First Impressions – Yubisaki to Renren

OP: “Yuki no Oto (雪の音)” by Novelbright

Shoujo number two of the winter season bows, and it’s certainly the more important prospect for me.  Yubisaki to Renren is a more familiar shoujo genre for anime, romance.  And it tilts more towards the jousei side of the demographic than Momochi-san, to be sure.  Ajia-do has done some pretty good adaptation work as a studio, thought there’s not a lot of star power in the staff credits.  I would say my take going in was cautious optimism, driven mostly by the generally very strong reviews for the manga.

A Sign of Affection is the story of a hearing-impaired college student named Itose Yuki (Morohoshi Sumire).  Yuki is self-aware about her condition (her word) and the discomfort it causes in some people without being overly self-conscious about it.  One day while riding the train home from school she’s approached by a foreigner (for most Japanese this just became horror rather than romance) and asked for directions.  I have to say it’s extremely rare for foreigners to randomly accost locals on the train – especially a man a single woman – for directions, and I’ve never once seen one grab a shoulder like that.  But in shoujo, sometimes things like that happen because the plot needs them to happen.

The guy can speak Japanese just fine as it turns out, but Yuki doesn’t know that and panics.  She’s bailed out by college classmate Nagi Itsuoumi (Miyazaki Yuu), who helps the gent on his way (he’s English-fluent himself,  as it happens).  Interestingly Yuki recognizes Itsuoumi from school, but he seems to have no recollection of her.  The sparks fly immediately on her part, and Nagi doesn’t seem put off by Yuki’s situation.  I was struck by his putting his hand on her head when he left the train – it immediately hit me as very forward and borderline condescending – but as Yuki notes herself later in the episode, she’s “only seeing the good” in everything Nagi does.  And again, this is shoujo.

Yuki’s friend Rin (Hondo Kaede) is not only in the same club as Nagi, but in love with his boss Kyouya (Ohsaka Ryouta, yet again completely fooling me into not recognizing his voice) at the restaurant and bar where they work.  So the next course of action is obvious, and once more Itsuoumi proves himself to be strikingly unconcerned with personal space.  But other than that he seems like a nice kid, and Yuki is so completely smitten that it wouldn’t matter anyway.  Itsuoumi is a world traveler, multilingual, a cultural adventurer – if any boy was ever designed to appear exotic to a sheltered girl like Yuki, it’s him.

There’s a certain easy charm to this premiere that I found appealing, but to me events seemed a little forced at times (like that little dance of Yuki’s at the end of the episode, which we got to awfully quickly).  Yuki is interesting in that she clearly places a high value on being independent, yet subconsciously is continuously making allowances due to her hearing loss.  And still having a curfew despite being in college is another suggestion of this disconnect.  As for Itsuoumi his impassive demeanor and forcefulness don’t immediately ingratiate themselves to an audience, but it’s way too early to make a call on what sort of guy he really is.  I’m pretty much withholding judgement on Yubisaki to Renren at this point – this was a solid premiere but nothing like a deal closer.

ED: “snowspring” by ChoQMay

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6 comments

  1. L

    You make a keen observation about Yuki coming off as very sheltered for someone in university. This does get explained more later in the manga, and I hope the anime will do it too.

    Other than that, I think Itsuomi will just have to be someone who grows on you, haha. If some of the things he did in the premiere irked you, that won’t change persé, but like Yuki, you’re just getting to know who he is.

  2. I don’t know if I’d say he irked me per se. It’s more than it just came off as very pushy and a bit condescending. But that doesn’t make him a bad kid or anything.

    Also thought his seiyuu gave a sort of odd, very monotonal performance. Maybe intentionally, but it made Itsuomi hard to read.

  3. L

    That’s what I thought. That bit of pushiness isn’t going to change a whole lot for the time being.

    I have no idea how purposeful the va performance is meant to be, and I wasn’t a big fan either, but Itsuomi is indeed meant to be a little tricky to read for people that don’t know him well. Take that for what you will.

  4. I remember Morohoshi Sumire noting that Miyazaki’s take on Itsuomi was “flat in a good way” in a good way in a cast interview. Made me wonder if it was deliberate decision on either his or the voice director’s part.

    I have to say I rather liked the performance. I’ve liked Miyazaki Yuu in the stuff I’ve heard him in (he doesn’t get a lot of leading roles), so I’m happy to hear him here.

  5. S

    So far he’s just too perfect to sustain this story for very long. And I find his behavior toward Yuki annoyingly patriarchal. I liked Yuki’s character, but the jury is out on Itsuomi.

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