Yuki Itose is a young deaf college student who enjoys shopping, fashion, and hanging with her friends like a lot of girls her age. One day, while dealing with a foreigner on the train, she meets Itsuomi Nagi, her trilingual senior. He's traveled to several countries, is great at socializing, and is quite good-looking. Yuki soon forms a bond with him, as she finds Itsuomi fascinating and wishes to experience more of the world around her like he does. There's just one little hitch to their blossoming romance: Itsuomi may know several languages, but sign language is unfortunately not one of them. Thus begins the love story between someone who's seen nearly the entire world, and another whose insular world is about to get a whole lot bigger.
A Sign of Affection (ゆびさきと恋々, Yubisaki to Renren) is a shoujo manga written and illustrated by Suu Morishita, which began serialization in the magazine Dessert on July 24, 2019. It was later published into English by Kodansha USA, and can be found here
.
An anime adaptation by Ajia-do Animation Works premiered on January 6, 2024. The series is licensed by Crunchyroll and can be found here. It also got a musical adaptation, which premiered on June 4th, 2021 and ran until June 13th, 2021, at the Honda Theater in Tokyo.
Tropes that show up in the work:
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: How Shin and Emma are introduced; they stumble into Kyouya's bar drunk from barhopping, and instantly act like fools. Neither of them remembers much the next time they meet Yuki.
- Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Emma shows up at Itsuomi's apartment, unannounced, expecting to get attention from Itsuomi. Not only was Itsuomi not in the mood, but he also just leaves her alone in the apartment.
- Art Evolution: The story's artstyle has changed and improved over the years.
- Beta Couple: Kyouya and Rin. Kyouya is Itsuomi's cousin, Rin's Yuki's friend from college. The early parts of the story are even about Rin and Yuki encouraging each other to pursue their respective crushes, and while Yuki and Itsuomi's relationship progresses faster, Rin and Kyouya's goes a lot smoother.
- Bridal Carry: During their camping trip, Itsuomi carries Yuki in his arms so her feet don't get wet when she steps into the river.
- Camping Episode: Yuki, Itsuomi, Kyouya and Rin go on a sign language boot camp at the mountains in episode 9.
- Childhood Friends:
- Oushi and Yuki had known each other since childhood. However, Yuki views Oushi as an annoying but dependable friend due to Condescending Compassion from him while Oushi crushed on her for years.
- Emma has known and crushed on Itsuomi since at least high school, but he only sees her as a friend. Shin has known both of them since high school as well and has crushed on Emma for just as long as she has with Itsuomi.
- Coming of Age Story: Of a sort - while she is an adult, the story begins with Yuki's first year in college, her first education outside of a school for deaf students, and she still lives at home with a curfew. As the series progresses, she has her first love, starts to build her own ambitions, and even undergoes some of the more mundane milestones towards adulthood, like applying for her first job.
- Condescending Compassion: This is what hurts Oushi's chances as a Love Interest. While he does care about Yuki and learned sign language to communicate with her at a young age, he also generally has a low opinion on what deaf people are capable of, constantly getting on her case when she goes out alone or at night and believes she shouldn't even be leaving her house at all, generally acting like he can dictate what she does out of overbearing concern. Combined with him insulting her in sign language to cover up his feelings, and this leads Yuki seeing him as more of an annoyance than as the Childhood Friend Romance option he wants to be.
- Everyone Can See It:
- Oushi's torch for Yuki is blatantly obvious to pretty much everyone except Yuki herself, who mostly just notes how rude he is to her.
- Emma's crush on Itsuomi is also pretty obvious to everyone who knows her, including Itsuomi.
- Girls Stare at Scenery, Boys Stare at Girls: Yuki takes Itsuomi on a date at the park. As Yuki is admiring the flowers, Itsuomi stares at her beauty and even takes a picture of her.
- Green-Eyed Monster:
- Emma tries to imply that she slept with Itsuomi while Yuki is within earshot, not knowing that Yuki is completely deaf and only annoying Itsuomi further in the process.
- Oushi is envious of Itsuomi for Yuki's crush on him, trying to stop her from seeing Itsuomi several times.
- Hopeless Suitor: Emma is fixated on Itsuomi and him alone and has been since at least high school (given that the series begins with Itsuomi in at least his second year in college, that's at least 3 years). The problem she has is that he has no romantic interest in her whatsoever.
- I Kiss Your Hand: Itsuomi kisses Yuki's hand at the end of volume 2.
- Impeded Communication: Yuki gets by often with reading lips (given that most of the people she interacts with don't sign), but she notes at several points that it falls short when people talk too fast, or if there are multiple possibilities for the lip reading. Played for Laughs when she once meets up with Itsuomi after they get together at a train crossing, but a train comes before they reach each other. She thinks he mouths "Can I hug you?" to her, to which she agrees, only to discover minutes later that he tried to say, "Can I kiss you?" instead.
- Intimate Hair Brushing: In a flashback, Shin braided Emma's hair as practice for his dream of becoming a hair stylist.
- Loving Bully: Oushi's regular insulting behavior towards Yuki come off this way. Itsuomi in particular seems motivated to keep Yuki away from such an unhealthy attitude, and Oushi's own sister notes that this behavior is what drove Yuki away from him.
- Romantic Wingman: Yuki and Rin both act like this to each other, helping each other out with their respective crushes on Itsuomi and Kyouya. For his part, Kyouya also tries to help Itsuomi with his relationship with Yuki.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Yuki falls for Itsuomi due to him being an understanding guy who wants to better communicate with her.
- Snow Means Cold: Episode 6 shows Itsuomi going to work without taking care of the weather. Just after he finished working he and Kyouya are visited by Yuki and Rin, so Itsuomi decides to talk with Yuki outside the bar just to realize of the weather. He begins to feel cold, so Yuki decides to lend her scarf, leading to the start of a climatic scene in their relationship, cue to Snow Means Love.
- Snow Means Love: Snow plays an important factor in the first episodes, given the fact that they happen in winter and there are frequently snowstorms. The climatic scene in episode 6 occurs below a snowstorm. Extra points if we add the fact that Yuki, the name of the protagonist, means "snow" in Japanese.
- Spiritual Antithesis: A Sign of Affection can be considered one to A Silent Voice. Both are anime about a pink-haired female main character with hearing loss. However, while the latter is a drama about redemption and bullying, the former is a wholesome romance about falling in love while breaking language barriers.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Itsuomi lets Emma stay overnight, despite showing up unannounced. She tries to get his attention, despite being busy with other things. And when he turns down her advances, she thinks that if he doesn't want her there, she will just leave.
- Twisted Ankle: When Rin and Kyouya are discussing their relationship next to a river, Rin accidentally slips on a rock and injures her ankle, forcing the camping trip to end early.
