At the beginning of 2024, I discovered A Sign of Affection , a wonderful shojo anime series about a hard-of-hearing college student named Yuki Itose. The series centers on her stepping away from the space she’s grown used to in order to explore the big, wide world around her, but what really makes it special is that her disability isn’t seen as a hindrance. Yuki is surrounded by supportive people, from her friendship with Rin Fujishiro to her budding romance with Itsuomi Nagi. Even the tension with her childhood friend, Oushi Ashioki, contains a layer of nuance where he’s being too overprotective, to the point that he’s missing out on what Yuki actually wants for herself. RELATED: Get To Know These Amazing Anime Girls and Women of the 2020s Created by the manga duo of suu Morishita, you can feel how much care they put into the series, both as a romance and coming-of-age story with the kind of protagonist you don’t always see in fiction. But for them, sign language was the perfect way to highlight the visual and emotional storytelling found in manga. In our interview, we discussed their efforts in learning from the deaf community, what it was like for them to see the anime for the first time, and why it was important to surround Yuki with supportive people. What I love about Yuki is that her goals are so relatable. I remember being in college and also wanting to see more than what I was used to; that’s one of the reasons I picked a school that wasn’t close to home. How did you decide on what Yuki’s dreams would be? suu Morishita: So in the beginning, Yuki used to go to a deaf school, which consisted of very few students. When she started to think about her future, she just wanted to attend a regular college as a normal college student. That was the beginning of her dream of going to college outside of her hometown. That’s why it feels so relatable. I also wanted to leave my hometown, because I was so used to it. It was like, “I wanna see more than what I’m used to.” That’s why Yuki’s so relatable to me. suu Morishita: We all feel the same way. RELATED: 9 Shojo Anime Moments That Made Our Hearts Go Doki Doki In an interview you did with Kodansha, you talked about how both shojo and sign language are “full of expressions and emotions that aren’t entirely stated, and exist beyond spoken dialogue.” What do you think this adds to A Sign of Affection , both as a romance and as a coming-of-age story? suu Morishita: One of the things that I always felt was an important theme in manga is emotional expressions. I feel like Japanese people feel a lot, but they often cannot express themselves. In sign language, I think it's a little bit easier to show it visually because you’re using the whole hand to talk in sign language. Fingertips, I feel like, is where you can see the most subtleness of the emotion of that person. That explains a couple of things, like when she talks about how Oushi is so direct when he’s doing sign language. That’s really fascinating that you can tell just by how someone’s hands move how they’re feeling. You’ve also talked about your process in depicting sign language in manga (in the first volume of the A Sign of Affection omnibus), from working with a sign language consultant (Yuki Miyazaki), to watching videos and figuring out key words to illustrate. What did you learn about sign language during this process, and is there anything that you’ve learned that you think you’ll apply in your future work? suu Morishita: In order to start the series, I really felt it was necessary to interview with deaf people, and in order to go into those interviews, I tried to learn, at least, how to spell out the alphabet. So from there, I started to learn easier vocabulary, like “thank you,” “sorry,” “happy,” and so forth, to kind of express myself in sign language. Earlier on in the interviews, I mostly had to resort to written communication, but the more I started to learn about them, the more I started to be able to communicate directly in signs. RELATED: How Disability Awareness in Anime Taught Me to Embrace My Own Conditions I really appreciate the number of people Yuki has in her life who don’t give her a hard time about being hard of hearing. It’s not just Itsuomi, but characters like Yuki’s friend, Rin, as well. Why do you feel it was important to give Yuki this kind of support? suu Morishita: This is actually me personally, but I feel a great deal of stress when we have to introduce a really bad person into the story, so we have a tendency to avoid introducing such characters into a story. Another thing worth mentioning is the generation. I feel like Japan is gaining more acceptance toward people with disabilities, and has fewer people who say bad things or have a bias toward them. I felt like the generation has become ready to accept this type of story and characters. After watching the anime, I picked up the manga, and have been falling in love with the little details all over again, like the gray text for when Yuki’s reading lips. How did you decide how to tackle moments like this, and how important was it to show that there are all kinds of ways one can communicate with Yuki? suu Morishita: There was a question I was always feeling when I was watching other types of works that feature a character who has hearing loss or a hearing disability: what kind of information is this person perceiving and not perceiving in this scene? I felt a great need to show the readers of the manga what Yuki was currently experiencing in such ways; otherwise, I felt it would cause readers great stress, not knowing what Yuki was experiencing. That is actually one of my favorite parts, how we actually get to see what Yuki is feeling the entire time. One of my favorite moments is when Itsuomi uses sign language to confess his feelings. Why do you think it was important for him to express his feelings in such a way? suu Morishita: This was simply because sign language is Yuki’s first language, so he wanted to tell his feelings in her words, in her language. So romantic! I’ve rewatched that scene multiple times. suu Morishita: Do you have a favorite character? Besides Yuki? I really love the way Itsuomi approaches her, and takes his time, and takes the time to learn how to talk to her and really be part of her world. suu Morishita: Thank you very much! I also really like Rin because she acts like me when I get excited. The story actually has more than one romance going on. How did you balance having multiple couples who are all connected in the same story? suu Morishita: This is kinda hard to describe, because I feel like it’s all about the feelings. We do try to balance it, but it really kinda occurs to me, “Oh, how’s Shin doing? I haven’t seen him in a while…” and so he appears in the story. It’s not really a calculated move, per se; that’s why it’s hard to explain. It’s a feeling. RELATED: 10 Best Shojo Anime Couples That Became Canon I think that explains it perfectly. One thing I find really interesting is that Oushi is one of the few people in Yuki’s life who uses sign language, yet there’s still this wall between the two of them. What made you decide to have someone who can, arguably, understand Yuki, actually fail to fully understand her? suu Morishita: If Oushi completely understood Yuki, there would already be a perfect love story there, and there’d be no need for Itsuomi to come into the picture. But I honestly feel like Oushi has this really strong feeling, almost too strong, to think that he’s the one who needs to protect Yuki. Itsuomi’s completely different from that. He’s seen the entire world, and even if Yuki has this disability, she should be able to do what she wants to do. In the countries outside of Japan, it feels like not too many people like Oushi because he kinda stops Yuki from being independent due to his strong feeling that he must protect Yuki. Honestly, it feels like it’s coming from his immaturity as a person. I find him very interesting because I feel like people have good intentions when they want to protect people they care about, but sometimes they don’t realize there’s a better way to go about it, and they end up unintentionally hurting people. His intentions are good, but he needs to realize that Yuki will be fine. I think the kneejerk reaction is to protect Yuki, but that’s not what she needs. Hopefully, he’ll realize he doesn’t need to be so protective. suu Morishita: Thank you very much. What was it like seeing your story as an anime adaptation? Are there any particular moments you enjoyed seeing play out in the anime? suu Morishita: When we heard that we first got licensed to do an animation, we met the production team, including the director (Yuta Murano). In the beginning, the thing we were worried about was whether the animation would capture the sign language properly. But I felt a very strong passion coming from them. They felt so much for the series, almost, like, kinda scary, but we mean that as a compliment! They were so passionate about this project that we felt very lucky that somebody like this would be taking on the animation for the series. We were really glad that they worked on this. When the first episode was completed, we watched it together with the director as well as the voice actors. I remember the sensations that the first episode left me with were just enormous. I felt the coldness from the scene when it was snowing, and I felt like we were actually somewhere that was very cold. I felt like, “Wow, this animation really creates this kind of sensation.” What an impact that has. As for our favorite scene, I feel like the scene where Yuki makes the circle with her hands. That’s something they took a long time to draw out, and it was much cuter, even compared to the manga. I really think they did an outstanding job drawing that scene. RELATED: Where Is Your Perfect Anime Date Spot? Itsuomi’s been to so many places, and Yuki’s excited to explore the world. Are there any places that you feel the two must see in their travels? suu Morishita: So in the story that’s currently ongoing in Japan, they’ve actually started to go on their journey together. They go to the United States, the West Coast. They go to Antelope Canyon. I have no idea where that is! suu Morishita: Utah! Oh okay! suu Morishita: Six years ago, we came to the United States for research. Where did you go? suu Morishita: Grand Canyon. Monument Valley. Las Vegas. I love Vegas. Those are some good places to go. suu Morishita: The nature here in the U.S. is so vast and amazing, it’s beautiful.
