Y’all may or may not know me as the diehard Citrus fan and defender who comes in here to say something positive about the new chapters now and then cuz I hate seeing people dunk on mah gurls.
And even I gotta say…… yeah this chapter wasn’t it :(
Not only are we back in forced drama territory straight out of Volume 1-3, but Yuzu forcing herself on Mei, aka the thing that gave her trauma and skewed her perception of relationships and intimacy in the first place, didn’t sit right with me at all.
I really hope this arc is amounting to something good, otherwise I just want it to be over at this point.
Hope that i can explain myself correctly. English is not my first language.
Well, since the beginning there was this blurry line about consent in this manga; crossing boundaries and SA were so normalized and painted as romantic back then by the author.
Now if Mei is a survivor and have this trauma. God. Author never cared to explain that to the readers and this manga, and if we deep analize the inuendos and roles in the Mei x Yuzu relationship we end with Yuzu n Mei having a trauma and a very distorted view love and being painted as a healthy and beautiful relationship, and that's a huge problem. The author has deepened about Mei's character and her back story quite a few times, for example now we have a new character about her childhood and her motivations are well explained. The same happened with the daddy issues arc, where it does a good job in explain Mei as a persona and her actions and motivations. Point is that the teacher, I can't even remember his name, never was mentioned again or was showed in some kind representation of trauma. And a trauma have a lot of representation in mangas like flasbacks or explicitly changing face expressions when characters is facing said trauma or more subtle ways like analogies.
Is the authors duty to give that kind of information to have all the context and empathize with the characters, or know the whys of their actions at least. This are just assumptions.
Now theoretically, what Yuzo did in this toxic sick relationship was replicate what Mei did to her aka her first approach to romance aka sexual assault... multiple times and this manga is just straight up afoul.
And please remember that if you have a trauma it doesn't excuse your abusive behavior towards the person you say to love. And that your significant one, while they can be a great pillar to overcome said traumas, they are not therapists and you can hurt them deeply.
Analyzing this, Mei shouldn't be in a relationship to start n Yuzu needs to feel loved.
Sorry for controversy n for the bible guys. :|