I usually translate what AozTkM says lol

They said: Saburouta's real trolling in Citrus is that Mei was never meant to be a character we care for as a story co-lead; instead, she was always meant to be a trope, used and discarded to move the plot forward, only important character here was Yuzu and Yuzu's feelings. The other possibility is that she did have better intentions for Mei but got tired and now doesn't give a shit anymore. She has given up on this story and so should we :D

last edited at Jul 19, 2018 11:52PM

I usually translate what AozTkM says lol

They said: Saburouta's real trolling in Citrus is that Mei was never meant to be a character we care for as a story co-lead; instead, she was always meant to be a trope, used and discarded to move the plot forward, only important character here was Yuzu and Yuzu's feelings. The other possibility is that she did have better intentions for Mei but got tired and now doesn't give a shit anymore. She has given up on this story and so should we :D

It’s amazing what can be accomplished when you actually decide what the subject and the main verb of your sentence ought to be.

Nope, Mei is just a horrible person. She was written to be a horrible person and a large portion of the audience just sees it for what it is. Mei isnt a victim of any kind. Everything bad that has happened in this manga was purely due to Meis personal decisions and actions. She chose to get engaged to the teacher, she chose the school over her own father, she chose to assault Yuzu several times, she chose to officially start dating Yuzu, and then she chose to get engaged again just to further her own career.

She cant even have the "muh family!" excuse when the majority of her family doesnt want her to do the things she is doing.

I definitely agree that her character is terribly written (speaking from a Western audience perspective) and has caused unnecessary drama for like at least 30 of these chapters, but looking at her as a teenage girl, she probably felt like she had no other choice but to bend to her grandfather's every will, especially at the beginning of the story. Sure, she technically could've said "No" at anytime, but also keep in mind that her grandfather was the one who raised her throughout part of her childhood when her father decided to peace it. When she was younger, Mei was also the type that wanted to be praised and recognized for her efforts, so when her father left and dumped all of his responsibilities as the next heir onto her, she probably accepted it without a second thought so she could appease both her father and her grandfather. This is something believable to me since she's like, freshly 16 or something, and this was all she had ever known.

I can overlook the incident of her being engaged to the teacher, her wanting to take over the academy against her "will" (I say "will" because she's never communicated to her grandfather that she didn't want to do it, LOL thanks Mei), and the current arc. I think it's quite reasonable from someone who has been sheltered for their entire life.

Yeah, idk about the other things she's done though, LOL. What made her think it was a good idea to kiss Matsuri? Why did she assault her own sister on day one?? Why did she continue to assault her sister??? Why did she think it was a good idea to prank Yuzu and date Sara for like, 4 hours???? Why was she so secretive for 40 chapters????? Wait, how did Yuzu even come to like someone that assaulted her?????? I'm so confused, LOL.

Holy shit ! Holy fuck ! Tears are falling from my eyes because of fear and joy ! Looking foward ? OFCOURSE !!!! I can't wait !! Gash they met each other wait no ... Just saw but whatever ! I just really am so happy seeing citrus again for it has been weeks since the last time I checked Dynasty Reader

Funny how a girl that is top of her class, can run a school by herself, and was considered old enough to be engaged can somehow not know better. Of course she knows better, she just doesnt care. If she knew Yuzu would do it Mei would marry the guy, be his baby maker and keep Yuzu as a mistress.

let's make this clear, intelligence does NOT equate emotional maturity, so that argument is invalid.

and to me it seemed like you could see yuzu was attracted to mei from the very beginning. mei just sped it up by the forced contact. maybe for the better, can you imagine how many chapters yuzu's am i am i not torture could be stretched out? ugh.

Mei didn't do anything wrong it is Saburouta's fault for turning her into a drama fuel. Citrus was a little bit good when they started dating but of course author had to ruin it with another meaningless drama.

I usually translate what AozTkM says lol

They said: Saburouta's real trolling in Citrus...

That's a great deal lost in translation. A better summary would be:

• First note the genre of the work.
• Understand the mangaka's creative process within the said genre.
• Then note the vehicle that's used to convey the genre.
• Understand the mangaka's historical strengths and weaknesses, revealed objectively.
• Understand her use of Yuzu as a placeholder for herself.
• Understand what Mei is in direct relation to Yuzu, and the mangaka's objective for herself/Yuzu in the endgame.
• Have some comprehension how reliance on social media for "support" can fuck up anyone's creative process--especially if sensitive. Especially when there's enormous backlash.
• Imagine trying to appease audiences for issues on end after being psychologically traumatized/berated and in a state of unending amped up confusion/frustration.
• Understand what it's like to follow through on a promise even when ideas have been painted into a corner alongside mental and physical exhaustion.
• Give deeper thought to your position as a consumer of media in relation to all of the above.

Better summary indeed. However, I don't think readers should be to blame for their reactions when the way the story is handled makes us all confused and that might very well be on purpose. Except for overt reactions (I heard some readers even threatened her over Twitter), I think Sabu has received a lot of both praise and criticism which is par for the course if you are developing a story people are engaged in on a massive level. I never in my life saw people reacting this way to a yuri series (though maybe I just haven't seen it all). Heck, for myself I can say I'm a long-time manga reader and I never before bothered to give my opinion on forums. That's because I usually either am fully satisfied and engaged or fully disengaged and unsatisfied with the stories I read; it's rare that I would be both engaged AND unsatisfied as is the case with Citrus.

There are multiple forums in various languages, plus a Reddit channel and Discord servers where all people do is throw tomatoes at each other due to their different views over who Mei is, HaruYuzu exists or not, HaruMatsu or riot, etc LOL To affect people so much, isn't it the dream of every mangaka? And if this is all largely because of Mei, why throw the main focus of this story under the bus and silence her for 5 of the 6 final chapters as though only Yuzu ever mattered? It's a terrible choice IMO. From the amount of page-time in these final chapters, one would think this was a story about Yuzu, Harumin and Matsuri's friendship all along and not a love story about Yuzu and Mei. If Sabu is unable to write this story without role-playing as Yuzu, ok; then she could have created a situation where Mei has to get engaged, writes the letter but then Yuzu spends the next 5 chapters interacting with her to convince her to come back at least, so that we could understand better who Mei is and see Mei develop during the period.

last edited at Jul 20, 2018 8:01AM

Bend to her grandfathers will despite telling her own father 'no' when she was 10 years old? Nope, has nothing to do with her grandfather. He has a plan and she is completely complicit with it. At no point did her force her to do anything. This marriage is probably not even a requirement, probably something she thinks she ought to do in order to be more successful.

Evidently she isn't doing any of these things because she wants to, and I said that she herself probably feels like she must accept the responsibilities as an Aihara family member since her father left. In a way, sure, she's completely complicit with it in that she's doing everything without really complaining about it or voicing her concerns, but it looks to me like she's only doing it because this is the only world that she knows - these are the expectations she grew up with. As dumb as it may sound, she probably thought she had no other options anyway, and it's made more convenient because she herself wouldn't even know what she would want to do even if she objected to inheriting the school. When Yuzu came along, she essentially taught Mei to make her own decisions and to just do the things that she wants to do.

Or of course, tried to. We can clearly see how well that lesson stuck with Mei.

Again, her father asked to come with him and she said no. Nothing was ever shown that she was pressured into staying. The responsibility wasnt forced on her. She chose to accept it all on her own despite her father giving her an easy way out of she ever wanted it.

I'd just chalk it up to self-imposed expectations. We don't see enough of gramps to know just how much he wants from Mei though. Perhaps she accepted everything because she didn't want to disappoint anyone, and again, she probably didn't have anything else she wanted to do anyway--- Actually, thinking about it now, we don't really see much of Mei's thoughts, so who knows what that girl is thinking.

Except she isnt sheltered. She lived by herself since she was a child, she is smart, has a lot of friends, everyone as school adores her, is able to run the school by herself, was engaged and making out with her teacher behind the school, groping Yuzu in front of everyone, making out with her the next day, and easily outplays Matsuri. She is smarter and more experienced than most people in their late 20s.

I don't see how living by herself makes her less sheltered. She seems like the type that just goes to school, buys what she needs, comes home, studies - rinse and repeat for several years. She is academically intelligent (=/= socially intelligence), her "friends" seem to be just girls that follow her around because she's admirable (cool beauty, smart, daughter of the chairman) so I'm not so sure if they're her actual friends, her making out with the teacher was probably just her doormat personality slipping through again, I have zero excuses for her assaulting Yuzu x4 times or outplaying Matsuri. Although, none of those qualities make her more experienced than people in their late 20s, lol.

Honestly, that aside, I don't think Mei's a well-written character, nor do I think Citrus is a well-written story. I'm not trying to argue that Mei is a good character, but I don't think her struggles (such as feeling pressured by trying to live up to other peoples' expectations, wanting to be praised by other people, and feeling like there isn't anything else that she wants to do in particular) are unrealistic for a girl at this age--- save for the part where she assaults her step-sister.

She is a pretty questionable character though, because OoOoOo DraMa, and she could've saved us like 30 chapters had she just communicated with Yuzu... about like... anything... Why Yuzu likes Mei is way beyond me.

Why Yuzu likes Mei is way beyond me.

Yuzu would have to speak for herself for a precise answer, but I can say for a fact that for some people, at least at a certain stage of their lives, “hot, smart, and troubled” can be absolute catnip.

But I’ve said too much . . .

The only redeeming factor of Mei is that she makes Yuzu happy. Otherwise, she's a total doormat and pretty uninteresting

Mei was at school the entire time and Yuzu didn't even think of trying to talk to her is really a wtf. I know she's following what Mei wants in the letter-for Yuzu not to find her... but since when does Yuzu follow the rules? Lol.

For all the things that was said about Mei could've should've done this or that, and I'm not denying that she's in the wrong in some situations, but Yuzu not going after Mei even though Mei still goes to the same school as her is also very frustrating and weird and another drama for the sake of drama.

There are lots of missed opportunities in this manga but at this point there's nothing much to expect now since the next chapter is the finale, except for Yuzu and Mei to end up together happily. Looks like my wish to see Mei being the one to chase after Yuzu for once will never come true. Oh well...

When you try to make a cool beauty with issues but end up with an obnoxious robot with bugs :(

For some time I was less impatient than some people about the lack of communication between Mei and Yuzu, partly on “Mei is an intensely reserved person” grounds, but mostly on the general principle that if people in fiction actually behaved like sensible people would in real life, lots of familiar and often useful narrative tropes would have to be trashed (example: the detective who finally figures out where the killer is but fails to take backup or even tell anyone else where they’re going).

But at this point it’s pretty clear that I was giving the author far too much slack, because the way this endgame (if it can even be called that) has played out makes it clear that I, along with many, many other readers, have put far more rational thought into this plot and these characters than the creator has.

These two people slept in the same bed every night, for god’s sake, and even after Mei left they went to the same school for months. One day they’re role-playing a wedding fantasy and the next Mei tells Yuzu (in a letter) that they will never speak again. Everything about the series up to that point makes that development completely preposterous, requiring Yuzu, whose defining characteristic is that she can barely control her feelings and desires, to become an emotional stoic suffering heartbreak in silence while her loved one is a mere few steps away.

It’s astounding to me that Saburouta doesn’t seem to realize that she’s taken Mei, the “beautiful troubled soul who will be redeemed by the power of love” and turned her into a cruelly thoughtless non-entity, and that the happy ending readers have been eagerly anticipating throughout most of the series now will most likely come off as being ridiculously contrived and actually an emotional disaster.

When you try to make a cool beauty with issues but end up with an obnoxious robot with bugs :(

Lmao I think describes Mei perfectly

MacySan posted:

When you try to make a cool beauty with issues but end up with an obnoxious robot with bugs :(

Lmao I think describes Mei perfectly

Because when you think about it, Mei is like

"I need to follow my program"

And then Yuzu (and others) come and say "it's fine, you can live however you want!" and it took like 30 chapters for that... And then Mei is like

"I.... n-need to follow my program"

The Mei-bot is real. https://yurination.wordpress.com/2018/01/13/citrus-episode-2-malfunction/

These two people slept in the same bed every night, for god’s sake, and even after Mei left they went to the same school for months. One day they’re role-playing a wedding fantasy and the next Mei tells Yuzu (in a letter) that they will never speak again. Everything about the series up to that point makes that development completely preposterous, requiring Yuzu, whose defining characteristic is that she can barely control her feelings and desires, to become an emotional stoic suffering heartbreak in silence while her loved one is a mere few steps away.

I should have known this was not going anywhere when they started dating and, being on the same bed, rather than straight up having sex as 99.9% of couples (teens, no less!) would, they made a big deal of "one kiss a day".

Also, I was completely sure that in order to pull of an 8-month separation, Mei would have to leave the academy and go elsewhere. But nope, she was right there all along, I guess with Yuzu sitting just behind her and saying nothing. Lulz. It turns ch 36 into comedy in retrospect!

matsuri_wins posted:

The Mei-bot is real. https://yurination.wordpress.com/2018/01/13/citrus-episode-2-malfunction/

Oh My God! yes that's exactly like I'm imagining haha, she even has a nickname lol

Later Yuzu told Mei-Tron about her fiance’s scheme and she was like “This unit is not concerned with such folly”

This is gold

I giggled more at "paternal unit" than I probably should have.

It’s astounding to me that Saburouta doesn’t seem to realize that she’s taken Mei, the “beautiful troubled soul who will be redeemed by the power of love” and turned her into a cruelly thoughtless non-entity, and that the happy ending readers have been eagerly anticipating throughout most of the series now will most likely come off as being ridiculously contrived and actually an emotional disaster.

This is what bothers me the most about Citrus. Any development Mei had up until the "Lol arranged marriage" trope, was thrown out the window for drama sake. I don't know whose idea was to put that storyline right after the author had Mei explicitly tell Yuzu to fight for their love, but it feels like Saburouta just said "Fuck it, we're turning Mei into a soulless entity who acts merely as a plot device." I'm gonna continue to read this, but at this point is just purely out of morbid curiosity to see how much of a doormat is she going to turn Yuzu into.

The Mei-bot is real. https://yurination.wordpress.com/2018/01/13/citrus-episode-2-malfunction/

Love that blog, the owner of it its an extremely funny person. His reviews of the Citrus anime were hilarious and insightful at times.

I wonder if Sabu was pressured by her editors. To be honest the way it's been executed since ch 36, it's like Citrus turned into a different story. Maybe it was a business decision to drop such a bomb chapter, to attract a lot of attention for the final chapters, she was made to do it and then left to pick up the pieces.

Chill folks, we will find out if she is victim or perpetrator after all in ch 41. If she dumps Yuzu's delusional ass she is an Unstable Narcissist, if she accepts Yuzu she is a Damsel in Distress. It has come down to a binary outcome here.

One day they’re role-playing a wedding fantasy and the next Mei tells Yuzu (in a letter) that they will never speak again.

Which chapter is the wedding fantasy? I always see people talking about it but never read that in the chapter. There was even a fanvid which had them wearing wedding dresses taken from manga but I never read it in any chapters. Thanks!

I don't get why a lot of readers hate Mei. If you'd been reading Citrus, you'd expect that Mei is gonna be forced into an arranged marriage and she'll likely obliged because of how Saburo Uta built her up for this scenario.

People rage on Mei like it was easy to choose between your family and your lover LOL

last edited at Jul 20, 2018 10:06PM

One day they’re role-playing a wedding fantasy and the next Mei tells Yuzu (in a letter) that they will never speak again.

Which chapter is the wedding fantasy? I always see people talking about it but never read that in the chapter. There was even a fanvid which had them wearing wedding dresses taken from manga but I never read it in any chapters. Thanks!

End of Chapter 35. It’s some sort of wedding shop free dress fitting and photo event.

Mei breaks down at the end of the scene because—oh, crap, it’s too tedious to even write it out. Short version: Mei has a sad because oblivious Yuzu is happy.