Well, I'm the kind of people that finds boring to be in company of like minded people all the time. There's need to be disagreement to help me and the people around me to grow and become better. Thus, I can't say no to couples where their members are so different.

Dark_Tzitzimine posted:

From page one it was clear what kind of story was this meant to be

I really liked first chapters and it had a lot potential for good story. Sadly author decided to go with standard drama cliches and series become unreadable to me.

I really liked first chapters and it had a lot potential for good story. Sadly author decided to go with standard drama cliches and series become unreadable to me.

THANK YOU ! THATS WHAT IM SAYING !

Recycling settings and/or stories is something that is present on every form of media regardless the genre. For me, what makes a story standout is the sum of its parts: the characterization, the dynamics, the setting, the plot, the art/acting/voice acting, animation and more.

Of course it would be nice to have authors willing to take risks and try new things but at the same time I won't hold up against them if they're trying to find a place in an increasingly difficult market, making a manga is a job after all.

That said, I don't know why people continues to rag on Citrus as if Saburota would've lied to them about the nature of this series. From page one it was clear what kind of story was this meant to be and if you don't like it then, why continue to waste effort and getting upset about it now?

I'm also not counting valkyrie drive mermaid. i didn't watch it because it looked like a male-gaze fanservice nightmare

I honestly find pretty contradictory the way you claim to want more yuri that goes beyond the regular norms of the genre when you're so quick to dismiss something that did exactly that simply because it didn't fit your preconceptions about what an innovative yuri had to be.

VDM is not perfect by any means but is pretty earnest on what it is and what it wants to do and does't shy away from the yuri elements, making it a pretty memorable experience whether your liked it or not.

Anyways, the ghost chapter was a great read. I will never get tired of Mei deadpanning all of Yuzu's antics.

The only clear thing about Citrus is that it's a yuri manga about pseudo sisters falling in love. The development of their relationship and the story could have taken many ways, but instead fell in cliches and forced drama that repeats the same formula. You can't blame people who had some expectations about Citrus and ended up disappointed. That said, people shouldn't have high expectations when it comes to yuri. Anyways, this is a free space, if people want to complain it's fine.
btw, what kind of yuri mangas do the people who criticise Citrus and LL read? I'm curious about it for some reason.

last edited at Oct 2, 2016 5:41PM

what kind of yuri mangas do the people who criticise Citrus and LL read? I'm curious about it for some reason.

I like
Akuma no riddle, Sakura trick, Octave, LL, Girl friends, Meghan&dani, Husky & Medley and Strawberry Panic.

Scarlet128 posted:

btw, what kind of yuri mangas do the people who criticise Citrus and LL read? I'm curious about it for some reason.

Mangas by Takemiya Jin, Otsu Hiyori and Morishima Akiko.
Also I liked:
I'll Bring You Mille-Feuille!
Amai Nisemono
As Yet I Have No Name
Pure Water Adolescence
Laika, Pavlov, Pochihachikou
Sleeping Beauty's Dream
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry-Blossom Pink
Girl Friends
Dandelion Among Lilies
Roommates
Bright and Cheery Amnesia
Octave
The Real Her
First Love
Kase-san
Under One Roof
Pops
Yuri Yuri (ELEGY SYNDROME)
Yuri Yuri
The Flower And The Star
Prism
Free Soul
Love My Life (By same author)
Love Vibes
Even When a Stray Lamb is Weary
I Want to be Your Kind of Girl
The Princess and the Slave
Himitsu, Hitotsu
Morishita and Arai's Romance
First Lend
That Onee-sama Feeling
Cloth Eating Girl
Spring, a Minuet
My Daughter's Girlfriend
She loves me so much it bothers me
I'm A Fool
Girlfriends
My Daughter Has Been Hiding Mother Daughter Incest Porn Books...
(Almost all by) Minase Ruruu
Liar and the Ferris Wheel
Tender Night
My Steady
Nana Yuri
Playing House
Love Strategy
Cigarette Liar
Everyday★Lingerie
Cocytus (At least Cocytus part, didn't read Moratorium yet)
Our Future
Roche Limit
The Female Body
Honey Inferno
Instinct and a Chromosome
Her First Love
Present
Female x Female = Love
And probably forgot a bunch of stuff.

last edited at Oct 2, 2016 6:32PM

Recycling settings and/or stories is something that is present on every form of media regardless the genre. For me, what makes a story standout is the sum of its parts: the characterization, the dynamics, the setting, the plot, the art/acting/voice acting, animation and more.

Of course it would be nice to have authors willing to take risks and try new things but at the same time I won't hold up against them if they're trying to find a place in an increasingly difficult market, making a manga is a job after all.

That said, I don't know why people continues to rag on Citrus as if Saburota would've lied to them about the nature of this series. From page one it was clear what kind of story was this meant to be and if you don't like it then, why continue to waste effort and getting upset about it now?

I'm also not counting valkyrie drive mermaid. i didn't watch it because it looked like a male-gaze fanservice nightmare

I honestly find pretty contradictory the way you claim to want more yuri that goes beyond the regular norms of the genre when you're so quick to dismiss something that did exactly that simply because it didn't fit your preconceptions about what an innovative yuri had to be.

VDM is not perfect by any means but is pretty earnest on what it is and what it wants to do and does't shy away from the yuri elements, making it a pretty memorable experience whether your liked it or not.

Anyways, the ghost chapter was a great read. I will never get tired of Mei deadpanning all of Yuzu's antics.

The only clear thing about Citrus is that it's a yuri manga about pseudo sisters falling in love. The development of their relationship and the story could have taken many ways, but instead fell in cliches and forced drama that repeats the same formula.

It's obvious that recycling will happen, but in other genres theres usually MORE to recycle.

Look at other genres, look at anything tagged as romance anywhere else... You will not only find variety in settings, but most importantly: plot

Try with other genres, a lot of em can be broad enough to have a sense of variety.

Its sad that yuri itself really is a subgenre of romance that really just sticks to a tight by-the-numbers formulas. There is almost no breathing space. We even get the same arcs regurgitated within the same manga as an entire "new arc"... That... is quite telling.

Saying that stuff gets recycled everywhere is simply not much of an argument as a defense.

last edited at Oct 2, 2016 7:02PM

why continue to waste effort and getting upset about it now?

Because people love to hate it? :þ Like the Fairy Tail of Yuri.

Subtext is when the characters are very close friends.

Isn't that what Kumiko and Reina are though? And tbh until season 1 there was no het ending at all and Kumiko seemed to be a bit grossed by Shuichi as a romantic potential too. Plus they literally changed a very important het scene from the manga to make it yuri. The one where Kumiko and Reina were interlocking hands in the end, was originally Kumiko and Shuichi doing this in the manga.
So I think H!E doesn't deserve the hate it gets. And I'm talking about season 1, not sure what will happen in S2 though.

Yuri fandom sometimes can be a bit too much tbh. I agree there are a lot of boring and poorly written yuri out there, but on the other hand if we get a decent or semi-decent one, even in subtext, some people will still find the smallest details to complain about. And give the opportunity for trolls to make fan of it as well. If yuri fans can't be supportive of the yuri, then who will be?
Because some readers just won't be satisfied until they see the girls doing it or blantly saying they are gay. Or even if there a few male characters in the manga/anime besides an all girls setting.

I'm not blaming Japanese for making shows like that, since they have to sell their show and make a living out of it. So they have to adapt it accordingly to be targeted in a bigger audience. Maybe this is a reason why moe "yuri" is more popular than mature ones. Because there is always that thing where the girls are still too young and their love is not "perverted". If you put more mature women doing the things some moe shows do, they would be very clearly gay. But with moe it is more safe and available for a broader audience besides the yuri fandom. (maybe one of the reasons why Yuru Yuri is popular)

So what some fans maybe don't realise is, if shows like H!E made them canon, the audience would probably be limited, and maybe there wouldn't be a seccond season. So we should keep that in mind, and appreciate what we get even if there is not a canon confession or confirmation, instead of wanting everything to be "perfect".

As a Yuri fan we don't get many yuri manga/anime that are open about their sexuality. I can count those shows in one hand. (For example: Strawberry Panic, Akuma No Riddle, Yuri Kuma). There isn't any variety. Majority of yuri fans have to put on their yuri goggles and read between the lines or just use there imagination between two female characters that are friends. A lot of shows just add yuri subtext to appeal the male demographic or because the producers are scared of the backlash they will get if they go full on yuri. A medium should be about variety not the same overused traits.

I am one of those people that will complain about H!E because H!E isn't even subtext yuri. Why I say this as KumiXRei are just good friends. Yuri focuses on the sexual orientation or the romantic orientation aspects of the relationship. At this moment in season 1 Kumiko or Rei have not expressed any romantic desires or sexual desires towards each other. "Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share." Both KumikoXRei like music and are in the music club. They share similar interest; they have not expressed any interest towards each other, other than friendship in the anime series.

I have been a yuri fan for quite a few years now and I am tired of "friendship" being as subtext yuri. They are two different things. I’m not saying KumikoXRei won’t fall in love in the future but at the moment they are just friends. An example of a yuri subtext would be sailor moon with Haruka and Michiru. The comments that they make to each other have a yuri subtext. In one scene when Michiru is trying help Haruka up she comments that Haruka has gotten heavier. Haruka replies that they should leave that talk for the bedroom. That is yuri subtext they don't outright say they are in a relationship but there is a heavy context of a sexual aspect. I know complaining doesn’t help but being a yuri fan has jaded me. If you don't agree that's okay as everyone has different opinions, im just venting my frustrations with the yuri genera. At this point I doubt we will ever get a big budget yuri anime that has good developing characters, plot and animation. Yuri just doesn’t sell and that's the sad truth. This is heart-breaking to me. All I want is yuri but I will never get that. Yuri is love Yuri is life.

^This.

I am tired of "friendship" being as subtext yuri.

I think everyone hates "friendship" as being subtext in yuri. ( Including me )

At this point I doubt we will ever get a big budget yuri anime that has good developing characters, plot and animation. Yuri just doesn’t sell and that's the sad truth. This is heart-breaking to me. All I want is yuri but I will never get that. Yuri is love Yuri is life.

I wouldn't necessarily say that Yuri doesn't sell. I think "Yuri kuma arashi" sold pretty well. And Citrus has gotten pretty popular, I think at one point It was the 3rd or 1st highest ranked romance manga for a while. Also there is a chance that It might get an anime adaption, And If it does then that would probably be the thing that makes Anime producers realize that Yuri does sell. The same thing happened in America, "Sausage Party" was the first rated R animated film we got in a very long time and It was a huge success. And "Deadpool" was the first rated R superhero flick we got in a long time And that was a success as well. Both these films made producers realize that rated R Animated/superhero films can be a good thing. So we don't have to be so cynical about the lack of yuri in anime, Give it time.

Wow I can't believe this went from a debate about LL vs Citrus to a full on discussion about Yuri and its audience. And yeah, I know its my fault :|

last edited at Oct 3, 2016 3:35PM

Why I say this as KumiXRei are just good friends. Yuri focuses on the sexual orientation or the romantic orientation aspects of the relationship. At this moment in season 1 Kumiko or Rei have not expressed any romantic desires or sexual desires towards each other.

This is not true though. What kind of straight friend would act around their friend like these two did in episode 8? Or if one of your friends grabbed your face and went really close to your mouth, while you said this is a confession of love, wouldn't that be crossing the line of feeling like straight bffs?
You are talking about a very specific aspect of a relationship, which is the sexuality. Not everyone falls in love based on feeling sexually attracted to someone. Romantic attraction is not the same as sexual attraction. But from what you've said it seems as if there can be no romantic attraction and falling in love if there is no sexual attraction first.
Why would "yuri" should refer to sexuality only, while hetero includes romance and friendship that eventually evolves into romance as well? It is limitating.

I don't see why something should be very blatant about being sexually gay to be called yuri, it's not black and white. Straight couples don't need this to be shippable. I have seen people pairing two straight characters that don't have this, yet everyone finds it normal and don't need something very explicit to be able to ship them.

It's better to present a character as something more than their sexuality, because this is not everything they should be. Labeling something as yuri only if there is specifically sexual content , sometimes makes the characters be all that there is. So some authors tend to forget to give these characters more layers besides their sexuality. And this can sometimes make the relatiships more blant, as there is nothing more to that. No tension or a satisfiying backstory.

I don't see why something should be very blatant about being sexually gay to be called yuri, it's not black and white. Straight couples don't need this to be shippable. I have seen people pairing two straight characters that don't have this, yet everyone finds it normal and don't need something very explicit to be able to ship them.

This makes me think of something I consider a lot when thinking about yuri, and my own writing as well. What I want to see is a basis for attraction between the characters, and an awful lot of yuri, particularly one-shots, leaves that out. As much as Girl Friends gets bashed for taking such a long time to get to "the good stuff", it does a remarkable job of laying the ground work and showing the characters as their attraction to each other grows. Lily Love has a degree of that too, with Donut examining her attraction to P'Mew. Alternately, as much as I adore Hanjuku Joshi, it jumps pretty quickly into Chitose and Yae having a relationship, although it does make up for that later on with the "because she's a girl" part.

What I want to see in yuri, more than anything, is a believable basis for attraction. I want a girl who finds girls' bodies attractive, who enjoys the company of girls in a non-passive way, is something more than a blank slate until The One comes along and their gender isn't important and they're just a girl by chance. It's a tricky thing to communicate, but to me it's necessary. They don't need to be out waving rainbow flags or wearing flannel shirts or whatever, but seriously, give me some indication that your romantic lead actually wants the girl as a girl, not as some genderless "soul connection", or doing it despite what they are.

Now I haven't really read Citrus (she said, vainly steering more or less back toward the forum topic) past the first handful of chapters due to feeling embarrassed on behalf of the characters for the continuing train-wreck situations they kept getting into, but from following along in the comments it seems like there's at least some of that basis here.

MacySan

This is not true though. What kind of straight friend would act around their friend like these two did in episode 8? Or if one of your friends grabbed your face and went really close to your mouth, while you said this is a confession of love, wouldn't that be crossing the line of feeling like straight bffs?

What kind of friends you ask? Japanese friends apparently, especially in manga, don't forget that when we question this kind of relationship we do that through our western perspective, because for us Kumiko and Rei just can't be anything else besides two friends in love with each other, but in japan? A lot of people still believe two girls can act super gay like that without any kind of romantic attraction at all and don't see Kumiko and Rei as anything but friends, and don't forget that the anime has a lot more bait than it originally should, because except for the scenes where they took the dude out and put the other girl in his place, all the rest is the same in the light novel and it's everything treated as nothing more than just normal friendship between girls, because a lot still believe two girls can't really fall in love with each other and they're at best just playing around if their relationship is more than friendship but don't really go full gay, this is basically just another example of values dissonance between japan and the west.

last edited at Oct 3, 2016 4:51PM

What I want to see in yuri, more than anything, is a believable basis for attraction.

I agree with this. I'm not saying they should make the gender unimportant either though. I just think it's better to create believable chemistry between the characters. And give some reasoning why the characters are attracted to each other, what the one person offers to the other on an emotional level, and how they grow together with their different personalities.
If the focus is based on the sexuality, this sometimes tends to get neglected. So we have stories with nothing more to offer besides the eye-candy, which to me personally gets boring after a while.
I know people here don't refer to stories that lack characterization. But on the other side, if the pairing has good enough development with no sexual development, then that's good enough reason to ship them as well. It doesn't make them simply friends if they don't don't anything sexual.

I believe Citrus has some basis to their relationship. We can see how Yuzu is attracted to Mei because of more reasons besides "just cause I found them both hot to draw, so I made them yuri- The author"
I wouldn't say the side characters in Citrus are bad, I just think the problem is they get disregarded quickly after they served their purpose. And I feel like this is due to the fact that maybe Saburuta doesn't know how to move the plot and story in general.

What kind of friends you ask? Japanese friends apparently, especially in manga, don't forget that when we question this kind of relationship we do that through our western perspective, because for us Kumiko and Rei just can't be anything else besides two friends in love with each other, but in japan? A lot of people still believe two girls can act super gay like that without any kind of romantic attraction at all and don't see Kumiko and Rei as anything but friends

I believe these people are in denial though lol. Heck, even if two girls are having sex, some people will still say they are straight and just experimenting, or do it for attention etc. But if guys do the same thing they are definetely gay. To be completely honest, i believe that a lot of these "straight" cases are just happy because they can do whatever they want and people will still call them straight.

last edited at Oct 3, 2016 4:57PM

MacySan

I believe these people are in denial though lol. Heck, even if two girls are having sex, some people will still say they are straight and just experimenting, or do it for attention etc. But if guys do the same thing they are definetely gay. To be completely honest, i believe that a lot of these "straight" cases are just happy because they can do whatever they want and people will still call them straight.

I don't think you can really call denial the fact that some people see Kumiko and Rei as nothing more than friends, don't forget that the light novel is over and it ends in het and their relationship is never presented as anything but friendship, so there's not really any room to argue about Kumiko and Rei sexuality, they're straight and the author is a piece of shitty who either on purpose filled his story with bait, or he's an idiot who truly believe two girls can be like that and not be gay at all, I won't deny the possibility of KyoAni making the anime go yuri route, but I highly doubt it.

As for the girls being straight and experimenting while guys are really gay, it's probably in part because of that class s bullshit, you can clearly see the double standard just by comparing yaoi and yuri, yaoi is basically always seen as homosexual relationship between man, but yuri? People still argue if it's homosexual relationship between girls, class s, just close friends, subtext, or any other bullshit, didn't someone from Yuri Hime even said that the magazine was never really a yuri magazine or something like that? Really, it's because of this kind of bullshit that even though I really love mangas, animes, games, japanese culture in general, I also really hate them at the same time, seriously, fuck you japan. (>_>)

last edited at Oct 3, 2016 5:31PM

I agree with MacySan and Nezchan. I like having more character in, well, my characters in yuri. Having them interact and influence each other more than just having hot lesbian sex or kissing. Having character(s) being more aware of their sexuality and actually acting on it is a really fresh thing I rarely see in yuri. Here is a video relevant to topic which I'd probably just paraphrase line by line cos I agree with everything (I'll totally understand if you don't watch it though).

last edited at Oct 3, 2016 5:22PM

^^
I agree with nevri about having more characters being aware about their sexuality. But the reality is that the medium is a reflection of Japanese society.

Japan doesn't acknowledge lesbians. They think that having girls liking each other is just a phase you go through in high school. For the medium to have those characters Japanese society has to change first. It's getting there little by little what with the marriage of those two women in Japan but it still has a long way to go.

Japanese yuri manga is written for a Japanese audience. That's all there is to it.

You're not the target.

Get over it.

When the Japanese readers will ask for, or will rate higher, stories about lesbians aware of their sexuality, you will see more of it. They may have a long way to go about acceptance of open homosexuality, but they are eventually, hopefully, moving in that direction.

Don't go on giving them lessons. That's arrogance.

last edited at Oct 4, 2016 1:18PM

I believe these people are in denial though lol. Heck, even if two girls are having sex, some people will still say they are straight and just experimenting, or do it for attention etc. But if guys do the same thing they are definetely gay. To be completely honest, i believe that a lot of these "straight" cases are just happy because they can do whatever they want and people will still call them straight.

And that's when we get girls being very obviously and officially a couple in every sense of the word, down to expressly saying they love each other that way, and still being called "friends". That's one of the things that made me cringe in Cross Ange (then again, what isn't cringe-worthy in Cross Ange? >.>)

Heck, that's even the case for the two girls in my avatar. Although these two are kinda psychopathic but that's another matter.

last edited at Oct 4, 2016 3:56PM

I believe these people are in denial though lol. Heck, even if two girls are having sex, some people will still say they are straight and just experimenting, or do it for attention etc. But if guys do the same thing they are definetely gay. To be completely honest, i believe that a lot of these "straight" cases are just happy because they can do whatever they want and people will still call them straight.

And that's when we get girls being very obviously a couple in every sense of the word, and still being called "friends". That's one of the things that made me cringe in Cross Ange (then again, what isn't cringe-worthy in Cross Ange? >.>)

Heck, that's even the case for the two girls in my avatar. Although these two are kinda psychopathic but that's another matter.

cross ange made me cringe and its just the worst tbh and it kinda ruined nana mizuki for me.

last edited at Oct 4, 2016 1:56PM

Japanese yuri manga is written for a Japanese audience. That's all there is to it.

You're not the target.

Get over it.

When the Japanese readers will ask for, or will rate higher, stories about lesbians aware of their sexuality, you will see more of it. They may have a long way to go about acceptance of open homosexuality, but they are eventually, hopefully, moving in that direction.

Don't go on giving them lessons. That's arrogance.

Yup, Thats true. I doubt that any anime manufacturers acknowledge american's at all. Like I said before we should wait and give them time, We can't possibly do anything else.

last edited at Oct 4, 2016 3:05PM

Or of course we could make our own yuri content, or promote artists outside of japan. But I guess complaining about the lack of yuri is easier. Go figure.

last edited at Oct 4, 2016 3:07PM

Heck, that's even the case for the two girls in my avatar. Although these two are kinda psychopathic but that's another matter.

cross ange made me cringe and its just the worst tbh and it kinda ruined nana mizuki for me.

That's the worst type of yuribait, really. I'm still hopeful for Hibike though.
Also another thing I really hate is when a good character gets paired with a bland one (maybe main character), just to become an ego booster for (some of) the viewers.