A Sign of Affection
Natively: Level 21
Summary
Yuki Itose is a hearing-impaired university student whose world has been shrouded with silence since birth. She has lived in the same place her whole life, and rarely interacts with others save for her best friend, Rin Fujishiro. During her commute one day, she meets the silver-haired and multilingual Itsuomi Nagi, a mutual friend of Rin. Unlike most, Itsuomi is unwavering when he learns of Yuki’s impairment; this, along with his experiences abroad, fascinates and touches her. After they part, her fondness of him starts to grow. A new world begins to open for both Yuki and Itsuomi as they learn about each other’s different lives.
Availability
Physical: Honto | Rakuten | CD Japan | Amazon US | Amazon JP | Kinokuniya JP
Digital: eBook Japan | BookWalker | Amazon Kindle JP
Personal Opinion
This cute romance story really stands out, with a fun adult cast and a well-researched perspective on both a disability and on language learning. While sign language is a main topic, there’s also a lot of approachable Japanese as the characters learn to communicate with each other through lip reading and writing. I’d say the simple language puts this at around the right level for this club.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Focus on simple, everyday language, seen in a variety of contexts
- Large font and low text density, with full furigana (much of the time)
- Story moves forward chapter by chapter
- Great art
- Has a recent popular anime adaptation
Cons
- The messages on screens, whiteboards, etc. don’t have furigana. These happen somewhat regularly but are generally brief and simple, so hopefully not too huge of an obstacle.
- The text for lip-read dialogue is slightly harder to read, with a lighter font color and on rare occasion, a garbled character or two when the speech isn’t understood. This difficulty is intentional, since lip reading is also inexact.
