? details the process of travel.
This is a not-for-me item. I'm not into wordlessness, or plotlessness, and the highly repetitive and detailed style of art gave me vertigo.
This is a not-for-me item. I'm not into wordlessness, or plotlessness, and the highly repetitive and detailed style of art gave me vertigo.
February 28, 2016
Wordless, sort of bloodless, cool, unsmiling. Architectural focus, spare, clean lines, black and white. The cover is colorful, and nothing else is. Sci fi, futuristic, too.
April 7, 2023
I've read Yuichi Yokoyama Iceland, which is also a silent comic. That one is a bit more bizarre, so it was nice to read this - which seems to be a pretty simple story of a few people travelling on a train. The most visceral moment for me was a character grabbing a cigarette out of a packet.
The artwork is really interesting with a nearly abstract line and angular aggressive angles/perspectives.
The artwork is really interesting with a nearly abstract line and angular aggressive angles/perspectives.
July 8, 2022
This tale breaks every rule there is, save for lasciviousness - it is still generally G rated.
But still, no words, and a lot of strange twists and turns :)
But still, no words, and a lot of strange twists and turns :)
March 2, 2009
Picturebox, more than any other publisher, is committed to publishing and discovering avant-garde comics, and this is another outstanding contribution. This is the second book Picturebox has released by Yuichi Yokoyama, and unlike his last book, New Engineering, this is one long story.
Calling Travel a "story" is stretching the definition of what a story is, which is one of the great things about this book. This book follows three strangely drawn men who board a train and travel to a destination. That's it. The three travelers walk past other passengers, stare at objects, phenomena and people that pass by, and one even smokes a cigarette (which in this book, much like in Warhol's films, is a massive shift in the 'action').
This book is hard to describe, but a joy to read. It's completely "silent" and when I say that, I mean that it is without any sound cues, which his last book was full of. All we get is the imagery. And what imagery! Yokoyama's art is unlike anyone's art I'm familiar with, European, Japanese, or U.S. His line is obsessive, clean and bisque, while his layout is frantic, cluttered and fast. All of which adds to a mysterious otherness; as if we were asked to spot tiny and fleeting glimpses of beauty from the windows of a speeding train, all while on a parallel world, oddly familiar, yet deeply foreign.
Calling Travel a "story" is stretching the definition of what a story is, which is one of the great things about this book. This book follows three strangely drawn men who board a train and travel to a destination. That's it. The three travelers walk past other passengers, stare at objects, phenomena and people that pass by, and one even smokes a cigarette (which in this book, much like in Warhol's films, is a massive shift in the 'action').
This book is hard to describe, but a joy to read. It's completely "silent" and when I say that, I mean that it is without any sound cues, which his last book was full of. All we get is the imagery. And what imagery! Yokoyama's art is unlike anyone's art I'm familiar with, European, Japanese, or U.S. His line is obsessive, clean and bisque, while his layout is frantic, cluttered and fast. All of which adds to a mysterious otherness; as if we were asked to spot tiny and fleeting glimpses of beauty from the windows of a speeding train, all while on a parallel world, oddly familiar, yet deeply foreign.
September 28, 2018
Lots to love. The way Yokoyama portrays motion, perspective and space, textures and patterns is endlessly innovative and cool. His style of drawing individual faces is totally unique. The pace and humour of specific sequences (buying train tickets, smoking a cigarette) reminds me distinctly of Edgar Wright - one specific pint drinking sequence from The World’s End (2013) where characters slam downed drinks in Yokoyama-esque fashion comes to mind. On that note, some of the visual strategies for depicting motion here also remind me more generally of analogous practices in traditional cell animation.
Also reminded me on a plot/setting level of Snowpiercer (2013) directed by Bong Joon-ho - simply in that the momentum is carried quite successfully by the nested movements of characters on the train and the train itself.
Adding this to my collection of films/literature involving trains which heretofore includes:
- the Harry Potter series (Hogwart’s Express)
- Snowpiercer (2013)
- Inception (2010) (anyone else still haunted by homocidal Marion Cotillard crooning “You’re waiting for a train...A train that will take you far away...”?)
- Shanghai Express (1931) starring bisexual/diasporic icons Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong
- Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express
- Train to Busan (2016)
...wow I guess I really like trains
Rachel’s copy.
Also reminded me on a plot/setting level of Snowpiercer (2013) directed by Bong Joon-ho - simply in that the momentum is carried quite successfully by the nested movements of characters on the train and the train itself.
Adding this to my collection of films/literature involving trains which heretofore includes:
- the Harry Potter series (Hogwart’s Express)
- Snowpiercer (2013)
- Inception (2010) (anyone else still haunted by homocidal Marion Cotillard crooning “You’re waiting for a train...A train that will take you far away...”?)
- Shanghai Express (1931) starring bisexual/diasporic icons Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong
- Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express
- Train to Busan (2016)
...wow I guess I really like trains
Rachel’s copy.
October 3, 2012
Interesting how strange this is, and yet how well it conveys the feeling of traveling by train. quick wordless read.
May 10, 2021
Manga mudo donde priman las secuencias rápidas y de trazos rectos-curvos en su totalidad.
En apariencia, el autor busca una perspectiva totalmente ajena a lo que estamos acostumbrados a este tipo de trabajos. como una deshumanización. Hecha al paso, en movimiento. Es decir, el entorno mismo resalta por encima de los personajes. Personajes que por cierto, son una especie de juguetes playmobil carentes de expresividad, que bien podrían ser interpretados como partes de una sociedad futurista, al estilo Zamiatin/Orwelliano.
Interesante forma de ver las cosas, el autor rompe con lo convencional.
En apariencia, el autor busca una perspectiva totalmente ajena a lo que estamos acostumbrados a este tipo de trabajos. como una deshumanización. Hecha al paso, en movimiento. Es decir, el entorno mismo resalta por encima de los personajes. Personajes que por cierto, son una especie de juguetes playmobil carentes de expresividad, que bien podrían ser interpretados como partes de una sociedad futurista, al estilo Zamiatin/Orwelliano.
Interesante forma de ver las cosas, el autor rompe con lo convencional.
October 5, 2013
About vision and showing, but also hearing and smelling and feeling. Comprehensively sensual. A counter-polarity of modernist techniques. Refamiliarization, resensitization. Structural, but warm and thrilling. Formalist, but basically narrative, departure to arrival.
March 18, 2021
Funny to think when I first picked this up a decade ago I was totally unimpressed by it and moved on to explore other Picturebox artists without looking back. Now I've come to love it! The silent men, the intricate layouts, everything moving in a mechanical ballet.
January 17, 2023
what a gosh dang visual TREAT
April 16, 2024
Engraçado, por vezes difícil de entender, mas acima de tudo fofo.
December 21, 2017
It felt more like art than story.
It was the feeling of film or animation, with the impression of sound and even color. Perhaps it was the introduction that influenced me, but it did feel very much like a journey with a tense feeling.
Despite the ambiguity of the author’s intention the visuals are highly satisfying, most likely due to the heavy use of pattern from which I envisioned a busy pallet and/or loud color.
4.5
(Half way through there were different styled eyes that disturbed the cohesion of the piece)
It was the feeling of film or animation, with the impression of sound and even color. Perhaps it was the introduction that influenced me, but it did feel very much like a journey with a tense feeling.
Despite the ambiguity of the author’s intention the visuals are highly satisfying, most likely due to the heavy use of pattern from which I envisioned a busy pallet and/or loud color.
4.5
(Half way through there were different styled eyes that disturbed the cohesion of the piece)
October 16, 2019
This book is like modern art - you just have to appreciate it as it is. It may not make sense at times, but that's all part of the charm. But, it isn't everyone's cup of tea, and I wouldn't recommend it to someone who cannot look past its nature as an artistic journey. I may revisit it in the future, but not for now.
October 11, 2013
As soon as I finished this, I started it over and read it again all the way through. A gorgeous exercise in full-sensory observation. Taps exquisite lay into the inherent comic potential of footnotes. Made me want to take a train somewhere.
November 26, 2011
What the hell is this? A frame-by-frame reconstruction of a Styx music video?
December 22, 2011
No plot structure, but entirely a visual journey. Strange buildings and people. Unshaded but technically precise drawings. Bizarre.
September 26, 2018
On the process. On the velocity.
du9's review of the work is well written.
http://www.du9.org/chronique/voyage/
du9's review of the work is well written.
http://www.du9.org/chronique/voyage/
September 3, 2013
Well, that was a trip alright!
January 31, 2023
Experienced it at first as mostly just a bunch of observations. Some of them are specifically... morphological(?), so not the sort of yes/no stuff I'd usually pick up on when thinking on what to write. ¹Being that part of writing so foregrounded, but stripped of deemed-extrinsic elements and a sense of own, material discovery and aesthetics, whilst imbued with a certain degree of detachment, exaggerated by literalised-surrealised attentional lensing distortions, is quite oppressive, ²though there are delightful moments of delight taken in light and shadow.
Okay, I think I enjoy the tension between distance and closeness somewhat. Eventually the latter prevails, perhaps in part by dint of mostly-blurring/familiarity.
¹Despite the presence of so many familiar facets, the differences in the space and attitude, and the zoomed-in, piecemeal nature, prevent it from feeling at all like home. Sense possibly also of being glared at by dint of looking around in a society wherein that might be especially discouraged.
²Okay I feel like I may have just self-conscioused myself out of a depressive episode, or perhaps Yuichi did.
Okay, I think I enjoy the tension between distance and closeness somewhat. Eventually the latter prevails, perhaps in part by dint of mostly-blurring/familiarity.
¹Despite the presence of so many familiar facets, the differences in the space and attitude, and the zoomed-in, piecemeal nature, prevent it from feeling at all like home. Sense possibly also of being glared at by dint of looking around in a society wherein that might be especially discouraged.
²Okay I feel like I may have just self-conscioused myself out of a depressive episode, or perhaps Yuichi did.
December 30, 2023
The cover is beautiful and alluring, but the rest I personally didn't like: very noisy visually, extremely strenuous for the eyes, which makes the whole experience of reading quite vexing. Was it the author's goal maybe? Hard to say. It is implied in the introduction that the novel is about the passage of time, which, I think, is represented somewhat well through the lack of visual rhythm and pauses. But the whole ordeal is still annoying, no matter how much I try to justify the format of the novel.
There are a ton of details on every page, yet it is rather hard to understand what is actually going on. Maybe precisely because of all these details and textures? At times I couldn't make out what was drawn at all. There is an explanation of every page at the end provided by the author, but isn't it kind of a bit weird if one needs to explain via text what they were trying to show via pictures for 200 pages straight?
There are a ton of details on every page, yet it is rather hard to understand what is actually going on. Maybe precisely because of all these details and textures? At times I couldn't make out what was drawn at all. There is an explanation of every page at the end provided by the author, but isn't it kind of a bit weird if one needs to explain via text what they were trying to show via pictures for 200 pages straight?
September 26, 2017
Non dico che questo racconto muto non abbia motivi di interesse. C'è un tratto estremo, freddo da far paura, ma coerente a se stesso, nel quale in certi momenti è bello perdersi, e di cui è interessante vedere le invenzioni narrative. Però la modalità di racconto stanca prestissimo. Perchè non solo è muto, ma è poco didascalico, magari per scelta. La carrellata di volti e situazioni si giustappone costringendo il lettore a formarsi una sua successione logica. Il gioco (almeno per me) lascia, durante la lettura, la voglia di farla finita. Dopo aver sfogliato queste pagine rimane l'idea di qualcosa che sarebbe potuto essere, un viaggio incompiuto. Forse sono io, forse Canicola ce l'ha fatta a propormi la cosa che non doveva propormi.
July 13, 2018
An artsy manga with zero dialogue and almost as little storytelling or plot. People sit on a train and mundane activities are shown in great detail: someone sits down, another person opens a book, light reflects from the windows, birds fly...
A meditative journey that left me cold. There are some aesthetically cool moments, but otherwise I found the engineer-like line drawings cumbersome to look at.
A meditative journey that left me cold. There are some aesthetically cool moments, but otherwise I found the engineer-like line drawings cumbersome to look at.
January 11, 2021
Very geometric and trying to do something DIFFERENT with the idea of story. I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the details that were highlighted equally. The facial similarities overpowered any of the differences that Yokoyama used to create recognizably different characters. Very cold, futuristic and robotic feeling to me. It was interesting and successful at what it seemed to be going for but not a new favourite.
July 19, 2021
Throw away any preconceived notions of what a graphic novel should be. This wordless journey is a lot of style. At times I had a hard time keeping up with what I was supposed to focus on but the book has a steady driving force, pushing the story forward like the train that our protagonists are riding. Soaking in details that are easy to miss, admittedly it's not particularly a style that I will find myself reaching for regularly but it was a fun ride.
January 3, 2022
Este livro vertiginoso surpreende, mostra até que ponto a linguagem do manga pode ser manipulada para desenvolver novas estéticas. Equilibra o experimentalismo estético com rigor narrativo, mostrando-nos que o manga tem uma diversidade mais alargado do que a vertente mais comercial que nos chega à Europa. Uma excelente proposta da Chili Com Carne. Resenha completa em H-alt: Viagem.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews