I understand that Mei is a cold person, both in expression and feelings; and yes that can get annoying sometimes. But I cannot just brush past the many events that happened in the book.

Mei has not always been depicted as as a "cold person"--quite the contrary. She has been depicted as a very repressed person who hides her vulnerabilities, but Mei's initial characterization in the original series was that she was a highly passionate person underneath all that repression.

She was not always portrayed as someone who was profoundly clueless about other people's feelings, either. The basic emotional dynamic of the initial series was that Yuzu not only helped Mei open up about her feelings but also helped her to channel her previously untapped passion into an affectionate relationship with her stepsister.

That's why the trembling, socially clueless, sexually naive Mei of Citrus + is so frustrating--the issue isn't that the two don't have sex (although even Matsuri thinks that step is long overdue), it's that Mei seems to have regressed in maturity by about a half-dozen years and also to have forgotten why she ever embarked on a relationship with Yuzu in the first place.

And to clarify--I'm not criticizing Mei Aihara as an imaginary person; I've always thought that Mei was by far the (potentially) most interesting character in the series. I'm criticizing the author's execution of Mei's characterization, which I think has been inconsistent and basically a botched job ever since that second arranged marriage came out of nowhere.

last edited at Sep 19, 2021 4:56PM

If I didn't know any better I'd think this was a forced one-sided relationship from blackmail or something. Mei has the emotional depth of a spoon while Yuzu is trying her damnedest to get some kind of emotion from her lol.

LOL--you're right. If you look at this as being in the "forced cohabitation" genre it gets a lot more explicable.

And quite a bit funnier.

And the third shows her saying "okay" to Yuzu's desire to live like newlyweds again. Meaning she might just want to do it too.

Mei might want to act like newlyweds again? Have you forgotten (as Mei apparently has) that these two are already engaged to be married, (and canonically they do actually get married)?

What an amazing emotional breakthrough--to consider the possibility that you **might* want to act like a newlywed someday with the person to whom you are already engaged.

And most of the readers just sit there whining about how Mei isn’t ready for sex yet. Tch.

It is instant gratification for the readers to want sex of the two MCs.
I presume everyone has read all the chapters including the omake. If you recall, at the very beginning, Mei was forced by Amamiya. She later explained to Yuzu that it means nothing. This makes me think that she is the perfect, classical sexual assault victim from multiple men in her lives. If Amamiya has been the only person, she would respond differently.
The way she explain to Yuzu means it is more than once with more than one person. It is just "business".

This speculation has no textual support at all--Mei is explicit in Chapter 1 that she's talking about what kissing is, and the business with Amemiya is the only reference whatsoever to anything like it in the entire series. In later chapters Mei's attitude about kissing was entirely transformed by her relationship with Yuzu, where several times she was an active and enthusiastic (though usually wary of being discovered) participant in making out. And there's been no suggestion that Mei has ever actually had sex with anyone.

If Mei has been "a sexual assault victim from multiple men in her life," who are these people? Her father? Her grandfather? Members of the school board? Why has there been no reference to any such thing in Mei's life after the very first chapter?

And most of the readers just sit there whining about how Mei isn’t ready for sex yet. Tch.

To adopt your own rhetorical strategy, this is a lie.

Sure, there are plenty of people who would love to see these two have sex, but the biggest problem isn't that "Mei isn't ready to have sex yet," but that she hardly acts like a human being, and her character has actually regressed considerably in maturity from the original series.

You know, as much as I want the scenes we all want; it's really nice to see Mei loving Yuzu in her own way. She may not show it much, but she does very much love Yuzu and I think that's pretty nice.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

Mei has become the absent workaholic manga parent while sleeping in the same bed as Yuzu.

oh yeah, "assumes facts" not in evidence

Are you sure we read the same thing?

We absolutely are not reading the same thing-- most of those supposed "examples" of "Mei loving Yuzu in her own way" show Yuzu going all out to elicit some kind of response from Mei and getting absolutely NOTHING in return except a cryptic statement at the end about a "weight being lifted from her heart" that Yuzu doesn't even hear because she's asleep.

Actually, you're right--Mei saying "Thank you, Yuzu--because of your care and consideration I was able to ignore you completely all day" is the quintessential lovey-dovey Mei-bot in a nutshell.

^Reading Dynasty is always a learning experience.

You know, as much as I want the scenes we all want; it's really nice to see Mei loving Yuzu in her own way. She may not show it much, but she does very much love Yuzu and I think that's pretty nice.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

Mei has become the absent workaholic manga parent while sleeping in the same bed as Yuzu.

last edited at Sep 19, 2021 11:29AM

random posted:

Whether she looks like it or not mai is 10 so yes tae is a lolicon. If she doesn't admit it she's in the closet so this comment is hella justified js.

You really don't understand what a "lolicon" is do you.

Hint: it's specifically not someone attracted to what look like adults.

It's a waste of time to explain at this point, say she looks like a grandma with white hair and a wheelchair, if she says she's ten, then you're a lolicon for falling for her before knowing that... shame on you.

WAT ???

Yeah, this is conflating "being sexually attracted to a person who, despite massive visual evidence to the contrary, turns out to be underage" with "being sexually attracted to people who are, or who appear to be, very young."

The extreme difference between Mai's chronological age and her physical appearance seems to have short-circuited more logic circuits than just those of the manga characters.

It sounds in large part that you just don’t have much interest in BL; I don’t blame you—I don’t have much interest in that genre either.

But female BL shippers are a staple of many kinds of manga (especially SOL/workplace manga), and as you yourself suggest in mentioning sports-yuri, there are plenty of yuri series where the GL romance per se is subordinated to some other activity, such as food + yuri, video-game-design + yuri, mountaineering + yuri, stretching + yuri, etc., i.e., series that have no particular interest in having “delicately building a yuri romance” be the primary focus of the story.

So fujoshi-yuri is a kind of story you don’t especially care for, but I don’t think it’s necessarily much of an indication of any larger movement or trend.

The unlikely but pleasing combination of the Assassin and Cute Girls Doing Cute Things genres.

Giving out my opinion was a mistake , sorry guys
;_; .It all happen bcs i cant make out what am i feeling toward this series.

I really am interested in what you are feeling about this series, since it is a pretty unusual reaction, so if you work it out, please let us know. Seriously.

Blastaar posted:

If they didn't get hooked by it within ten episodes (that's four hours of anime), it's just not for them.

The poster’s total inability to articulate why the story made them so unhappy hinders any fuller or more specific response to their inchoate unhappiness.

(And anime as a medium of storytelling is not exactly the same as manga.)

If you didn't have anything productive to say, there was no need to respond at all. Vaguely placing the blame for your actions on Honk mikan's lack of articulation isn't cool either, as the response wasn't necessary in the first place.

I admit that my snippy response was sparked by a complaint about a manga series that the poster admits they hadn’t read large chunks of and had just skimmed the rest.

Would it have met your particular criteria for a “productive” response had I said, “It is recommended that you actually read the manga itself?”

And some indication of why the poster found the series disturbing might allow for some response such as, “Ah, well, you’ll never like this, then,” or “That part goes away in the later stages,” etc.

last edited at Sep 16, 2021 10:46AM

If they didn't get hooked by it within ten episodes (that's four hours of anime), it's just not for them.

The poster’s total inability to articulate why the story made them so unhappy hinders any fuller or more specific response to their inchoate unhappiness.

(And anime as a medium of storytelling is not exactly the same as manga.)

Idk why but reading/watching this makes me miserable af,the plot is kindda melancholic and watching this alone at 3 am isn't a good idea.
I hate this feeling so much

... dropped at ep 10 but skimmed trough the manga

There’s your problem right there.

PS: anime is not the same as manga.

But, but, but . . . I’m already on hold!

Reminder that Young MC is masturbating to Senpai daily and older MC is terrible at romance because she only recently took steps away from being that nervous wreck

Many readers refuse to remember that.

Wait, they’ve kissed and held hands—what more is there?

It is two girls, after all. . .

The switch has been flipped.

It is tongue-activated, after all.

Sakurako (aka Valkyrie) can handle speeding baseballs and gangs of rapists and perfidious editors but she can't handle what will happen when that door opens?

I don't think so.

Me: "Wow, this author has created a difficult situation--I'll be interested to see what they do with it."

Many Dynasty readers: "My immortal soul is in danger if I like this."

They never check. Clearly it's an unspoken rule kept alive by generations of teachers remembering their own youth. Probably also not wanting to open the door and discover a naked couple, that tends to be the case quite often.

I wonder what studies would reveal about the percentage of "couple comes spilling out, revealing themselves anyway" outcomes in such situations.

Suspects there's somebody in the room. Doesn't check the most obvious hiding place. Ok.

A) We haven't seen him leave yet.

B) He may not know he's in a yuri manga.

For some reason I was sort of hoping they'd start reading Asumi-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels. One of us!

In contrast to their existence as a yuri-manga trope, it’s not clear to me that “lesbian brothels” are actually much of a real thing in Japan (as opposed to sex workers who go both ways).

There seem to be at least two real ones:

https://lesbian.tokyo/
https://yuri-shinjuku.net/system.php?lang=en

Probably more "escort agency" than "brothel" but that's true of Asumi-chan, despite the title or its translation.

Right, I should have made it clear that pay-for-lesbian-sex services do exist. But current yuri manga would suggest that lesbian brothels are nearly as common as love hotels, if not indeed as convenience stores.

(Googling the phrase 'lesbian brothels Japan' (no quotes) in English gets you mostly porn sites and then . . . Dynasty.)