37: Yes, move on. Good. Mend.

Look. To me, Citrus is (or has become) a major factor in the future of the genre. And not just Yuri but Yaoi and everything that comes of these genres. Honestly I can see Yuri and Yaoi fading to just the hardcore fans one of two ways. Either the everything-will-be-a-happy-ending concept will cause the interest for their growth to dwindle with the lack of imagination available to the audience. Or the genres will become folded into the Romance genre as a norm. I hope for the latter. Seriously, bringing these genres into the mainstream was an amazing awakening for the world, but it needs to be acceptable to put GL, BL, and BGL all together in the Romance genre on a equal footing. If that can't be accomplished then I don't see a real future for any of this. Forget Yuri and Yaoi, it leaves the audience with expectations. Let the expectation just be Romance. Let people discover the chemistry of your characters on their own. Don't tell them it will be this, illustrate it.

37: Yes, move on. Good. Mend.

Look. To me, Citrus is (or has become) a major factor in the future of the genre. And not just Yuri but Yaoi and everything that comes of these genres. Honestly I can see Yuri and Yaoi fading to just the hardcore fans one of two ways. Either the everything-will-be-a-happy-ending concept will cause the interest for their growth to dwindle with the lack of imagination available to the audience. Or the genres will become folded into the Romance genre as a norm. I hope for the latter. Seriously, bringing these genres into the mainstream was an amazing awakening for the world, but it needs to be acceptable to put GL, BL, and BGL all together in the Romance genre on a equal footing. If that can't be accomplished then I don't see a real future for any of this. Forget Yuri and Yaoi, it leaves the audience with expectations. Let the expectation just be Romance. Let people discover the chemistry of your characters on their own. Don't tell them it will be this, illustrate it.

I don't really think Citrus is as important as to hold yuri's future. It's just that it's the most popular one that also got an anime adaptation. Also very good artstyle. It started out great but after a while it kinda flopped. But it was already popular enough by the time it started getting repetitive.

For the past year we are really lacking a good Yuri series. Two years ago we had plenty, so for now I'll think it's just happens to be one of the bad times.

Forget Yuri and Yaoi, it leaves the audience with expectations. Let the expectation just be Romance. Let people discover the chemistry of your characters on their own. Don't tell them it will be this, illustrate it.

Well the issue though, is that people want to know the story has BL/GL and will have an ending in which the MC does not end with opposite-gender partner, because it's so frustrating to invest $ into a series and then you get an ending you didn't want. In chapter 36 folks were rioting thinking the series was over with Mei marrying a dude lol So these stories are all romantic sure...but the audiences are different. Now what would be great is for the stories themselves to become more less trope-y, and Citrus/NTR have in my opinion indeed set a good precedent (mostly NTR though, Citrus still very trope-y).

AozTkM if you aren't a professor at a college, you should consider the opportunity to be one. Seriously. I read your posts (all) and if you were to teach any topic with the same dedication to articulating the ins and outs of said topic like you have with Citrus, you'd get tenure on day one. Bravo.

On the flipside, I have yet to watch the Netsuzou Trap anime, but after the manga... jeebus, it's not something that (in my mind) could ever be made less niche (in so many ways). Even if the production was done "well"--and I have no idea how this could be defined other than " not Horrible", that story is so never going to become a cult phenomenon in animated form. (As a "best possible translation/collaborative re-envisioning", I could see it being made into a series of "tonally elevated/altered" vignettes--an atmosphere reminiscent of Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) mixed with aloof intensity found in complex scenes from Lust, Caution (2007)--or maybe go non-Asian, and more school-age-scenario apropos, with the lush, poetic style of the forgotten Canadian flick, Lost and Delirious (2001), but it's a pipe-dream given the low ratings and well... the quality of the source.) For stuff like this, it could be that the original "yuri manga" format is its best possible incarnation--the realistic "Best" here is probably "Interesting"... but I have yet to experience the divisive adaptation.

NTR anime was absolute garbage lol Mostly because I feel the manga is based on Yuma's internal monologues and the anime could not show that, plus it was like only 9min each episode. It was seriously bad.

I don't think the manga would ever become popular like Citrus though because people tend to dislike stories that are too morally grey, and with characters that they cannot connect with...either because they've never lived anything similar to what's being told in the story, or because it would make them uncomfortable if they admit to themselves they connect. After all most people don't want to think they behave shitty towards others when it comes to relationships...see how much hate Mei gets and she is like a healthy angel in comparison to Hotaru :P Still it really broke with conventions of previous yuri stories I read. I find it much better than Citrus and it's one of my top romance manga for sure.

last edited at Apr 25, 2018 10:44PM

NTR has ended actually, check your manga source! I think although the manga started seemingly shallow with a lot of fan-service, just like in Citrus it was the bait for a much better plot later on, and the characters become much more relatable. For example Hotaru's behaviour ends up being thoroughly discussed and explained, something still missing from the plot in Citrus.

last edited at Apr 28, 2018 4:24PM

I am curious. What does this mean for you? Saburouta indeed was at the border of the burn out last year, unfinished short chapter in October because she had to release her volume 8 the same month, a thing she never did before. A hiatus in December (and she tweeted the delay 6 days before the magazine was released), another hiatus in March (indeed expected, cause she does that all the time when a volume is published), and a short chapter this month.

This entire thread... gradually scares me than the ghost story

Seeing people overanalyze and apply psychology to the characters and plot of a manga like Citrus to this level is really shocking and a bit scary. It's like I am reading an Eva thread or something even bigger.

I mean, Saburouta even said Mei is difficult to write. I'm guessing not even her understands her own character that well.

last edited at Apr 29, 2018 1:48PM

LOL oh my innocent child :P

Huh, yeah, she said that, but that doesn't mean she creates the characters, drawings etc haphazardly. I think people actually underestimate by a LOT the amount of work and thought that goes into anything they purchase or consume when they don't know how it's actually made. That's precisely why we get hooked on things, for example, that get advertised to us. Even a simple ad of any product has a lot of work and knowledge that goes into it, which is why it works.

I'm a sw engineer and encounter this in my daily life; people actually think that e.g. the social media apps they use are easy to make, or that they are not meticulously designed, from the colours to the button positioning, to trigger a desired effect which has also been designed in advance. The fact that Citrus, in comparison to other yuri manga etc gained all this attention is not at all accidental.

I'm a sw engineer and encounter this in my daily life; people actually think that e.g. the social media apps they use are easy to make, or that they are not meticulously designed, from the colours to the button positioning, to trigger a desired effect which has also been designed in advance. The fact that Citrus, in comparison to other yuri manga etc gained all this attention is not at all accidental.

Citrus is the most popular in the West (along with Girl Friends) but popularity doesn't equal quality. I still don't think it's that bad as some people say, like they say it's some irredeemable trash and stuff. In Japan, Citrus is not that popular compared to other yuri titles/subtext, so it seems this is a case of different culture = different interests.

last edited at Apr 29, 2018 3:37PM

Seeing people overanalyze and apply psychology to the characters and plot of a manga like Citrus to this level is really shocking and a bit scary.

You should have seen (as you probably did) what people did with What Does the Fox Say? (Just in terms of impassioned analysis, that is.)

I think lavish interpretation is pretty much par for the course with “love it or love to hate it” series, since the things that people hate are often the things that fans love to dissect. If there were legitimate, text-supported alternative ships in Citrus instead of an OTP, the post- and walls-o’-text counts would probably be even higher.

Seeing people overanalyze and apply psychology to the characters and plot of a manga like Citrus to this level is really shocking and a bit scary.

You should have seen (as you probably did) what people did with What Does the Fox Say? (Just in terms of impassioned analysis, that is.)

I think lavish interpretation is pretty much par for the course with “love it or love to hate it” series, since the things that people hate are often the things that fans love to dissect. If there were legitimate, text-supported alternative ships in Citrus instead of an OTP, the post- and walls-o’-text counts would probably be even higher.

At least the WDTFS analysis made some sense...

At least the WDTFS analysis made some sense...

Well, now you’re just getting greedy. . .

I'm a sw engineer and encounter this in my daily life; people actually think that e.g. the social media apps they use are easy to make, or that they are not meticulously designed, from the colours to the button positioning, to trigger a desired effect which has also been designed in advance. The fact that Citrus, in comparison to other yuri manga etc gained all this attention is not at all accidental.

Citrus is the most popular in the West (along with Girl Friends) but popularity doesn't equal quality. I still don't think it's that bad as some people say, like they say it's some irredeemable trash and stuff. In Japan, Citrus is not that popular compared to other yuri titles/subtext, so it seems this is a case of different culture = different interests.

Clearly you didn't notice, but I actually did not say Citrus gained attention (in the West at least) because it's "high-quality" (whatever that means). What I was trying to say is that manga, like any product, is to higher or lesser degrees (and in the case of Citrus it's to a very high degree) carefully crafted to gain attention of specific types of audiences. And that's both in terms of what the story, the drawings etc tells us and what they don't. So in the case of Mei, for example, the details of her personality and other details of the story are omitted on purpose most likely to keep readers speculating. In that sense ironically Citrus is not that different from Eva xD

last edited at Apr 29, 2018 6:40PM

I have no idea what you guys are talking about. If it's the anime, I think that they added some things in that shouldn't have been in there and took some stuff out that I thought should have made it to the final cut. But overall I thought that it was a good first season and I would love to see a second one. Also I'm assuming that everyone here read the latest addition to the series. My heart was not ready for something like this; it's affecting the same place in my heart when Oberyn died in Game of thrones. But what about you guys? Did anyone not like it? Also does anyone know why Saburota never really publish on the regular? If the author needs a go fund me page then I am all for it.

last edited at May 4, 2018 6:41AM

ample, visible, giant cleavage collision scattered throughout

The TL;DR of Netsuzou Trap forever more.

Anywhoo, nearing the end of Utena (translation: almost done being brainwashed with apocalyptic, duelist, musical rituals)!

Looking forward to your giant analysis about it, but probably off-topic for this forum lol

Anywhoo, nearing the end of Utena (translation: almost done being
Looking forward to your giant analysis about it, but probably off-topic for this forum lol

Ya think?

Granted, I’m a comics person, and can take or leave most anime adaptations of manga series that I like, but at least the walls-o’-text about the Citrus anime have to do with the title at the top of this forum.

Wow, this was such a long post lol. You sure write a lot. I will try to be as brief as possible in my response.

The reason I compared Mei and Anthy is simply because they are both characters suffering emotional abuse (well also sexual abuse in Anthy's case) and taking it. They are both people who have accepted to be paws to others, to be means to others' goals, and mostly acting in passive-aggressive ways towards life.

In the case of Utena, the story in my view is not supposed to be taken literally (otherwise it doesn't even make much sense) but rather interpreted in the same way that a myth is interpreted. Utena is essentially a story that depicts the "growing up" myth of women, and a discussion of what it means to be a woman in this world, just like the vast majority of myths are representations of the growing up process of men and the role of men in the world. It is the only story that I know which does that to such an extent. Anyway, point being, the characters are not meant to be real people, they are just archetypes.

Which is what I meant by Mei being a "low key" Anthy. Citrus is just a romantic story, and the characters are meant to seem like real people to a certain degree, but Mei is like an instance of the "Anthy archetype". In that she has basically so far resigned to give her life away as sacrifice for the sake of other people (her grandfather/family) due to not valuing herself and conditioned really by the old-fashioned ideas of what it means to be a woman. She needs to produce a heir, she needs to marry a man who can help her manage the academy etc in other words, she was not raised to be an independent human being with her own goals, thoughts, feelings. While apparently accepting all this and even justifying it, just like Anthy she shows a distinct bitterness towards the whole thing, that manifests in the end as a kind of self-destructive cruelty and selfishness towards others and herself. And a kind of obsession with her polar opposite that represents everything she deep down wishes to be but does not have the courage yet to be (so Yuzu here is an instance of the "Utena" archetype). The "backstab" which in Utena is literal (again because Utena is a mythical story), in Citrus is of course Mei's "Dear Yuzu" letter.

The reason such characters attract so much hate is because they are of course showing to the audience the dark and "weak" aspects of what it means to be human. In the particular context of abusive relationships, be it romantic, with family or even in a relationship with society, the majority of times those being abused actually accept the abuse and even try to justify it, a lot of the times turning against those trying to free them from the abuse. And people don't like to think of themselves as someone who would be so weak and make such terrible decisions, even though we all know deep down we might not fare that much better.

last edited at May 15, 2018 12:40PM

I read the raws, Yuzu has a threesome with the twins!

...Or if that happened it would have been more fun. Actually this is turning out boring af, after reading fast-paced manhwas there is indeed no turning back. If next chapter is as boring I'm gonna drop it.

Nothing happens, Yuzu continues to cry over the same shit as last chapter. Yuzus mom holds title as second worse parent in the series. At least it was a full chapter this time.

last edited at May 17, 2018 1:28PM

In fact, we learn Yuzu’s side and why she stayed far away from Mei. Translation will show that. We learn where is Mei and Sara explains to Yuzu what happened during the date with Mei (we know that they didn’t kiss and also Mei’s state of mind).
And final page, Yuzu asks Ume if she can talk about something important with her. A build up chapter. Indeed, 37 and 38 should have been one chapter cleaned with unecessary pages. But i won’t say the chapter is uninteresting.
All is in the characters’ speeches.

Does anyone besides Matsuri_wins actually read that dude's posts?

Does anyone besides Matsuri_wins actually read that dude's posts?

Couldn’t tell you.

Does anyone besides Matsuri_wins actually read that dude's posts?

A few people gave them opinions on their posts before, so I assume yes but just a few people? Their posts are pretty interesting in content if you ignore the verbosity x)