Yubisaki to Renren

Fans of the anime A Silent Voice, which also explores deaf themes frequently draw comparisons between this show and it. I have to admit that these two shows are very different even though. While A Silent Voice delves into the depths of depression and the journey towards appreciating lifes beauty, A Sign of Affection focuses primarily on the experience of being deaf albeit with less thematic complexity

A Sign of Affection stands out from the shoujo anime genre which is hard to find these days by straying from the clichés. This series adopts a novel approach by emphasizing the value of authentic communication especially through ... sign language and the big ass lips all of the cast members have in contrast to the typical cool and collected male lead or the corny reverse harem scenarios.

The central theme of this anime is a tender romance that is entwined with the deafness of the protagonist. Our main character Yuki who has hearing loss finds herself drawn to a new guy. Her condition presents obstacles but the male lead makes a genuine effort to comprehend and meet her needs which drives their relationship forward. Authenticity is what really sets this series apart. There are no clichés of love at first sight rather Yuki handles her feelings realistically and asks her friends for guidance as needed.

Because of the author Suu Morishita-senseis commitment to accurately capturing the subtleties of deaf culture Yukis deafness is also portrayed in an exceptionally well-researched manner. Not to be laughed at either is the directing in this production. Intentional decisions like the way the opening scenes sound gradually fades out remind viewers of Yukis reality and encourage them to identify with her experiences.

A Sign of Affection is a touching and authentic depiction of love and communication perfect for anyone looking for a more profound understanding of deafness or a heartwarming romance. Its already one of the years best animes offering a novel perspective on the shoujo genre.

I am clearly not the intended audience for this anime, yet here I am, reviewing this anime. Making the female MC deaf was definitely a trick to get more people to indulge in this anime. I think it's already clear how this romance anime caters to the Shoujo demographic when you have every character having the most kissable lips, the male character's rizz game is always at its peak, meant to make the girl infinitely blush with him, all the while also having love triangles and unrequited love stories that are at play. There's a lot of things to not like about A Sign of ... Affection, but what if I tell you, I did enjoy it too?

If I were to name one good thing that this anime did well other than the sign language the show takes pride in, it's the handling of the worst aspect of most romance dramas, love polygons. I kid you not, it's not a romance anime if you don't have any love triangles or anyone who has unrequited love and in almost every romance show, all it has done is make virtually more interesting side characters that either don't get into a relationship with the MC despite better chemistry or make the worst side characters known to mankind, just so the main character will always get with the main one, all the while creating drama about their said backstory with MC and how they were "deeply in love" with the MC which is never returned. I know love polygons are common in fictional romance stories. Still, when it comes to doing this, rarely does anyone know how to properly execute this without overstaying its welcome or getting extremely annoying to deal with. Luckily, the anime fixed this by making every cast an adult. They don't throw tantrums like insecure babies fishing for pity towards them and talking about how they gave the MC the most attention and somehow think that will make them like them. Instead, it handles the subject maturely and calmly, which is a nice change of pace for a romance drama.

Another praise I'd give to the anime is how the romance is also quite decent. I actually enjoyed it too and didn't find it a notorious fire piece of garbage. The male love interest (who naturally ticks all the boxes for your typical main love interest in every shoujo manga), doesn't exhibit any behavior that leans towards stalking psychopathic tendencies, instead, it's just cute teases I can actually see happening and in a sense, I can support the relationship going on between the two. I had a bad assumption about how the anime was going with the relationship given how the man had the recipe of an incredibly insecure and more harmful than protective character, but it was a nice change of pace unless you take into consideration the other romance that does it several degrees better than this anime.

Are you still with me? Because this is where I want to delve into issues I had with A Sign of Affection.

Even if it does some things right in terms of plot and romance, it still doesn't excuse the characters, who are pretty forgettable and I'm willing to say, 'bad', in a lot of ways. From my perspective, Yuki is the weakest character of them all. The only reason you can remember her is because she's deaf. Yuki's character is someone that can be generalized as a "self-insert for girls" because Yuki is like every girl's fantasy who wants to have a perfect boyfriend like Itsuomi (had to search for his name in MAL because I couldn't remember him), but let me stop you for a minute there.

When you call a character "self-insert", you're referring to a character that lacks substance or any form of personality to be considered as a real character but the term "Self-Insertion" refers to the main character being as closely similar to the author's personality or his/her image to how they would react into the real world or if the same circumstances were applied to them as well, typically the correct definition of self-insert or what you would call "the author's surrogate". Here, in this situation, Yuki is the definition of being a "self-projection."

How do I prove this? A lot of things only happened because the supporting characters had a role to play in which Yuki does nothing but let everyone approach her and blush because it wasn't something she intended to do, yet she indulges in it, hoping she gets this treatment without ever trying to put effort into getting what she wants until the latter half of the series, where Yuki somehow does something but reminded her how she needs to be treated like a princess because oh no, she's a deaf person who's being held like a trophy for the guy to get his hands on. I may sound like I'm yapping absolute nonsense, but the idea is that you can't have a main character who does nothing or just reacts to everything without taking any initiative to do anything, the story makes everything served to her on a silver plate.

The cast is only categorized by two driven things, either driven with jealousy or acting as the loud voice just so there is a smidgen worth of comedy other than your usual poetic-esque description of having their voice heard miraculously by a random Prince Charming character. The love polygons are the only notable part where you can have some form of memory indulging in this anime, otherwise, it's another one of your run-of-the-mill romances that participates in satisfying the quota just so it passes off for every romance viewer like myself to watch.

The anime definitely suffices as a romance anime, since there is chemistry between the duo, and have proper romance advances which are much appreciated to see, but I would have definitely recommended it if Yuki's character had more thought put into it. Maybe it's due to my lack of interest in these kinds of characters that are portrayed as shy, timid, and quiet all the more justified with the characteristic being deaf, but I wish Yuki had put a lot more effort into taking interest in what these characters do, maybe provide more gifts or help others more rather than being bestowed with many gifts that can't process the simple line of thought to repay debts for their deeds. In my eyes, it's just decent.

Thank you for reading.

I started this anime by recommendations praising its mature romance and thoughtful inclusivity. Sadly, I was bamboozled again by the weebs who rationalized their taste. Neither of those is true if you see through the lines. The anime is just a typical escapist romance written for teenagers transplanted into another setting, and the framing of deafness is patronizing because of the trad tropes. To explain my criticism, I will use a chapter from another manga involving a deaf main character.

Hidamari ga Kikoeru is a BL that explores the difficulties of being a hot guy with hearing difficulties, from solitude to expectations, from infantilization to romanticization. ... During the third chapter, a girl approaches one of the leads and talks about a shojo romance of a girl enamored with a guy who lost his hearing and gained his heart by purely acknowledging him. The point of this interchange was to point out how a romance portrays disabled people as lesser, as individuals with lower standards, as aliens, perpetuating harmful notions such as savior complexes and the misguided belief that deaf people can be won over by just being superficially seen. If the point isn't clear, A Sign of Affection exemplifies this narrative pitfall.

A Sign of Affection is a fantasy tailored for an audience seeking escapism through the heroine, and there is nothing wrong with that. It aims at a vicarious experience through Yuki, portraying her as a blank slate for the viewer. Her demeanor mimics one-to-one socially struggling introverts, burdened by an inability to express themselves, from the corny, flowery monologues straight from BookTok to the awkward body language. However, her deafness conveniently justifies these traits, reframing her as an empowered character rather than a social outcast. And herein lies my issue with the series. Straying from this intended illusion will quickly expose this as an ableist, dull portrayal through Yuki's archetype.

Yuki's archetype is uncomplicated-- she's shy, kawai, and deaf, embodying innocence and purity, uncontroversial and wholesome. Her primary role is entangling herself with an ikemen, as you can expect from a shojo. The problem is that her character lacks human depth. She is a sheltered girl without determination, orbiting entirely around the male lead. The absence of depth is why not projecting yourself and not fixating on the winning ikemen makes the experience miserable and dull. There is minimal substance to appreciate from an alternative viewpoint, as her life was constrained by her deafness, limiting her freedom and meaningful humanlike progression. Yuki's progression started when Itsuomi appeared because this adheres to an ongoing trad fantasy.

Don't believe me? Consider her inner monologue response to Itsuomi sharing pictures of his trip to South Asia. "Wow, I had never heard of such a place. I had no idea that this existed. Itsuomi, what is this place?." Remember, Yuki is 19 years old. She uses social media daily. She cares about opening her understanding of the world. You can write this same dialogue without the infantilization (i.e. "I always wanted to be somewhere like that. I want to explore the world like you. I want to explore the world with you"). Nonetheless, they wrote her as completely unaware of something as trivial as geography despite caring about it since she is inexperienced, pure, and innocent, which are prime trad tropes embedded in the narrative.

Going back to Hidamari ga Kikoeru, this is why I honestly believe that this anime is a piece of shit. The main character is ridiculously infantilized, and if you see this from a third perspective, the anime essentially suggests that a deaf person has the mental age of a child. She has absolutely zero agency because, if it isn't evident, the point of the fantasy is to give her as little agency as possible.

Continuing with the male lead, I think that criticizing the rapist ikemen is rapist ikemen is pointless. We sign up for this. However, as I said with Yuki, this anime is unenjoyable unless you follow the designed intent of falling for him. Why? Because his whole personality is backpacking, flirting with a girl who acts twelve, and learning sign language. There is nothing else going on. The author outlines a healthy relationship, persuades the audience that he is fulfilling so through Yuki's delulu monologues, and then expects us to follow through. Again, we are supposed to live through Yuki for the sake of caring about his background. Itsuomi is such a bland character that it needs Oushi, a villainous childhood friend, to justify his existence.

The main problem for me is simple. A Sign of Affection fails to encapsulate the essence of a compelling romance because it simply dwells on escapism. An engaging romance has a straightforward formula. It needs tension, barriers, and a longing for intimacy built over time. These factors hinge on proper human personalities. A Sign of Affection relies on a superficial approach, where the connection between characters solely leans on the premise. A character who travels wants an isolated pure girl, and an isolated pure girl wants a character who backpacks. That is the extent of the build-up. Successful romances thrive on the payoff from the characters overcoming their struggles, proving to the audience that they deserve each other because of who they are. The only conflict of this series is that the FL is deaf, and the ML is a sussy womanizer, and the only traits of the characters are their outlining.

This anime would be worth a shot for a tourist if it twists all of these tropes and makes a show where the creepy rapey guy turns out to be a creepy rapey guy who emotionally extorts Yuki, isolates her from her friends, and gets a Viper-like twist where he has a third-world sex slave in his house that he kidnapped on one of his passport bro adventures. Or maybe go through a route acknowledging that Itsuomi is a creep and reform the female lead into an independent human being, if the former sounds rough. However, as it stands, this is just a fantasy, which would be fine if it didn't pretend to be more than two dolls for the audience.

4 out of 10 because this has some good directional decisions but dreadful writing and characters with the personality of a rock. I guess 8 out of 10 if you are part of the target audience.

As a footnote, for anyone who thinks that I'm bullshitting through. When you see someone react to this anime, the most probable reaction will be, "You go girl" or "She is so cute, innit?." The audience infantilizes her condition. Shouko from A Silent Voice shows ten times more maturity, and she is a traumatized high school student.