Written by Rei Caldombra 3/17/2024

Our penultimate episode of Yubisaki to Renren (hopefully it won’t be our last penultimate episode), gave us solid progression with most of our cast and confirmed to us where they are now standing.

We got confirmation that Kyouya and Rin’s current state is that they are not firmly in a relationship right now, but seemingly are viewing things in a romantic way. I figure that with the time we have left and the hard focus on Oushi and Shin recently, we won’t be getting much more from them for this season. I am okay with more of their side of things being put off until later as we are already spending so much time with the side characters.

I’ll put the two Itsuomi and Yuki lovey-dovey moments together for this paragraph. I am glad we are getting more nice moments between these two spliced in between all the stuff between the other core characters. I think the show is doing a solid job balancing the pretty much pure wholesome core romance with the side characters going through their more dramatic and emotionally heavy conflicts. I do still have serious topics I would like to see from Itsuomi and Yuki, but I can accept them having the emotional turmoil being saved for later while the side characters have the dramatic spotlight. It was nice seeing Itsuomi show a moment where he was not as steadfast as we are used to seeing him. He continues to be very reassuring and ensures that their relationship has proper balance with everything else in their lives. Hopefully we will be able to move on a bit from Yuki being shocked and get a bit more substance from her end of the relationship. Still love this couple.

Yuki also got a job! Glad she has a sweet momma for her manager. We also got another look into a routine struggle of a deaf person. Yuki having a cashier at her local store who always signs for her is so sweet. But of course that person is not always available and in a place where masks are commonplace, normal things like shopping can suddenly become difficult. Masks completely ruin the ability to read lips. A deaf person can suddenly be thrown into a tough situation over something that the average person would not think is important. It shows just how different things are, and even for someone experienced with being deaf, can be unsure of what to do in normal circumstances. That is why it is nice to have people around who are able to help when things get difficult.

I think this slowdown and changing of the colors really emphasizes the shock she feels. Not just because he made a dramatic entrance, but that being deaf would make him popping in even more surprising.

Oushi comes in to save the shopping trip. I really like that Oushi directly told her that he talked with Itsuomi, and even truthfully said he dislikes him. This openness is showing how he really is trying to improve himself. He isn’t confessing to her as he nor her really needs that, but he is being a more supportive friend now. He is still a bit insecure and threatened, shown by him getting angry after Yuki praised him through sign. But he apologizes, and his offer to go with her when she needs help is a wonderful supportive gesture that makes clear how much effort he is putting in to be better.

The act of going completely out of your way for someone is a very meaningful gesture to me, and I really think it matters here. He has always helped her in tough situations when he happens to be there, but now he is saying that he will go out of his way to help if she requests it.He really has changed the way he is going about things. I much prefer this over boringly going back to the status quo, which emotional resolutions can often do with lazy writing. It's also great to see Yuki not be completely dense, picking up that this is abnormal but not understanding enough to connect the dots together. We also get his motivation to learn sign language layed out more deeply. He wants to be able to help Yuki in situations where she is disadvantaged. It’s great seeing him be decently self aware, realizing that he does need to be better and is aware of how this is a change she would pick up on. This scene as a whole does a great job reinforcing their connection and making them feel much more like childhood friends than the average. They act much more like people who have known each other for a long time, where even if they aren’t interacting as much as they used to, they can talk like normal no matter the time gap and really know how each other works deep down even if they don’t know all the little things about each other. Yuki not understanding he is in love with her makes sense with her inexperience, but she gets the points that she logically would, like him being a nice person deep down despite his prickly personality. And even calls out his tsun by saying communicating sincerely is where he should work on. This really feels like two old friends who finally had a deeper and honest conversation for the first time in awhile. This scene does a great job showing how Oushi is already trying to improve after his talk with Itsuomi, and how he can continue to become a more positive person.

Great Yuki face

The other old friend duo is mentioned next. I love how she is talking to him like usual about them hanging out, but when he speaks in an abnormal way she immediately picks up on it. Later she picks up on him drinking far less than usual. I’m thinking the meaning of this is that he has used drinking as a way to put down his feelings. But more importantly to my point, she notices this. These are the details in scenes that make ingrained in you that these characters have known each other for a long time. These are the types of elevating scenes that only come about when you take things slowly. If you rush from major point to point, you miss out on opportunities to make those moments feel well built up to. Their plot would still be perfectly functional if we went straight to them meeting up somewhere to drink and talk, it’s already been established that they do this regularly. Now we know that she is also not completely dense when it comes to her friend and picks up on minor differences in their usual routine, and that she will go into their meeting with more anticipation and expectation that it is going to be more serious. If we had gone straight to their meeting we would have no reason to think that she is expecting this to be out of the norm, so the tone of the scene would have been messier.

Then we see that she has also picked up on moments that seemed like he had feelings. I previously mentioned that his statement of never liking Emma was very dramatic. This is such great writing to have it not only be true because of how it was framed for the viewer, but it had just as much dramatic impact on Emma. These details are what can deeply absorb you in the show, where it really feels like what you are seeing is exactly what the characters themselves are seeing. I love the little details that make the big moments shine so much greater. This also makes her genuine shock despite thinking he was into her at times. This series continues to show how all of these characters are good people despite their issues. She recognizes the weight that telling her about Itsuomi’s relationship had on Shin, and appreciates it. One of the reasons why this series feels so warm is because all the characters are given moments to show that they are caring, good natured people despite their issues and miscommunications causing issues. It really feels like everyone loves each other in their own ways. Looks like we will have to wait until the next episode to see how this is resolved for now.

Another great episode! This show excels at having none of its characters feel unnaturally dense or unperceptive. Everyone feels very cohesive and conversations flow very naturally. For me the show does not fall into any of the pitfalls many romance shows do. Thanks for reading! Having only one episode left is rough, but