We are often told the best way to tell a story is to not tell it at all, also know as "show don't tell". However, art is beautiful in that there's beauty in every method of expression. Yokoyama Mitsuteru and his contemporary Tezuka Osamu are clearly superior at telling, even if they are no slouch at showing either. Their dialogues while seemingly long and overwhelming, are actually extremely succinct, just enough to convey the message without burdening the reader, allowing the art to blend into the story itself. Here, through a simple series of activities, the rotten state of Kyoto is told to Yukimura in dialogues and exposition but its content is brilliantly arrange to not feel like reading a book and maintain a sense of liveliness through actions in the frames. I think manga such as these is almost a lost art now as even adepts such as Iwaaki, Kitoh and Endo can't construct their dialogues as powerful as Tezuka. Perhaps only Yukimura with Vinland Saga comes close, but not to the poetic level of the old masters.
