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.
