Matsuri kills Gramps. You read it here first!

matsuri_wins eh..lol

Matsuri kills Gramps. You read it here first!

Well, if you need a cold-blooded killer, Matsuri’s definitely the #1 candidate in the book.

So now we must wait.

Saburouta's notes in volume 9 also mentioned about their happy future. Something like ''それでは ... ふたりの幸せの未来で''. I'm looking forward to the next chapter, i hope we can see Yuzu smiling again!

I hope she is smiling because she finds someone else who actually deserves her love.

I don't want it to happen because I like Matsuri, but it's obvious who the contender is. https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/56295064076539831/

If this is not the ending I cannot see this as becoming a good story. If it is the ending it is indeed a good story.

Your post makes me very confused as to what you mean by “a good story,” and I’m especially baffled about why if it ended this way (NOTE: however it eventually ends, it is not over at this point) it would be a good story.

Look I know the classic yuri fangirl/boy entertainment comes from the fact that despite society and it's rules, the girls still end up together. But here's the thing Mei knows this path will lead her away from Yuzu and a life together beyond a (poorly) hidden fling. Mei is choosing something that is important to her. Something that has been important to her throughout the entire series. And despite coping with her father walking out, remembering she did see him off at airport, she still has a ways to go, but her family status or pride or whatever is still important to her and even more so now from her own feelings alone. Yuzu knows this. She loves this part about Mei and wouldn't try to make her stop. They understand each other in ways that maybe no one else in their entire lives ever will again. But it is because they understand each other and are still accepting this as reality that makes this story good. If it just panders an ending to the yuri fangirl/boy population then its just another bore. Look. Girlfriends, that ending worked. It was suitable. This ain't Girlfriends. This is two opposites understanding each other to the core. And still choosing to put their individual dreams above all else. Mei's dream is her family's school. Yuzu's dream is her first love's greatest desire. They share the same dream. This would be a good ending.

If this is not the ending I cannot see this as becoming a good story. If it is the ending it is indeed a good story.

This makes no sense. Citrus is all about love, so of course Yuzu and Mei will end up together. Chapter 36 has some foreshadowing, so the drama will start to get some closing from there. You need to read Citrus all over again, because it seems you just missed some details.

Sorry, I didn't miss a thing. This story has been too good to just become another yuri fangirl/boy ending. Typical beat the odds repetitive stuff and the like. They are both focused on what is most important to them. Mei has her family's school and knows Yuzu will support that because Yuzu has wanted nothing more this entire time other than to care for the greatest desire of her first love. I haven't missed a thing.

Thank you. Now I know what you mean by a “good story.”

I completely disagree. The school doesn't make Mei happy, the story makes it clear she endures it as a duty and that's it. So it cannot be her dream, she simply accepted it as her responsibility once the matters with the father were (for now) settled.

In fact the plot WOULD be more interesting if she actually liked managing the school, the stakes would be even higher. Maybe she would then have a more proactive personality though, which she doesn't. Instead she a super meek person overcompensating by pretending she is all tough, and this whole charade can be translated to "please rescue me and solve my problems for me again Yuzu".

So she is just Mei doing what she does best, which is shifting the responsibility and hard decisions onto Yuzu.

I completely disagree. The school doesn't make Mei happy, the story makes it clear she endures it as a duty and that's it. So it cannot be her dream, she simply accepted it as her responsibility once the matters with the father were (for now) settled.

In fact the plot WOULD be more interesting if she actually liked managing the school, the stakes would be even higher. Maybe she would then have a more proactive personality though, which she doesn't. Instead she a super meek person overcompensating by pretending she is all tough, and this whole charade can be translated to "please rescue me and solve my problems for me again Yuzu".

So she is just Mei doing what she does best, which is shifting the responsibility and hard decisions onto Yuzu.

(Just as a side note: I'm almost more interested in Matsuri and Harumin in the story than I am the Main Characters, just wondering if you felt the same? Moving on.)

I agree with you, taking pride in something doesn't mean it makes you happy. I see us discussing two different things here. I said the family's school is important to her. Whatever the reason, of which I agree it is not for happiness, it is important to her.

I agree with your second point. Mei knows the family's school is important and she knows Yuzu will support what she is asking for because Yuzu wants to help Mei anyway she can. Yuzu said it from the start, she has never known what it is like to be in love. She is now and it's making her do crazy things. Like sacrificing one of the things that would make her happy for another. Mei knows she can run and hide because the love of her life is essentially an enabler. Yuzu wants to help, but she doesn't want to get tough enough to help. Many times we see Yuzu stand down from those moments where she should be pressing forward.

last edited at Mar 25, 2018 3:26PM

I agree Yuzu is an enabler and you can see her mom is the same with the Sho guy (who would marry someone and be ok with that person never being around? Or worse, make an arrangement to take care of someone else's teenage daughter lol wtf).

Which is why when people say, Yuzu should just wait for Mei to come after her, I don't understand what their logic is. The entire series goes on and on in circles because these girls cannot take a stand for what they truly want unless pushed by other people. In a way, Mei is actually a bit better because she at least moves the relationship forward by instigating Yuzu passive-aggressively into leading them to the next level.

So on ch. 36 Mei has basically put all the chips on the table and said what she feels for Yuzu is not some teen lovey dovey feelings but adult love. Her way of communicating the problem is terrible but Yuzu's apparent inaction for months is just as bad. What I am hoping for is that Yuzu will finally clue in that she is not living in a fairy tale (as hinted all along by Matsuri, when she criticized her for giving rings to Mei too quickly). At this point she either acts like the mature person someone in Mei's situation needs her to be, and try to work things out together, or just quit because there is no way Mei will be with her if she doesn't show she has a backbone.

(As for Matsuri and Harumin, I like them because they are true friends to Yuzu and not selfish, unlike both Mei and Yuzu who are so absorbed into each other that they don't seem to pay attention to anything else. I hope they end up together, or at least do not go for Yuzu because that would be underselling themselves...Yuzu is not as good of a friend to them as they are to her).

Yuzu’s inaction i think is her just trying to respect Mei’ decision, she knows that Mei chose the path of inheriting the academy, and Yuzu supported that
But even after 7 months, it’s still killing her

It’s also possible she literally hasn’t had any contact with Mei since the letter

last edited at Mar 25, 2018 4:50PM

Yeah, so Yuzu respecting Mei's decisions rather than acting out of her own desires has been her mistake from the beginning of the series. She hasn't clued in yet that what Mei says she wants and what Mei actually wants are very different things.

That should be the mission for everyone going forward; showing Mei that she can follow her heart over her head.

I can't understand why some readers are thinking that Yuzu and Mei won't end up together. All the drama will probably be easily solved. Since this is probably the climax, Saburouta just want to make some impact. In the end, everything will be fine.

I just want to know how she will develop this arc. Some readers are expecting Shou to come back soon, but everything can happen.

Maybe this was discussed already, but, ch.36 pg184 we see Mimeko with two student Council members.
Are there more than 3 members of the council or does this mean Mei has stepped down as pres/may not even be at the academy ?

Maybe this was discussed already, but, ch.36 pg184 we see Mimeko with two student Council members.
Are there more than 3 members of the council or does this mean Mei has stepped down as pres/may not even be at the academy ?

I can't understand why some readers are thinking that Yuzu and Mei won't end up together.

I don't want to speak for anyone else; this is just my take on how people respond to stories in general. But my impression is that some people are basically "character readers"--their focus is on the psychology and personal interactions of the characters.

Others (and I'm one of them) tend to be "story readers"--with a focus on the narrative trajectory and genre signals that a story is putting out.

(And, of course, readers often combine or switch back and forth between those modes at various times.)

I think that difference may be why some people get so deeply invested in ships that, going by the cues within a particular story, are clearly never going to happen--given the (imaginary) people involved, character A may very well be a better match for the protagonist than the text-stipulated one, but to make that pairing happen, the story would need to abandon an outcome it had been setting up all along (and sometimes that does seem to happen, as in K-dramas where the producers seem to be responding to viewers' responses or to real-world circumstances with the actors).

I actually don't think Citrus has been especially consistent in developing its main characters--both Mei and Yuzu seem to push toward or pull back from each other in ways that at times don't necessarily seem (to me) to grow organically from the events of the story. It's certainly possible to go back and construct a narrative where they each are consistent, but it doesn't (again, to me) always feel that way as the events unfold.

last edited at Mar 25, 2018 10:11PM

The explanation above is good!

I think when people say they won't end up together, it's more "if the story was real, they might not end up together". But of course they will end up together, just like the hero of the story never dies etc (even though it would be great if they did lol).

In any case at least for me, if my sole reason for believing that something will happen in a story is because it's fiction and "that's the way it will happen or fans will riot" then the story is crap. Because that's not a reason that emerges from the story itself. It's not my job to have faith in the genre or on the "story metaphysics" so to speak, it's the author's job to immerse me in the story :P I actually dislike most yuri manga precisely because things seem to happen for no reason other than because the genre says so. Characters rarely feel multi-dimensional, it's like they are tropes only.

Citrus is kinda mixed on this, the author of Netsuzou Trap should be writing the plot. Saburouta can draw but not necessarily write (my opinion).

I can't understand why some readers are thinking that Yuzu and Mei won't end up together. All the drama will probably be easily solved. Since this is probably the climax, Saburouta just want to make some impact. In the end, everything will be fine.

I just want to know how she will develop this arc. Some readers are expecting Shou to come back soon, but everything can happen.

Two reasons. The drama actually had a hefty impact this time and because yuri stories have a long past of tragic outcomes back when Class S was a big thing. So at first sign of trouble some people start going NOPE! and either run away or go into a shock.

In fact, chapter 36 is LITERALLY how many yuri stories used to end. I see it as a both a nice throwback and a good way to deliver a non-dialogue chapter with a drama bomb where the reader will use their own brain to fill in some details by themselves. There were a lot of people whose initial reaction to 36 was that the story had actually ended in a tragedy. :p

last edited at Mar 27, 2018 9:36AM

In fact, chapter 36 is LITERALLY how many yuri stories used to end. I see it as a both a nice throwback and a good way to deliver a non-dialogue chapter with a drama bomb where the reader will use their own brain to fill in some details by themselves. There were a lot of people whose initial reaction to 36 was that the story had actually ended in a tragedy. :p

This definitely makes sense. After all, the story theoretically could still end this way, and the only reasons to be confident that it won’t (as I am, along with lots of other people) are either exterior to the story, like the knowledge that there are a non-negligible number of chapters still to come or the author’s suggestions that things will end happily OR the assumption that a tragic/unhappy ending would amount to a sudden swerve in the course of the story that the author has shown no previous signs of making.

So if the latest chapter were to be an ending rather than simply a (big) plot complication, it becomes, “The story of Citrus is how a number of blocks and hindrances to Yuzu and Mei’s love appear and are overcome, and then the first one (the arranged marriage) reappears and they can’t overcome it.”

As I said, theoretically possible, but, paraphrasing the Magic 8-Ball: “The signs point to No.”

last edited at Mar 27, 2018 10:44AM

Apart from this aspect, to what extent is the general Citrus narrative different from the myriad preceding yuri works--specifically, the successful, similar ones? Or is Ch 36's intentional drama bomb the most noteworthy feature in 9 volumes/~5 years of typical Slice of Life/School Angst/Yuri Romance?

Citrus reads more like a shoujo manga to me. Change Mei to be a male and you have every brooding, distant and handsome love interest in shoujo ever. With Yuzu being the usual klutz protagonist. Doesn't mean it's not fun though!

But with this major tonal shift, i.e., emphasizing harsh reality, any random details that crop up in the aftermath will need to have far more critical weight because this is now past the point of no return; if the essential, incremental development is still underwhelming by the end, that will be the biggest reveal about the author and her intent.

I think the "ZOMG WHAT JUST HAPPENED" reactions were both due to: (1) the sudden timeskip and people empathizing with Yuzu and Mei's pain and (2) to the skeptical readers, the fear that Saburouta and her past lame plot writing is strong indication that she will f*ck up the story, indeed, to the point of no return. Because she amped the drama and seemingly changed the tone yes, but I suspect she won't know how to deliver a conclusion convincingly. When I read ch. 36 I was literally like "oh man, RIP Citrus".

But hey maybe this will turn out to be the School Days of yuri, if Matsuri's sociopathic tendencies are finally put to good use. Kill Bill-style wedding rampage scene in the end, maybe that's what her shooting game skills were hinting at :P

last edited at Mar 27, 2018 7:54PM

Who cares about Citrus right now ?

Who cares about Citrus right now ?

Right now I care about planning tonight’s dinner. But thanks for checking—I'll keep you posted.