English Dub Review: A Sign of Affection “Yuki’s World”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Yuki Itose is a deaf college student making her way through life as best she can. One day, she is approached by Itsuomi Nagi, an upperclassman who takes an interest in her, and a new romance begins.

OUR TAKE

Finally, an anime about deaf people that isn’t A Silent Voice! I mean, don’t get me wrong, A Silent Voice is great, though it goes to show you how lacking we are for anime involving a deaf person that googling “anime about deaf girl” takes you straight to that, haha. Anywho, we have another romance anime on the menu today, this time between the aforementioned deaf girl, Yuki Itose, and…just some guy. In fact it’s actually kind of weird how normal everything in this show is compared to other shows airing right now, at least in regards to stuff I’m watching. Regular modern day setting, regular situation, and pretty regular romance so far. The only thing that makes it stand out is that Yuki has to write out her responses, which is pretty cute. Maybe this will be a way to sneak in Japanese Sign Language lessons every now and then. Side note, did you know that there are over three hundred types of sign language out there? Not sure if there’s one for every verbal language but it’s still a neat little tidbit. Maybe they’ll implement it into the story somewhere if the focus gets to that point.

This episode is pretty much just about the main couple’s first meeting, mainly through Yuki’s perspective (hence the title), which highlights some of the more mundane struggles of living as someone who can’t hear. She can’t hear cars or bikes rushing by or understand what people are saying to her a lot of the time, but she’s still as attentive as she can be to what’s happening around her. When Itsuomi takes an interest in her, what seems like a limited existence suddenly opens up to her. And it doesn’t hurt that her classmate and childhood friend Oshi seems to be crushing on Itsuomi’s cousin Kyoya, who runs a bar. And given this genre and its usual quirks, this is more than likely not the extent of the romantic pinings in this cast. Feelings can go unheard even among those with totally functioning hearing, so that will probably play into things at some point if my hunches are correct. But for now, this is a pretty soft and fluffy start to a soft and fluffy shojo romance anime, so we’ll see where all of that ends up. Considering the manga is still ongoing, we may not end the season with them together, but I’m sure some significant developments are on the way.