It’s a new year, the snow is falling gently, and Yuki is ready to face the world! And then a foreigner makes things a little awkward for her on the train, speaking to her in a way she can’t understand. Thankfully, a handsome fellow college student comes to her rescue and helps out the foreigner, who gets off at the next stop. It is then that Yuki reveals to the kind young man the cause of her confusion earlier: she is deaf and mute. As she goes about the rest of her day, Yuki can’t get the young man out of her mind, and so her friend Rin (who knows him and reveals his name to be Itsuomi) suggests a plan for securing his contact details. Coincidentally, Rin has a crush on Itsuoni’s cousin, and she knows where to find the two. Bolstered by each other’s determination, the two young women stir up their courage and visit the café where their crushes work. Is this the beginning of a beautiful romance? Or will communication challenges prove too difficult to overcome?
Michel
When I read the synopsis, I already had high expectations for this anime. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, because inevitably everyone will make a comparison with A Silent Voice, a popular 2016 movie that features a deaf female character as well. It’s tough to live up to that movie’s great reputation, but I think that Yubisaki to Renren managed to do just that. From the first episode, we can already see that this will be a story filled with interesting characters. They all feel real, and the college setting emphasizes this even more, avoiding the common high school anime tropes. Sure, Itsuomi could be seen as the cool and handsome love interest, but he doesn’t feel fake for some reason. The great pacing and direction might have something to do with that. The calm atmosphere makes it easier to understand Yuki as well, as it invites us to consider how different communication is for Yuki, making use of texting, lip-reading, and sign language to compensate for her hearing problems. This anime has more opportunities to incorporate those elements than A Silent Voice, because she is the main character, meaning we get multiple insights into how Yuki experiences the world throughout the episode. The comedy so far is very enjoyable as well, thanks to the cute art style, which doesn’t become overly expressive as we see very often in other shows. So all in all, a lot of things to appreciate! I will definitely keep watching this anime!
Laura
I have never cried or wiped tears from my eyes for an entire anime episode like I did with this first episode of A Sign of Affection. As someone who has been a big fan of the manga and read each volume at least twice, this episode far surpassed any kind of expectations I had beforehand. The gentleness of the manga and how “quiet” it is was captured in moving and beautiful animation that even now gives me goosebumps. I heard that this anime has been in production for a long time, and I think it shows very powerfully because there is a softness to every moment. From when Yuki is signing to others and when she is writing words on a board, to the snow that falls gently to the ground. I would also add that the animators really captured the close friendship Yuki and Rin have and how fun it is! I adored seeing them on screen and it was definitely one of my favorite moments from this first episode! The voice acting was wonderful! I think Oushi’s voice is the only one I didn’t super love, and unsure if that is because of my feelings from the manga or just my feelings in general. The opening song is one of the most reflective of an anime story that I have ever heard! It honestly felt like the song was made for this anime and that was where I started to first tear up when watching! As a very minor part, I deeply loved how when the title of the episode was shown, the flowers from the manga covers were part of the decorations surrounding the title. Truly, this was a fantastic first episode! It is deeply impactful and I am very excited to watch more! However, next time, I will have tissues on hand because I only expect to get more emotional the more I watch!
claire
Let me answer my own question from the recap with a resounding “Yes! Yes, this is the beginning of a beautiful romance.” What a gorgeous, tender, delightful premiere episode! There is much to praise here—it really is a stunning episode—but my colleagues have done a great job of covering these things, so let me focus instead on the two themes that really stood out for me: the theme of perspective or the worlds we each live in, and of language and how it is so much more than merely words strung together. The episode is titled “Yuki’s World” with Yuki being both our female lead and also one of the first things she comments on: snow. “Is love like the snow? Does it arrive silently, with no fanfare? Will it fall from the cloudy skies above and color the world with its hue?” Is her world one wrapped in snow, muted, as it were, by her inability to hear sound? Does this layer of snow (her deafness) drain the color from her life even if ever so slightly, like a wintry landscape, and yet infuse it with a beauty all its own? And will love be the experience, the quality that fills her world with new color? All these questions are raised with the first line of dialogue, which is repeated again at the beginning of the second half of the episode, with the answer coming in its full glory in the climax near the end. (What a powerful framing device!) And in between, we begin to see Yuki’s world, and how it differs from that of those around her. The sound design and color design subtly queue these distinctions, with her world brightening at key moments, the sound dulling at others, or a score of non-diegetic orchestral swells flooding in as the episode alternately charts Yuki’s affective experience, or watches from outside, drawing us in and pulling us back out of her inner world.
The second theme, language, is even more richly explored, as we see what an important role language plays in both defining distinct worlds (those of the foreigners, Itsuomi, Yuki, etc.) and bridging them. Yuki herself communicates in two languages, sign language and Japanese, while Itsuomi is multilingual, being fluent in Japanese, English, and German, and learning Spanish (and Japanese sign language too now??? wink wink). As such, these two leads slip in and out of different worlds, sharing one, but also being potentially pulled in opposing directions by the others. Yuki is intimidated by Itsuomi’s ability to communicate with foreigners with such ease and is thrown by their ways of interacting, and she also censors herself from using sign language with him or her friends, though that begins to change as he shows an interest in learning. There is also a subtle acknowledgment of the phenomenon that every language learner has experienced, where people assume they will not be able to understand you because you are not a native speaker. I also appreciate the poetic sequence that combines Yuki’s spoken narration with bilingual text (not just subtitled, but hardcoded into the original) that depicts the languages (English and Japanese) as being in counterpoint to one another. What a profound image! My favorite moment though is the climax of the episode where language is transcended and Yuki conveys her sheer joy with her entire being, leaving words by the wayside. What a moving and powerful scene! (Yes, I teared up!)
Final verdict: this one is a definite watch! If the rest of the series is as rich, moving, tender, and profound as this premiere, we are in for an absolute treat this season! Yuki is a delightful lead: her name uses the kanji for snow, but it is also a homonym—something that she herself perhaps cannot fully appreciate—for “courage”, and this is exactly what we see from her as the episode progresses and she pursues joy! Also, Rin is Best Wing Woman EVER.
A Sign of Affection is streaming on Crunchyroll.
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