Remember, folks—if a younger sister is so obsessed with their older sister that they install illegal surveillance technology in their sibling’s domestic space in order to monitor the sibling’s personal interactions, this is a behavioral red flag and is neither cute nor funny.

Please make a note of it.

YMMV. Personally, I find that kind of humor about as enjoyable as traditional "gays as targets" jokes. You know, the jokes about exactly what does need a lesbian to stop being so; Ive heard far too many descriptions of that supposedly treated as "humor" or "comedy" or "entertaining". So by all means, feel free to treat depictions of relationship abuse as "cute", too.
TL;DR: Some things are NOT a joke. Don't try to pass them as such.
(BTW, Aristotle thinking something to be wrong is in fact a great indication in favor of said thing being actually right. Don't get me started on that line) ;-)

Despite your specious projection about my supposed attitudes toward "abuse," I was neither condoning nor deploring the specific fictional behavior being depicted, but simply pointing out the antiquity of the debate about whether actions represented in comedy constitute advocacy of those actions in real life.

last edited at Nov 28, 2022 5:27PM

Aww.. It wouldn't have been morally questionable to do it wearing her uniform..right?

I see quite more morally questionable the control freak red flags that Natsuko is throwing around. I mean, "don't get a job, I will provide all your money", "don't wear cute/sexy/nice clothes in public that others may see them", and the like, are treated here as "cute" but are actually BIG RED FLAGS

Isn't it just an overly exaggerated way of showing that Natsuko is worried and gives them chance to interact over it in a silly manner?

Indeed--a great many things that are silly or morally objectionable in real life are treated as cute or funny in comedy.

Plato objected strenuously to this, and you see what that got him--a big takedown by Aristotle.

last edited at Nov 28, 2022 9:35AM

idiot couple can be, to an extent, an acquired taste.
I used to react negatively to it and get annoyed by those series, be it in manga and anime. Maybe it was for a perceived lack of alternatives but now I kinda like it. PBMMV, Hino-san (please don't tell me I'll have to read it elsewhere...), Childhood Friend, Hijiki's works, I've found quite a few that appeal to me.

Also for me the one I can never remember the title of, where one of a pair of best friends keeps making increasingly yuri-esque gestures while protesting that their behavior is “just normal.”

I’m sure some kind soul has that title at hand.

https://dynasty-scans.com/series/you_are_totally_in_love_with_me_arent_you

That’s it—thanks. As I think I’ve said over there, that one has surprising legs for a one-note gag series.

idiot couple can be, to an extent, an acquired taste.
I used to react negatively to it and get annoyed by those series, be it in manga and anime. Maybe it was for a perceived lack of alternatives but now I kinda like it. PBMMV, Hino-san (please don't tell me I'll have to read it elsewhere...), Childhood Friend, Hijiki's works, I've found quite a few that appeal to me.

Also for me the one I can never remember the title of, where one of a pair of best friends keeps making increasingly yuri-esque gestures while protesting that their behavior is “just normal.”

I’m sure some kind soul has that title at hand.

So! my take is Aya can be in a kinda of "pseudo denial"? like she knows her feelings and that she likes Koga, but confuse "fave" with what can be more~ I mean, yes, when Koga was "he" for Aya, was feeling the same but maybe now that is "she", it can be like those cases in which they think is not possible just because they "dont know about it"(? or a need of self discovery in coming~ . Something like that hahaha

I think you’re basically on target about Aya’s (mis)-understanding of her own feelings. But of course, every time we see Koga from Aya’s POV, it’s Koga looking so damn cool that everybody’s heart goes ba-DUMP, including Aya’s.

Aya’s almost bordering on tsundere territory at this point, but it’s really just simple denial of romance, with only a paper-thin barrier holding back her overt acceptance that the two of them are eventually going to be married and assemble furniture together.

last edited at Nov 27, 2022 11:39AM

...“Useless lesbians” stories open with (usually) a pair of characters in certain “positions” in regard to their own feelings and to their awareness of their own feelings and to the feelings of the other person.

The story then proceeds to play out a finite set of variations including, but not limited to:

• Character realizes that they love the other one

• Character realizes the other one loves them

• Character reveals or hides their feelings

• False rival appears to spur character to confess

And so on.

I think I can agree with the "finite set of variations" if we're thinking strictly in formulae and patterns, but more often than not what makes a series is its minutiae and execution, so I don't think it's all that productive to make an overarching judgment of the useless-lesbians trope, which by the way I'm more than in favor of cementing useless lesbians as a genre. I mean, you can't really compare "Sekai de Ichiban Oppai ga Suki!" to "Useless Princesses", right?

Not sure where the “overarching judgement” part comes from—all I’m saying is that at this point “uselessness” in yuri is becoming less simply a character type (like “tsundere”) that can be inserted almost anywhere (although it also remains that) and more like a story type that can ring any number of changes along the “awareness,” “self-awareness,” and “confession” trajectories (among others).

My main point had to do with the audience reaction to that story type—since usually for much of the story readers are put in the position of being substantially more aware of the characters’ feelings than they are themselves (or are willing to admit to themselves or to others), some readers quickly get frustrated with the inherent delay and start scolding the characters for being “cowards” and telling them to “grow some ovaries,” etc. Which for these kinds of stories is basically wishing the story away.

ManuTheBloodedge, much first-world suffering is self-caused. People choose to suffer. It is a choice. Especially if they choose to keep suffering long term. Feeling pain isn't a choice, but suffering from the pain can be.

As often happens, this repeats the conflation of fictional characters as elements in an (attempted) fictional work of narrative art with characters conceptualized as (imaginary) real human beings.

Shiho’s suffering may be the most “realistic” thing in the world; that doesn’t mean it belongs in or is helpful to this particular story. Her primary function as part of the story is not to supply representation for real-life people who make themselves miserable but to contribute to a coherent overall narrative, and, as many readers have said previously, the shift in tone and focus from the first section of the series has been quite jarring.

It’s not the first time a mangaka has gotten enthralled with a vivid, troublesome side character to the structural detriment of the story they originally started telling (that was the downfall of What Does the Fox Say? ). But the “relatability” or accuracy to real-life psychology of a character is at best only loosely related to that character’s effectiveness as part of any given story.

last edited at Nov 26, 2022 6:42AM

It’s been so long since I have seen these two girls lol I was like who are these people??? Had to reread some chapters

No, you, like the rest of Citrus readership assembled, were obsessed with the question, “Hey, those two characters way off to the side in the big wedding panel—that’s those two former friends of Yuzu’s who said homophobic things, but now they’re at the wedding! How can this possibly be? A mark of a truly world-class writer would be if Saburouta would go back and spend a bunch of chapters explaining how these characters whose names we can’t remember and who we in fact had forgotten even existed went from being homophobes to attending Yuzu’s wedding.”

You, like many of us, just didn’t realize it.

I understand most of what you said Blastaar, but I don't get how the analogy between what you said about uselessbian yuri and shogi problems works. Saying as someone who reads yuri nearly daily and occasionally plays shogi.

Sorry, BV, I thought it was pretty straightforward. “Useless lesbians” stories open with (usually) a pair of characters in certain “positions” in regard to their own feelings and to their awareness of their own feelings and to the feelings of the other person.

The story then proceeds to play out a finite set of variations including, but not limited to:

• Character realizes that they love the other one

• Character realizes the other one loves them

• Character reveals or hides their feelings

• False rival appears to spur character to confess

And so on.

There's Also A likes B and B likes A but for some ungodly reason, it's decided that A is the one with the responsibility to confess first.
And the relationship enters and stalemate for months or a year... LoL I swear, if B says "You took too long!" I'm going to go bald

True. Not all theoretically possible shogi openings lead to productive play.

“Useless lesbians” has just about gone from being a narrative trope to an actual yuri sub-genre.

Romance manga in general are massively invested in the dynamic where if the characters just communicated like halfway normal human beings there would be no story (effective interpersonal communication can be difficult in many circumstances, but in some manga series a simple, “Wait, let me clarify what I meant” would bring the whole house of cards crashing down).

At this point, though, useless lesbian yuri stories are nearly as codified as shogi problems:

• A likes B and B likes A, but one or both of them are unaware of their own feelings.

• A likes B and knows it, but thinks B would be disgusted if they knew it.

• A and B are unaware that they’re totally into each other, but someone else (maybe everybody else) is aware of it, etc.

The issue is that (usually) readers are put in the position of knowing more than any of the characters know, and some people get so frustrated they start wishing for the story to not exist.

it's like those people never go outside and interact with an actual terrible person irl, cuz from what i've seen so far Shiho is really nice

Why that comparaison ? I mean, sorry for the language but it's kinda a bullcrap argument because saying there is worse peoples doesn't make it better. It's like saying Tucker in FMA is not that bad because dictators exist. Shiho is a flawed person and so far does everything she could wrong. She is as interesting as watching a train wreck. And pairing her with Hima is like switching a wholesome and fluffy pair to a angsty and a toxic "i can fix her" pair.
The problem is that most people, myself included, thought that after having them going out, we could have wholesome moments with some minor drama and not introducing a drama queen that completly tone shift the manga and take away the time we could had on Hime/Yori.
The thing i saw from your comment is that wholesome manga is clearly not your type and you prefer heavy drama, the problem is that most people her would have prefer the opposite for the manga and i can't blame them because this arc start to feel like a drag and Shiho doesn't really help cause she is doing a lot to be unlikable.

Agreed. “Shiho is really nice” is the kind of hot take that causes dumpster fires.

Thank you scanlators for waiting to release both chapters at once

Agreed. Whatever the reason it happened, it was incredibly reader-friendly.

And we need a Neutron-Star Useless Lesbian tag.

author's babies mustve started giving her bad time...i guess..

This is the most plausible theory yet.

I don't really care whether Shiho's attitude is realistic, or whether her story has thematic resonance or not––it seems so to me, but it no more makes me want to read her material than if her role was implausible and meaningless––it's just that the tone of this storyline just brings the larger story of the book down.

This is pretty much where I am. Shiho just feels like she’s from a different, less appealing story than the mega-fluffy one we started out with. And her angst still seems undercooked to me—she’s acting like she’s been personally wronged somehow while being surrounded by super-understanding friends and colleagues.

Maybe if the other characters weren’t drawn with those over-the-top happy facial expressions Shiho’s Gloomy Gus persona wouldn’t seem quite so out of place.

last edited at Nov 22, 2022 9:18AM

I mean, the series format shows their day-to-day lives and what they go through them until the wedding. I don't know what part of it doesn't fit slice-of-life for you.

“Desultory, directionless writing” = “slice of life”? Sure, why not?

Citrus+ was originally advertised as a slice-of-life spinoff exploring the cast’s everyday lives, especially the individual side characters.

People keep saying that, but to me the evidence of the actual Citrus+ suggests otherwise.

We've had several "Yuzu & Mei Make No Progress" arcs, "Matsuri & Harumin Maybe Make Some Progress Although Not Really" arcs, and "New Or Essentially Forgotten Characters Are Homophobes" arcs. I mean, we know we have to get Yuzu & Mei, at least, from Point A (where they are now) to Point B (the wedding).

Not really feeling much slice-of-life vibe in this one.

Is anyone else like about to drop this series cause it feels like saburouta doesn’t even care anymore we get like 4 chapters a year at this point and leave plotlines unfinished to progress with characters we literally don’t care about like where is the story even going at this point

Even the original series was a lot more like that than a lot of people like to admit.

Personally, I've stuck around this long--might as well see where whatever's left of the wreck ends up.

That mohawk was awesome! Bro! Grow it back! XD

That may no longer be possible for him anymore--part of that adult "decaying" thing they were talking about.

last edited at Nov 20, 2022 9:59PM

It's pretty much like old people are romanticizing the 60s, 70s or whatever, through the rose-colored lenses of time and self-delusion.

Man, a lot of stereotyping going on about this.

Looking back fondly at the time in your life when you weren't responsible for holding down a job, for taking care of a family, for buying car or home insurance, etc., and remembering when you had the time to get totally wrapped up in your friends and to spend large chunks of your time thinking about music, grooving to music, and finding new music to love, and before the main tracks of your life were set--that all seems pretty normal, whatever one's generation.

Sure, it was never all good, and most of the adults I know would never actually go back to being 14 or 15 if magically given the chance. But it's not like remembering the good things about being between childhood and full adulthood is totally delusional either.

The assumption that your teen years are the best, most shining and radiant part of your life—and that as soon as you reach legal majority you become a decaying thing that can only crawl in the rotting morass of adulthood all the way to your death—is very much a common Japanese idea... but it isn't at all a Western idea; more like the opposite, in fact. I'm surprised nobody felt offended by this strip and reacted with anger.

I guess we've all already been mentally colonized by the Japanese. :P Come to think of it, I haven't read any rants against lolicon manga in a long time...

I think it's pretty common in the West as well, although it also includes college. There is pushback for it, but there are plenty of media that talk about the high school/college years as "the best years of your lives".

But you gotta admit that the angsty tormented teenager trapped between childhood and adulthood is far more frequent in Western literature.

But it's not a trope used to depict teenaged characters, it's a "middle-aged person romanticizing youth" trope.

(Although to be fair, the "next we're going to be third-years and have to decide what to do with our lives and then get jobs, etc., so let's make fun memories while we're footloose and fancy free" trope shows up in manga pretty regularly, too.)

The intimacy…! The casual hand that reaches out with an earbud….! The shimmering energy of undisclosed love…!

tbf, not waiting for the obvious "sure, go ahead" and reaching over with an earbud (as long as you have clean ears I guess) to share music with a friend, while discussing music, is not that intimate imo. Then again, I live in a middle eastern country and my last time hanging out with people of my own free will was back in the army.

Well, sure--sharing earbuds is not necessarily an intimate gesture in all contexts everywhere, just as sharing a swig of a drink between friends isn't always an "indirect kiss."

In this context, especially since earbuds played such an important role in the discovery of Mitsuki's "deceit," it's pretty darned intimate.

Anyone else notice the goof on page 18 of "June 24 through 28"?

Well, on page 17 Self-Hating-Gay-san's drink disappears and Yuzu's starts growing out of her head. If that counts.

That was so sweet . . .