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.

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

Looking at it as if Mei were a real person rather than a puppet being manipulated by the author, the problem with Mei’s behavior is that she never talked to Yuzu about it, a failure of trust and of communication which can be characterized in many ways. Perhaps the least harsh way is to call it incredibly disrespectful to their relationship both as lovers and as family members.

So readers who stay “in the story,” as it were, can look back at all the various moves and developments in the Yuzu-Mei relationship and see them as indications that Mei is essentially unstable, untrustworthy, withholding, selfish, and many more negative adjectives—take your pick.

I think it makes more sense to step outside the story and look at its construction, where it seems to me that the “Mei character” implied by the first part of the story was last seen at the end of Volume 6, in the library scene where the two of them seemed to commit to making their way forward together, and where Mei’s rationality and greater experience with the public world was a source of strength for Yuzu.

But the author doesn’t actually seem to have had any real idea of the way forward from that point, so we got the introduction of a new character in Shirapon, the interminable festival scene, and both Mei and Yuzu pushing toward and away from each other seemingly randomly. Mei in particular appeared to be more inscrutable and obscurely motivated than ever, and it’s very difficult to reconcile the Mei who reminded Yuzu of her own words that “There is no right answer. All we can do is what we are doing,” with the erratic and tortured entity who dumped Yuzu in a letter and then left.

tl:dr—Mei’s decision itself can be rationalized; her failure to communicate with Yuzu before making it makes a mockery of the entire previous story. I don’t blame Mei—I blame the author.

It would've been probably better if once Yuzu gave the rings to Mei after that wonderful scene in which Mei is super supportive, they went straight to the summer holidays (no Shirapon), had sex there without being interrupted by Matsuri screaming (Matsuri could just also get busy with Harumin instead lol) and then The End, possibly with timeskip to "they are in college and still together". Seriously. Woulda been a classic.

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

Word up!

Re: Endless, Cyclical Confusion (and again, why there's never been any point in personal speculation about the superfluous/typical soap-aspects everyone here loves so much):

A) Stated earlier {366645} (with later, added emphasis): "...in the case of Mei, you have the war of extremist personal service/duty (a fundamental aspect of Mei's type) versus acknowledged, charged, life-upheaving, mixed-bag rationalizations for "love"; this sort of situation produces hardcore emotional skeptics, hence the reader frustration and author confusion with Mei: how does one get a young skeptic to believe in the truth of young love? Without more insight, i.e., development, you "hammer" on them until they change/break." There is only so much that can be ascribed to Tropes when you're only given crumbs within a culturally clichéd context.

B) This tunnel-vision MO/impetus on top of extended, narrative presentation where "...so much (is) being seen through a rose-tinted/biased-as-hell lens" {362586} ... that's "...all coming from a highly neurotic, adult-creator POV that most identifies with Yuzu." {365218}

C) There really shouldn't be such outrage over messages regarding abuse because 1) this is uberniche (and Japanese niches have a huge tolerance/allowance for all flavors of violence and perversion). And 2) this is the fault of someone choosing a cross-genre where the deeper comprehension of Drama lags far behind skill with Comedy; without much any comedy, Saburouta wasted a lot of energy flailing about in what just might be a polluted, shallow/kiddie pool instead of actual dark waters. (The wasted sex-blackmail sitch is now an annoying setup; an idea cherry-picked for its intrinsic, high-Drama/adult-like? value, not because she had any real comprehension of the emotional mess that it would have entailed; cheaply used and discarded.) In comparison to other yuri publications that I've come across, Citrus has been hilarious for a good part of the run, which (again) undercuts a lot of what might be deemed serious, dramatic material. I was willing to overlook at lot as long as it continued to be funny, but alas, what may had started off seeming like she wouldn't squander potential {361909} has become just that... and it's due (IMO) to point E (below).

D) There is zero historical, commercially published proof that Saburouta is even "capable of writing a better ending than this", and also no evidence of the author truly "phoning it in", as a few would like to believe with recouched ideas. Saburouta has already announced that she's been exhausted {370179}: the delayed releases have been proof.

E) She's had enormous creative problems handling the feedback for Ch 36: the WTF chapters post-36 have been in direct response to this, i.e., lots of emo-dithering (and true to her sense and use of emo-logic {362063}), with reliance on surrounding family/friends to bounce around feckless or overly redundant ideas that give no real insight into much anything since it follows Yuzu around, i.e., all that Saburouta truly comprehends in full. When emo-logic really only applies to Yuzu, you can't have friends/others taking on the burden that would destroy the "purity" and drive of Yuzu's emotions. Mei's true (painfully predictable) reasoning for the letter/break-off took forever and a day for a quiet reveal, but via a third party, and was still executed indirectly since it had be described/paired with Yuzu's face in the frame. The very tedium of this MO (see also pts A and B) while trying to keep things "light", for the hybrid genre-- why do folks keep forgetting this?, is near impossible without venturing into more mature, darker territory. This is nothing but blatant examples of intellectual floundering in an exploratory work that's covered (skillfully) with the high degree of visual art, i.e., if Saburouta's unsure, there's intentional, uber-precise use of ambiguous character expressions and layouts in hopes of covering her ass; it's the only way of saving some face in a losing battle.

F) Now, with this penultimate release in the aftermath of YET another announcement--but one of complete and utter Exhaustion, i.e., only enough steam left for one more chapter, it's nothing BUT in-your-face Proof that the creative well has run dry (for this particular IP).

Work long enough with different types of artists, and these trends crop up ad nauseam...

Saburouta is valiantly, sincerely persevering to the series' end--partly as a cultural thing, partly due to the media-based attention--without completely shitting over the rest, so I'm guessing there's going to be continuation of "meh" comedy for the finale. (It's where she used to shine, and really, what else can be expected for a forced Happy Ending even if there's a high probability the skill level of featured "funny" will be Basic/Easy/Default? If you've ever witnessed out-of-shape, casual joggers, and seen the part of their run where they look like they're about to faceplant, but "persevere" anyway--in exceptionally bad or questionable athletic form--for the sake of finishing the workout... that's where Saburouta appears to be, on multiple levels, from a creator-perspective.)

If for whatever reason there's a dramatically-skewed conclusion with next to no comedy, so be it--the work's finality speaks for itself and the true mangaka mindset, so I definitely won't be interested in her later endeavors, but it's clear for the time being that she's forgone trying to explain the hell out of Mei. It seems beyond her to consider much beyond her status as a cultural trope.

I have no clue what you just said but I agree because it's 800+ words

I don`t understand anything as well that person say.

Nope, Mei decided it all herself. She decided to stay with her grandpa over her father. She wasnt abandoned.

Mei had always lived with her father and continued to live in his apartment after he left while her grandfather financially supported her. When her father left, Mei was only ten years old. And at such a young age, she decided to work for her family not because she felt she had a choice in the matter, but because she thought it was the only way to get her dad back. When we do see Mei's father, he openly admits that he left Mei knowing that she needed him, but he left anyway believing Mei, at only 10 years old, was able to take care of herself within a severly strict and demanding family.

Straight up lies being told here. Mei was blatantly given a choice. Either go with her father or stay at home. She chose to stay. It wasnt about getting her father back, she refused to even read the letters he sent her, it was aboit creating a place for him to come back to. And when he did return and made it clear he was never returning to the school she chose to inherit it herself.

You are obviously missing the "ten years old" part there. A ten-year-old was given a life-changing choice, by a parent who up until that point behaved no differently than the universally hated grandfather, and she was given this choice without any preparatory period whatsoever, Shou just sprang it on her. Her father, who was a strict, traditional parent all her life and raised her as such, suddenly comes to her one day and offers to abandon everything with him for reasons that are beyond her grasp, and you think she "decided it all herself". Have you ever seen a ten-year-old??

I would also like to point out, yet again (because it never ceases to amaze me how people gloss over this, or even blatantly try to wrap it in completely disingenuous constructs, such as "choosing a less mainstream way of life" and similar nonsense), that Shou abandoned his daughter at such a young age, even more, as someone here pointed out, he left her in the very same family and atmosphere which caused him to break. He prioritised his own escape over his daughter, because he is a fucking horrible parent. His leaving was what probably made Mei so unbelievably stubborn about the academy, he not only abandoned her, he also mentally scarred her in the process.
And speaking of Shou, horrible parenting, and ten-year-olds, may I also point out that only in the realm of fiction could a ten-year-old be given such a "choice". Beside the option to stay for the sake of his child, Shou also had the option to take her with him, you know, as her parent and legal guardian.

I do agree with the creating a place for him to get back to aspect, though, just as I agree she then chose to inherit the school for herself. To be honest, it is kind of funny seeing so many people invalidating her choice on the grounds of her upbringing. If she chose to run away, everyone and their mother would be celebrating it as a great feat (and you only need to look at how the audience reacts to Shou to know this to be true), but if her choice is to uphold her duty instead, then nope, she has been brainwashed by the grandfather, the poor soul.

The simple fact is, no one makes decisions in a vacuum, we are all products of our respective classes, upbringings, schooling, environment, which influence us to a greater or lesser measure, depending on the individual, but we are all influenced by it one way or another. If Mei's free choice to embrace her duty is considered invalid because of her upbringing, then pray tell, who on earth is even capable of making free choices? You can dismiss literally any choice, made by any person, on those grounds. "Oh, they are opting for that only because of X they were exposed to in their life."

Did the grandfather, Shou before his great "revelation", and her class in general influence Mei's decision? Absolutely. It was still her decision.

Before, you could make an argument about Mei being forced into her role, but not after the letter chapter. It is probably my favourite chapter, because it actually shows Mei has grown as a character, just not in the direction the (western) audience wanted to (I will come back to the remark in the brackets). Her wish to inherit the academy went from something she did more or less on autopilot in her father's stead to being a sincere desire of her own.

Theoretically, that anti-Mei attitude could be a function of cultural differences, and Japanese audiences might have considerably more tolerance and sympathy for Mei’s self-sacrifice and commitment to duty than Western audiences do.

It is not theoretical in the slightest, the letter chapter is the perfect example. The western audience hated it with a passion, while the Japanese audience mostly praised it on social platforms. What made the western fans condemn Mei, caused the Japanese ones to sympathise with her. I do not think it filters to most westerners just how much the Japanese value self-sacrifice, be it for the sake of duty, family, business company, country... Individualism is not highly regarded there, and it never was.

So rather than seeing Mei as a bad person who will end up with Yuzu despite being unworthy of her, I see a fictional character who was thrown under the bus by an author who was uninterested in developing the themes, plot points, and ideas raised by the rest of the series.

Agree on this completely, what hurt Mei in the eyes of the audience far more than her decisions is the fact we are not actually shown that much of her making those decisions, her thought process and conflicting interests.

tl:dr—Mei’s decision itself can be rationalized; her failure to communicate with Yuzu before making it makes a mockery of the entire previous story. I don’t blame Mei—I blame the author.

Well, on this I actually do not agree (referring to the mockery part). You have a person who has lived constrained by her duties all her life, suddenly, she is pursued by a relentless young maiden who is the exact opposite of her, and who finally batters down her defences and makes her actually experience youth and romance. Mei got swept into a torrent of new experiences, for which she was not prepared. Later, her previous life caught up to her, and the fact Yuzu's influence only strengthened her resolve to inherit the academy (as the letter chapter shows), by making her reevaluate her priorities and realise she legitimately wants the position, certainly complicated things even more for her.

Honestly, it would have been an amazing feat for most people to communicate all this to their partner (because despite the "communicate like normal human beings" term being used in discussions about fiction, most of my life experiences led me to believe actual, open communication on life's problems is more of an exception), but when you factor in that Mei is by her nature a highly reserved, closed person, keeping important things to herself and letting them fester is absolutely in-character for her. Mind you, I am not defending her actions, keeping Yuzu out of the loop and then breaking up via a letter was underhanded and certainly a cowardly way to settle things (which Mei openly admits in said letter), but I do not think it "makes a mockery of the entire previous story", I am actually of the opinion it fits rather well, with both the story and Mei's character.
That being said, the author should have shown us more of her agonising over it, even if it would not make her sympathetic to (western) audiences, it would at least make her position more understandable.

Jesus I cant Harumi's sis is so hot.

Quoted for truth! Like, holy fuck YES!!!

^ The “mockery” is that Mei appeared to be growing and deepening her relationship with Yuzu. Rather than continue to develop as a person and in her relationship, she has gone back to square one—in the exact same position she was when she met Yuzu, only with a nicer fiancé and feeling much worse about it.

Again, I don’t see this as anything organic to the character, I see it as crappy writing.

EDIT: Again, had the process of Mei's thinking and decision-making that you describe actually been shown in the story, that would be an entirely different matter.

But while readers can generate a sympathetic interpretation from clues in the story, I think that gives far too much credit to an author who has never shown much inclination toward nor aptitude for indirect storytelling and long-term planning.

last edited at Jul 21, 2018 10:27AM

^ As someone who experienced first hand something highly similar to Mei's situation, I disagree. I developed feelings for this girl despite my better judgement and internal resistance (there are loads of people in IRC and Mordor laughing their asses off right about now, yes, I have enough humanity in me to develop feelings for someone, plus, I was young back then, sue me), she got me to open up, then at one point, I had a shocking revelation of just how much I changed my world views, seemingly without my conscious notice. My immediate reaction was to revert back to my previous positions with a vengeance, it was a pure defence mechanism. While my motivations for reverting were markedly different than Mei's, I can absolutely see the reserved-character-is-infatuated ----> goes-through-a-wide-array-of-new-experiences ----> reverts-back-in-defence chain as not only plausible, but even likely and not outside of Mei's personality. Mei has the added motivation of wanting the academy, and I genuinely think her decision is a part of her character growth, just not in the direction most people hoped for.

I do find the writing to be lacking, we just differ on how it is lacking. I think it fails to flesh out Mei's side in sufficient detail, while you think Mei's choices themselves are bad writing. We shall agree to disagree on this.

Edit: I posted before seeing your edit. So we are not that much in disagreement, lol. But yeah, this needed a few more chapters dedicated to Mei's side, that much is painfully obvious.

last edited at Jul 21, 2018 10:47AM

Mei's motivations not being fleshed out is what keeps readers discussing since it's all so ambiguous, so might be on purpose.

But regardless, I don't think Mei's choices are bad writing as much as just bad choice on the part of Sabu, because she comes off as Bitch-san till the end (as Matsuri would say). Even if Japanese readers are more sympathetic to her situation due to valuing duty more, still the way Mei is shown to handle Yuzu's feelings is bound to burn bridges even with those readers I bet.

It was fine to have her doing all sorts of confusing things during the story, but to have her provoke negative feelings in readers till the very last chapter is a bold move indeed. What are the chances that in ch 41, she will show something about Mei that will cause readers to settle on "she was a lovable person after all"? I can't think of anything. I bet readers will be 50/50 on "I'm so happy they got back together" and "Someone save Yuzu from her".

last edited at Jul 21, 2018 11:29AM

I do find the writing to be lacking, we just differ on how it is lacking. I think it fails to flesh out Mei's side in sufficient detail, while you think Mei's choices themselves are bad writing.

I’d put it a slightly different way. We have known for some time that the series was slated to have a “happy ending.” That presupposes that Yuzu and Mei will end up together, or if not together, both relatively OK with where their relationship ends up.

But the writing since Volume 6 has NOT been setting up a substantive happy ending—quite the contrary—but if there has been a change in the author’s plan (a perfectly legitimate thing for any creator to do, btw), the story hasn’t really been setting up a tragic or bittersweet ending in any methodical way either. At the very least, the story has been changed from being about Yuzu and Mei and their relationship to being about Yuzu alone * and her suffering for love.

I feel like Willard in Apocalypse Now when Kurtz asks him if he thinks Kurtz’s methods are “unsound.” He says, “I don’t see any method at all.”

matsuri_wins: I mean “bad authorial choices” = “bad writing”

• Edit: Not literally “Yuzu alone,” but Yuzu along with her Scooby-gang, half of whom were once threatening, sinister figures in the plot and are now cuddly BFFs.

last edited at Jul 21, 2018 1:24PM

Mei's motivations not being fleshed out is what keeps readers discussing since it's all so ambiguous, so might be on purpose.

But regardless, I don't think Mei's choices are bad writing as much as just bad choice on the part of Sabu, because she comes off as Bitch-san till the end (as Matsuri would say). Even if Japanese readers are more sympathetic to her situation due to valuing duty more, still the way Mei is shown to handle Yuzu's feelings is bound to burn bridges even with those readers I bet.

It was fine to have her doing all sorts of confusing things during the story, but to have her provoke negative feelings in readers till the very last chapter is a bold move indeed. What are the chances that in ch 41, she will show something about Mei that will cause readers to settle on "she was a lovable person after all"? I can't think of anything. I bet readers will be 50/50 on "I'm so happy they got back together" and "Someone save Yuzu from her".

Thing is, Mei was never portrayed as a classical lovable character. She is an emotionally scarred individual with some serious character flaws as a result of her experiences and upbringing. I find her absolutely adorable, but that is because I am into such characters.

Yuzu has a hero complex a mile wide (which people seem to forget often), and with Mei she is doubly motivated because she is in love with her. Honestly, you could not get a more perfect match than these two, I was always baffled by people going "blah, Yuzu deserves better blabla, Mei is the worst girl for her blabla". Mei is basically tailor-made for her. If Mei was just another lovable character with no major issues (in context of this work, think Harumin), I doubt Yuzu would ever get interested in her romantically. In fact, I am almost certain she would not. Do not forget, Yuzu is bi, at the very beginning of the story she was not even that, she was (or thought herself) straight, did everyone forget how much she anguished over getting into an all-girls school with no potential boyfriends around? That she would fall for a girl for the first time ever, without previously even entertaining the thought, that girl must have appealed to her on some deep level, and Mei hit exactly that sweet spot. Yuzu's overarching urge to help everyone and anyone found a perfect match in a character with so many personal issues, it was practically inevitable she would fall in love.

I think trying to somehow mould Mei into a lovable person (at least in the conventional sense) would not only be contrary to her character, but I also do not think Saburouta even attempted to go for something like that, this is more of an element that part of the audience read into the story of their own accord.