A Sign of Affection

Episode 4

Apologies, dear readers, if it takes a moment to get into the swing of this review. I'm still reeling from the surreal shock of this show setting our main couple's first (sort-of-)date in a gods damned Costco. I have been watching romance anime for years, and I've seen couples go to movies, karaoke, malls, tourist attractions, zoos, amusement parks, arcades, several million aquariums, and a shocking number of off-brand Denny's restaurants, but I've never before watched two anime people have a romantic outing over $1.50 hotdogs and the chance to buy an industrial amount of toilet paper. It's going to take a bit for me to adjust to this new reality.

Jokes aside, the choice to set the back half of this episode in a wholesale warehouse store is at least novel, and it makes sense as a way to have a sort of but not quite date between Yuki and Itsuomi as they walk through the hazy gray area that constitutes their relationship status. A big question brought up in this episode is where Itsuomi's feelings towards our heroine are aimed. Considering how easily he intuits all the other relationship drama going on around him, it's hard to believe he's ignorant about Yuki's interest in him, but his feelings are a bit of a mystery. Even Kyouya isn't sure if the guy is interested in romance, or is just eager to find something new to study with sign language. It's an intriguing source of drama for the audience, where we're left wondering if Yuki is walking right into heartbreak. Is her crush leading her on? If he is, is it intentional? Heck, if he isn't, there's still some iffy parts to him. Even putting aside the casual, arguably presumptuous physicality he displays when he's with Yuki, it's clear that Itsuomi is a shit-stirrer, actively antagonizing Oushi and purposefully shutting Yuki out of their brief dick-measuring contest. That is, at the very least, a yellow flag bordering on orange.

I don't mean that as a criticism of the story. I think there's a lot to be mined from flawed people trying to navigate relationships while dragging along all their baggage and bad instincts, and the dichotomy between Yuki's two love interests is an interesting one, especially with how she reacts to each of them. She has zero patience for Oushi's overprotective Tsundere shtick, presumably because she's seen it a million times and has never even passingly considered him romantically. Which is fun, because it means she gets to be sassy with somebody when she pushes back at him. Itsuomi, meanwhile, is a lot smoother with his more prickly personality points, and Yuki's more than happy to gloss over them. Where Oushi's antagonism is familiar and ineffective, the momentum of how new and exciting Itsuomi is makes even his dickish moments feel like quirky eccentricity. In a phrase, Yuki is down bad for this dude, in the way a lot of folks in their 20s wind up, and that's just as relatable and endearing as her more poetic soliloquies about the thrills of love.

It's also a running theme for basically the entire cast. Itsuomi is just one fulcrum point in a whole chain of messy relationships and emotions just waiting to boil over into disaster. Emma is fixated on him despite his very direct rejections, while her friend Shin is pretty obviously harboring his crush on her, but sublimating that into being her drinking buddy and confidant as she vents about pursuing someone else. If that isn't a quintessential 20-something experience I don't know what is. Even poor Rin may be barking up the wrong tree, depending on how far we're meant to dig into Kyouya's insistence that nothing is going on between him and her. It's a total mess, which is exactly the kind of love story I'm in the mood for. Whether or not things work out for any of these characters, it's engaging and fulfilling to follow them through the travails of love all on its own.

Plus, if things do end poorly, we already know a place where they can get enough dessert to drown their sorrows for months.

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A Sign of Affection is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.