I may add that the Aihara family, as the grandfather sees it, is very old-fashioned in a very traditional background in Japan. Having the future head of a school, where girls from the most prestigious families go, being lesbian and dating her stepsister cannot be accepted. So Mei will have to make a choice. Until now, she tried to have a foot in both camps. Once again, not out of malice.
And.
The delivery may be lacking but the issue makes perfect sense in the context of Mei and her family. While one can argue about the conflict in vol4, this one does come from somewhere.
The delivery may be lacking is exactly the problem. The first poster is correct, it does make sense given Mei's family background, but the thing is, I am not reading a draft. I am not reading random hints that, in and of themselves, make sense. I am reading a story. Delivery is the story. Pasting something in, after this much time, zero foreshadowing, zero hints of any kind, is just plain bad witting, and I do not care how much sense the point itself makes. If it was a new point, it might fly, but not when it is something explicitly brought up before and seemingly dealt with.
The conflict does come out of nowhere. It may make sense in context, but what does not make sense is why this has been kept under the rug for this long, since the fucking beginning of the series, basically. And the fact this comes up at precisely the right moment to screw over the main characters getting intimate (and I do not mean just physically) is yet another middle finger to the readers. The author pulled this out of her ass, probably while thinking "hmm, how to prevent them from having a heart-to-heart moment, yet again". No one can make me believe this was not an ass-pull, because it was not even remotely hinted at in any way, shape, or form. For 8 volumes.
No one can write this and think to themselves "the readers know the context of Mei's family, surely, despite that previous fiance being dealt with (which almost any reader would interpret as 'plot resolved for good'), they will keep in mind, for 8 fucking volumes, that this does not mean the end of the arranged marriage plot, because it makes sense given her family context." No way she thought that, this was just plain old lazy, crappy writing. Otherwise, it would have been either brought up long before, or at the very least, foreshadowed in some way. And it is quite a significant plot point, because it paints everything Mei did, since the beginning of the series, in a different light, we are not talking some insignificant little curve here.
Thing is, I might have enjoyed this before, when I was reading this work for the same reason I read "Netsuzou Trap", to get my dosage of crappy drama, and I genuinely enjoy works such as these for it. But, "Citrus" went all cute, and touching, and feel-y, and I started enjoying it as a rather good romance work, these last 10 or so chapters. Even the former obstacles became awesome side characters. The odds for dramatic curveballs still remained, because of Mei's family, which was also nice. But I imagined it as the grandfather finding out about them, trying to separate them, and such. Even the marriage plot would make sense if reintroduced then. "See, I found this random high class X male, you will marry him, and forget this nonsense with that gyaru, or else blablabla."
Introducing it as "oh, you know what, Mei has actually been engaged for gods know how long now, new old obstacle, surprise" is just crap.
last edited at Oct 29, 2017 12:19PM
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