Citrus: An Insult to Yuri and Writing Itself

Before covering Citrus, it’s imperative to discuss Saburo Uta’s other yuri manga, Partners. Partners stars a high school girl named Kusakabe Shino who helps out the clubs within her school. She gets signed up to help with a play by a girl, who she seemingly works well with, named Ogihara and, predictably, the play has a scene that requires the two girls to kiss. Throughout the story, Kusakabe constantly worries about how she might make the play fail due to the fact that she isn’t a very good actress and when she tells Ogihara about this, Ogihara…. assaults her.

Partners was published in Yuri Hime Wildrose. For those of you who don’t spend your weekends reading yuri, there’s Yuri Hime, which publishes long running and more age appropriate works-

Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu. Has an insane amount of sex scenes.

(a lot of unconsensual shit too. blegh. chapter 4's the only good one

and it's a standalone chapter, so just read that and pretend the rest doesn't exist.

fun fact, it was drawn by the artist of Love Stage!

[who's actually a great artist and makes great manga when she's the writer.

that's for a future blog post])

Mononoke Academy. One of these chapters is literally fetish porn

Never mind.

Then there’s Yuri Hime Wildrose. Yuri Hime Wildrose publishes only oneshots and all the manga that run in Wildrose have a common theme: sex. Yuri Hime Wildrose is a smut magazine through and through.

While the consent in Wildrose manga is often dodgy, the sex in Partners is shocking due to the assault being a solution to a problem. The sex impacts much more than just the relationship between the characters (it actually didn't lead to the relationship between the two furthering, which is rather odd too. It seems like Kusakabe would never consent to advances made by Ogihara. Not saying that it would be better if their relationship did further. It still would be fucked up. It's just a bit confusing, is all). The sex makes Kusakabe a better actress, which is the entire conflict in the story. The fact that assault leads to such a direct solution to a problem is rather disturbing.
What’s most telling that the sex in this manga is assault is Kusakabe’s reaction. She verbally tells Ogihara to stop, yet, Ogihara keeps on going. Sure, Kusakabe orgasms, but that’s nowhere near a sign of consent. Orgasming is an automatic reaction and occurs naturally, regardless of if the sex was consensual or not.
This scene also has literally nothing to lead up to it. There is no making out or any sort of emotional build-up that could’ve potentially let the reader know that Kusakabe’s feelings of admiration are actually attraction. Instead, it just jumps right into the sex, which gives this manga a huge case of tonal whiplash and makes the consent much more dubious.
The worst part about this manga isn’t the rape; it’s how the rape is treated afterwards. This rape is literally ENCOURAGED by the plot. The sex made Kusakabe a better actress, which is the entire conflict in this story. This manga literally gives the reader the message that sexual assault can solve problems.
So why did I feel it was necessary to talk about this manga? Well, that’s because Partners is a perfect precursor to discussing Citrus. This is due to Citrus having extremely similar messages to Partners, however, since Citrus runs in Yuri Hime instead of Wildrose, there is no sex. Instead, what would most likely be sex is replaced with making out and what’s basically molestation.
Apparently, the anime changes some things from the manga. However, I have read some of the manga for Citrus and the anime does not change its themes whatsoever, so I can still use the basic themes behind the anime to criticize Saburo Uta’s message.
Citrus stars a gyaru named Yuzu.

Yeah, sure...

Her mother just remarried and-

Wait, are those manicured? Oh honey, that’s money down the drain.

Yuzu’s mother married the soon to be headmaster of this super stuck up private school. Yuzu has to live with his daughter, who goes to said school, named Mei.

Aka the great Satan

This is the beginning of this anime’s many problems. I don’t mean that in a situational sense; I mean that in a writing sense. The whole “they’re not actually sisters haha” is just tacky and pandering. It takes what is already a taboo relationship among conservative rich people (who are generally the characters featured in this story) and makes it much more controversial. This just comes off as extremely lazy. If you wanted to write a tragic yuri story or a yuri story where the characters face tons of obstacles, there are so many other ways it could’ve been done. You don’t have to make the relationship between your characters confusing and off-putting. And you know what, maybe this point is a bit nitpicky on my part. But I wouldn’t be so nitpicky if Saburo Uta actually decided what the relationship between her characters is. At times, Yuzu wants to be a good older sister to Mei and at others she wants to have a sexual relationship with her. Those really aren’t two relationships that should be blurred this easily.

Of course, Yuzu and Mei being pseudo-sisters is not just a lazy way to make this story more tragic. It’s most likely included in this story because- you guessed it- fetishes. Incest unfortunately sells a lot. No Game No Life, Oreimo, Sword Art Online, and much more successful works have incestual undertones or literally have incestual plot points. Since incest is so successful, it makes sense to include it in a genre as small as yuri. It helps to give your manga more exposure and potentially help it break into the mainstream, which is inevitably what has happened. Saburo Uta knows what the anime community wants and thus she exploited it to create one of the few yuri manga that breaks into the mainstream.
The pseudo incest between Mei and Yuzu is also a sign of this anime’s shitty writing. What is the chance of Yuzu’s mother marrying into such a rich and well-established family? I’d be a bit more understanding, but the father is literally never around. How the hell did Yuzu’s mother manage to meet him, and especially manage to keep seeing him long enough for them to get married?
I’m usually lenient when it comes to details like these; I'm not the type to complain about plot coincidences and leaving out some details doesn’t bother me as much as it would for most people who think too long and hard about Japanese cartoons. However, Citrus’s writing is so terrible in every other aspect that I can’t help but criticize it for this stupid plot convenience.
Yuzu predictably gets in trouble when she goes to this new school because she is a gyaru and this school is for boring rich kids. The student council president is *gasp* Mei and she busts Yuzu for bringing her phone to school as well as violating the dress code. Once Yuzu gets in trouble, she is disciplined. Not like that, you pervert.

Despite being disciplined and being “lucky to get off this easy” as said by her new friend Harumi, Yuzu’s moronic ass STILL VIOLATES THE RULES. She keeps her hair blonde and still wears the school uniform in an inappropriate manner. Basically, if you couldn’t tell, Yuzu is dumb. She could be charmingly dumb in an anime where the consequences weren’t so dire, but since there are so many consequences to Yuzu’s actions, what she does is insanely embarrassing to watch.

Yuzu comes home from school that day to see Mei in her house, which freaks her out because she didn’t know that Mei was her step sister. This is also really shitty writing. Why wouldn’t Yuzu have met her stepsister before meeting her in school? It’s understandable that she wouldn’t have met her stepfather because he’s never home, but why didn’t she meet her stepsister, who has been living in the same town ever since she was a child? This is the cheapest form of writing a plot twist. And this actually isn’t a plot twist. You know why? Because you know that Mei and Yuzu are step sisters if you read literally any plot synopsis of Citrus, for either the anime or the manga. Therefore, the watcher/reader isn’t even shocked, making the lazy writing even more obvious.
Mei and Yuzu have to sleep in the same room and then Mei KISSES Yuzu out of nowhere.

Eyes wide open. Real consensual

Why did she do it? Because Yuzu “looked like she wanted it”.

                                   

This is assault. Sure, it’s “only kissing”, but it’s still a violation of privacy and is not condemned within the series. Instead, it does the opposite. It makes Yuzu FALL IN LOVE with Mei. Despite Mei being an abusive cunt who keeps playing with her emotions, Yuzu is obsessed with this girl. Why? Because she kissed her. According to Citrus, if you force your tongue down someone’s throat, this makes them become attracted to you. You can be a complete asshole and constantly degrade the other person and play with their emotions, but as long as you stuck your tongue in their mouth, they will do whatever they can to pursue a relationship with you. This is a great message.

Obviously, this makes the entire story EXTREMELY uncomfortable. Even in the scenes where Mei ISN’T being a bitch, everything is unsettling due to how their “relationship” began. Wait, is anyone else getting deja vu?

Holy shit, Citrus has the same problems that I had with Love Stage and most yaoi in general. Except, this time, Citrus began terribly, whereas Love Stage had a promising start. Does that mean that Citrus is worse or better than Love Stage? Philosophers are still struggling to answer this question.
For those who think I’m being too sensitive, imagine this. We live in a parallel world, where a manga that stars a guy who is a girl’s new stepbrother is selling thousands of copies and even has an anime. In this manga, the guy forcibly kisses the girl because she “looked like she wanted it” and then continues to mentally abuse her by taking advantage of her feelings and leading her on on multiple occasions. The abuse he causes her is rewarded by the plot due to the abuse leading to the furthering of their relationship. This manga also happens the be the entire face of the romance genre at the moment. This manga would most likely be hated by the anime community; however, I’ve seen very little backlash against Citrus. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but if a series with these terrible messages did get backlash, I probably would be hearing about it. However, even if there is backlash or not, the fact that the manga has these messages and such terrible writing and it still sells an insane amount of copies for a yuri manga, both domestically and internationally, is really disgusting.
Of course, since Citrus is yuri, it is not subject to the same criticism that a straight romance that has the same plot elements would be. Now, why is that? Well, that’s because this abuse is between people of the same sex, so therefore, this abuse is “not nearly as bad as it would be if it were to take place in a straight relationship” to the general public. If they were men, it wouldn’t be as bad to the general populace because a man is “strong enough to handle it” and besides, men in yaoi have no rights anyways. They're just seen as fetishes, regardless of if the anime/manga tries to paint their relationship as romance or not.And since the couple in Citrus is actually women, women can’t abuse one another. That’s silly. Women are only the ones that are abused. There’s no way a woman could abuse someone, especially not another woman. Don’t be silly, all lesbian relationships are fun and happy. Because they’ve had to deal with so much prejudice, there’s no way there’d be a gay relationship that is ABUSIVE.
These are extremely dangerous stereotypes, and what’s even worse is that a manga that basically encourages these stereotypes is so popular. Sure, you can question the ethics of yuri all day. They tend to sugarcoat lesbian relationships and are usually told from a heterosexual perspective, often ignoring the characters’ sexualities altogether. But, what most other yuri DOESN’T do is sugarcoat abuse and make it the way to another character’s heart.  And in the rare case that there is a yuri that promotes abuse, they don't get this popular.
Citrus is a disaster in the worst sense. Just when I thought what was already a nightmare couldn’t get any worse, it does. This happens in episode 4. Mei has a childhood friend named Momokino. Momokino sees that Mei and Yuzu are more than just “sisters”

and it makes her insanely jealous of Yuzu because *gasp* she’s in love with Mei. Wow, that’s not cliche at all.
In order to try to get an upper hand on Yuzu and “further her relationship with Mei”, Momokino…. Assaults Mei. This wasn’t “just” kissing. No one can try to say I’m being too sensitive over this because this was molestation. Predictably, Momokino does not get punished by the plot for molesting Mei. The only reason that Momokino does get punished by the plot is because she’s obstructing Mei and Yuzu’s relationship. Once Momokino gets over Mei and doesn’t try to mess up Mei and Yuzu’s relationship anymore, she’s treated as a normal character and as “just a friend of Mei’s”. In short, this anime is giving the viewer the message that sexual assault is a way to further your relationship with someone.
Citrus isn’t just terrible in its messages. Oh no. It’s also terribly written schlock as well. As I’ve mentioned, the plot conveniences in this anime are glaring. Obviously, for certain events to happen in a story, the characters would need to meet for these event to play out. However, there needs to be a logical reason behind these characters meeting. Citrus does not believe in logic.

At the beginning of the story, Yuzu walks in on Mei making out with the teacher she was originally betrothed to. Then later, Yuzu miraculously overhears the teacher saying he's just using Mei to get money or whatever. This allows Yuzu to save Mei from this guy and “gain her respect”, even if Mei treats Yuzu like shit for a long time after she ratted this guy out. But you know, maybe that plot convenience isn't that bad? Maybe I can forgive the show for this. But, there's more.
Adding to the list of cringeworthy situations Yuzu gets into, she's trying to make Mei feel better or talk about her problems or whatever the hell. Mei then gets frustrated and pulls Yuzu’s clothes off.

Then RIGHT AFTER THAT, Mei’s grandfather walks in and sees this, banning Yuzu from seeing Mei ever again and expelling Yuzu from school.

Yuzu's mom aka top 10 most oblivious anime moms of all time

Yuzu goes to his office to get something. Can’t remember what, but it doesn’t matter. In the end it was just there for Yuzu to find Mei’s grandfather having a seizure. Yuzu does what any normal person would do and calls an ambulance. Then, once the grandfather gets better, he thanks Yuzu for saving him, allows her to see Mei again and revokes Yuzu’s suspension. There are so many things wrong with this.
Firstly, it’s such a huge coincidence that Yuzu would be the lucky (lol) one to walk in on Mei’s grandfather having a seizure. It’d be much more likely for someone who actually works at the school to walk in on this, considering that they actually spend a lot of time around him and thus would have more chances to see him. But, the ONE TIME Yuzu sees this guy one on one is when he has a seizure. This situation in particular is what highlights how Saburo Uta just pulls shit out of her ass to make things progress in this story. Yuzu had such an easy out of a situation that should have at least taken some sort of a struggle to overcome. But instead, she’s literally handed a solution to the problem. There is no struggle. The reader just “feels sad T_T” because Mei and Yuzu’s relationship is disrupted. However, the effects of this wrench in their relationship are virtually non-existent after the problem gets resolved, so that begs the question, why was this event included in the story at all? I know why it was, but an event like this should have some sort of weight. Perhaps it could’ve led to character development in either Mei or Yuzu, or it could’ve created additional suspense by forcing Mei and Yuzu to meet behind her grandfather’s back. But instead, Mei’s grandfather prohibiting the two from seeing each other does literally nothing for this story. All it does is create a false sense of urgency. It just made the viewer worry for a bit but didn’t impact anything in the end.
Now to analyze one of the most important part of a story: the characters.

TFW she's probably crying because of Mei. I hate this series

As mentioned earlier, Yuzu could be endearing if she were in pretty much any series other than Citrus. She’s dumb, but she tries her best and is very cute in how she acts. She’s charmingly dumb or, as mentioned earlier, she could be if she was a character in basically anything else. Her devotion and love for Mei would be cute and admirable if Mei wasn't so despicable.
Yuzu’s best friend is Harumi, and she and Yuzu have a good chemistry.

Way too good for this shit show of a series

Their chemistry isn't extremely entertaining, but with better comedic writing, their interactions could easily become really endearing.  Unfortunately, the comedic writing in Citrus is not good. Wow, shocking.
There's only one scene involving the two that made me laugh and that was me laughing more out of second hand embarrassment than anything else. Harumi catches Yuzu reading some incest yuri and this made me cringe because of how cliche this shit was. “Let’s make Yuzu study up on how to further her relationship with Mei despite their relationship being extremely cringe inducing and nasty!”. That nastiness made Yuzu getting busted not comedic, as it was supposed to be, but instead making it just plain embarrassing. If Mei weren't Yuzu’s abusive stepsister, this scene could've been pretty funny. But instead, it just cements the fact that Yuzu’s infatuated with an abuser. Harumi’s reaction to busting Yuzu though, is great. Yuzu expects Harumi to start hating her or something but Harumi just doesn't give a shit. This contrast in Yuzu’s expectations vs what actually happened is great and would be pretty endearing if the joke’s backbone wasn't Yuzu’s obsession with her abusive step sister.

I swear to God, if I have to see her face one more time, I'm gonna lose it

And now, we have the one, the only, Mei. Mei is just ugh. Citrus basically excuses Mei’s behavior by blaming it on the fact that she had a messed up childhood or whatever. The anime shows her slowly change over time, but this is super unrealistic. No one is abusive and then just changes like that without help. Someone as messed up as Mei would need some sort of therapy. But this is anime, there's no such thing as therapy in anime (well, except for Paprika and Kuuchuu Buranko). Instead, Citrus appeals to the savior fantasy, which is pretty sick. It both excuses Mei’s shitty behavior and it makes it seem as if abusers will stop being abusive if someone just loves them, which is super unhealthy to promote.

Even the people who like Citrus hate her, so that's saying something. Also, her name is Himeko. Wow, subtle

Finally, there's Momokino. Nothing to say about her except that she's annoying as sin and molests Mei. So basically there's nothing of value to her whatsoever. Apparently she “helped Mei in the past” but it requires me to care about Mei in the first place to value that.

One thing that I noticed while watching and reading Citrus is that the cast feels so bare. At school, the only characters that you know are Mei, Yuzu, Harumi and Momokino. There are more characters, but most of them aren't even given a name. It feels like this is more of a vehicle to cause interactions between and problems for Yuzu and Mei rather than a school. I wondered why I felt like this. I’ve watched plenty of anime where there’s a small core cast and I never felt this sense of emptiness before. But then I figured out why. It’s because none of the characters in this anime have chemistry. They all either hate each other or are awkward. The only exception to this is Yuzu and Harumi; however, as mentioned earlier, the comedic writing for those two is awful and their relationship could be so much more entertaining if someone with a decent sense of humor took over.
I didn’t catch up to Citrus either in anime or manga form. A lot of people are probably going to yell at me and question my credibility, but here’s the thing: there’s literally no way Citrus could make me not hate it. We all know the outcome of the story. Yuzu and Mei are going to get together and live “happily ever after”, despite all the adversity towards their relationship. There is one way this story could redeem itself, but don’t worry because there’s no chance in hell of it happening. The only way Citrus could make me not despise it is if Yuzu breaks up with Mei and hopefully dates Harumi. But of course, Yuzu is not going to do that. People who stuck with the manga this far evidently are fans of it, and they stuck with it because they want to see Mei and Yuzu become a couple. The main reason I covered Partners before talking about Citrus is so I could see Saburo Uta’s feelings in regards to relationships in yuri so I could see how Citrus would probably end. From what Saburo Uta established in Partners, there’s no chance in Hell of Yuzu leaving Mei. We’re just lucky that this ran in Yuri Hime so there were less rape scenes that could’ve been included.
Before I end this post, I’m just gonna say this. I don’t hate Citrus simply because it showcases a relationship that’s abusive. Though it may sound like it, I don’t police people over what anime they enjoy and I don’t go around starting witch hunts over works that are “problematic”. I too enjoy things that have questionable morality; I have no right to condemn others for enjoying something that’s messed up. However, the reasons I have such a hatred for Citrus is because it’s terribly written, it’s not enjoyable in literally any sense for me (use your imagination), and it’s the most popular yuri manga and anime at the moment. It represents the entire genre. This unique and overlooked genre is represented by this revolting and terribly-written pile of trash. If Citrus was just some unpopular manga I found while browsing Dyn****y,

I wouldn’t give a shit at all. I’d just be like “Oh, this is just some emotional torture porn, time to move on”. But instead, this is the one or two yuri manga/anime that people outside of the niche know of. The other ones probably being NTR or Strawberry Panic. And you know what’s ironic about all of this? Citrus was my first yuri manga. And I still hated it.
However, I really wanted to see some cute anime girls making out, so this led me to Fragtime, and now I’m here. Some of you are probably wondering, what are the good yuri anime and manga? Well, fear not because I’m here to educate you if you need some help getting into this genre. But before we do that, I’m just gonna say this. Yuri can be enjoyed by everyone. It does not have a demographic. It was originally aimed at girls, but it eventually branched out and now it’s not really aimed at anyone anymore. Sure, there are a lot coming out today that are aimed at guys, but there are also a lot coming out today that are written by women. Therefore yuri really isn’t aimed at anyone in particular, which is why the genre struggles in popularity. So if you are someone who isn’t attracted to women, I think you could probably still enjoy yuri. What makes yuri great isn’t just the fact that there are cute girls making out, it’s that there’s so much emotion and tension that leads up to these characters getting into a relationship. So, without further adieu, I’m gonna finally let you know what’s good.

I’m gonna start with the anime first. Unfortunately, there are barely any decent yuri anime.

There’s Strawberry Panic, which is decent. I wouldn’t say you need to check it out, but it’s still enjoyable.

There’s Utena, which I haven’t been able to get into no matter how many times I’ve tried watching it. Obviously, I’m the outlier in this regard, so you should still check out Utena. I personally think every anime fan should just because Utena’s so iconic. But just know this. If you come to Utena expecting yuri right off the bat, you’re going to be disappointed. Utena doesn’t focus on yuri, from what I’ve seen of it at least, which isn’t much, but it’s enough to be disappointed if that’s what you came for. Come to it open minded and see what you think of it.

For the things I haven’t seen, there’s Sakura Trick (which I’ve heard focuses a lot on making out and is so sweet you’ll get diabetes)

and there’s Blue Flowers (which I’ve heard is amazing and handles its subject matter maturely. I’ll try to get to it when my anime backlog isn’t so big). The other yuri anime that I haven’t seen don’t tend to focus on a concrete relationship between two characters, so I won’t be mentioning them here.

And now, we’ve got the stuff I’ve seen. Firstly, there’s Sasameki Koto.

This anime is amazing. The manga is a 10/10 and the anime would be an 11. But there’s one huge problem: it ends when shit starts to get really good in the manga. If this anime just had another season, it could’ve finished up the material from the manga and would easily be my favorite anime. But alas, it doesn’t do that. Just read the manga. Watch the anime after reading the manga so you can see the story you love set to a great soundtrack and cry once it ends.

Finally, we have Maria-sama ga Miteru or Marimite. I haven’t seen all of Marimite since there’s like 4 seasons of it, but it’s really good. There aren’t too many concrete relationships. There are some, but the main one that would definitely be canon isn’t. Either way, if you like yuri at all, or are just looking for some good melodrama, you need to watch Marimite. It’s so damn good. You’ll get frustrated with how dumb the characters act sometimes, yet you’ll keep watching anyways. It’s addicting in its own special way. I legit marathoned the entire first season without even taking a break, and that’s never happened to me before. So yeah, go watch Marimite.

Before I move onto the good yuri manga, I’ve gotta mention one more anime I haven’t seen. That being Dear Brother or Oniisama E if you wanna get all weeby. Oniisama E doesn’t have any concrete relationships, but I haven’t seen it so I could be wrong. Either way, from what I’ve heard, Oniisama E is so good that when talking about shows with yuri undertones and angst, I can’t leave it out. I haven’t gotten to it yet, mainly because of a slight obstacle, but if you’re looking for a really good anime, go check it out. Again, I haven’t seen it so I can’t vouch for its quality first hand, but I’d feel really bad if I didn’t mention it at all.

And now we have the manga. If you’re interested in yuri at all, you’ve gotta read manga. There are so many great yuri manga that will never get adapted, so if you limit yourself to anime, you’re missing out on so much.

Maya no Souretsu and Shiroi Heya no Futari are both some of the earliest yuri manga and are recommended for you to read if you wanna know about this genre’s roots. Keep in mind though, that they are extremely depressing so don’t read them if you’re looking for something lighthearted.

Bloom into You is really good and the main couple has a super interesting character dynamic. Yuu, the protagonist, is a really fascinating character. She’s super layered and she's actually kinda jaded in a way, which is super rare for a character in yuri.  This is one of the manga that I’d say is one of the better introductions to yuri out of all the stuff I mentioned earlier.

Girl Friends is super angsty. It takes a while to get going, but once it gets going, boy does it gain momentum. I’d recommend checking out the rest of Milk Morinaga’s works if you’re interested in yuri. She’s one of the most prominent figures within the genre.

Omoi no Kakera is written by Jin Takemiya, and it’s probably her best work. It’s not completely translated but the translation got cancelled towards the end of the manga, so it’s not like you can’t tell where the plot is going. Either way, check out Jin Takemiya’s works. Her works are extremely realistic, and they’re all fantastically written.

I didn't expect much out of Mizuiro Cinema, but it actually turned out to be one of my favorite yuri manga. The main couple are really great characters. And the great thing about Mizuiro Cinema is that it doesn't take place in highschool and it actually defines the protagonist’s sexuality. It's also super cute, so make sure to check it out.

If you're looking for another yuri manga that doesn't take place in high school, there's Collectors. Collectors stars two adults and they're complete opposites, which gives them a really great dynamic. They get into fights and encounter real problems, which gives this manga a sense of realism.

Hopefully you enjoy those recommendations. If you've never read/watched yuri, please check them out. Don't make the mistake of letting Citrus be your first.