Citrus

Tinseltown has been coming under fire as of late. Celebrities' misdeeds are being exposed publicly on a weekly basis like a new sporting event. The #MeToo movement giving a platform to voice sex scandals that have gone unnoticed for far too long. Scrolling through your timeline, plastered on the TV screen, announced over the radio during daily commutes, the subject matter of countless memes, the focal point of water-cooler conversations; no matter where you turn, there it is. Accusation after accusation. Transforming popular figures into pervert pariahs overnight. Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, Louis C.K., Dustin Hoffman, Brett Ratner, James Woods, Bryan Singer, Casey ... Affleck; an endless potpourri of bigwigs—the 21st Century witch hunt in full swing. No one is safe.

And while all of this is going on, halfway across the globe, there's Citrus, minding its own business as it idly trolls along turning sexual assault into a provocative byproduct of step-sisters "bickering." While people are pooling together with torches and pitchforks in hand, shining a light on any sexual misconduct occurring in the dark recesses of the entertainment industry, Studio Passione persists with the biggest "whatever bro" shoulder shrug. What the rest of the world concerns itself with isn't going to stop them from showing girls casually molesting each other on their scheduled programming. It's actually pretty impressive. Fucked up, but impressive nonetheless. I guess you could extend that sentiment to Japan in general. Creating "fucked up shit" in a carefree manner has become something like their calling card:

Has mass shootings and domestic terrorism been a hot-button issue? Well here, have some Inuyashiki. Concerned with gender politics? Don't worry, we got you covered with Skirt no Naka wa Kedamono Deshita. "If you want it, we got it." seems to be the motto, as they peddle anything and everything in the endless pursuit of creative freedom. Which brings us to the latest foray into the "fucked up shit" unofficial canon, Citrus.

From the land that gave us distinct high-school dramas like Orange, we're handed Citrus, the undesirable fruit.

The anime tells the tale of– oh, who are we kidding? It's about sexy-time with female characters. It's all lip service unless it "services the lips" of the females involved.

It's pretty average-looking too, the ugly kind of average-looking.

Hoards of CGI models in green linen jackets. Flat buildings without detail, walls bare of personality. Real-life-inspired locations washed of any distinct features. Stainless steel structures, straight shapes stretching on endlessly without purpose, without care. Floorboards and walkways copied and pasted into an endless loop of lethargic worldbuilding. A kind of artificial sheen to everything. Devoid of human touch, the undeniable look of computer-generated polish. Clinically sterile and evenly lit. The feeling of being done to the bare minimum. Uninspired. Uncaring. Unconcerned with anything unless it's "sexy-time," and even then, it's barely a passing grade.

Everyone has dark hair and moves forward in a unified step as if puppets to their boring world. A lifeless march towards an all-girl school, a place where our Yuzu would be attending. Yuzu Aihara is the rowdy rebel, our ball of "life" in a world lacking it, and unfortunately our main lead as well. The unlikable side character in any other show given a chance to take center stage to problematic results. Makeup caked on, strawberry blonde hair puffed up, cleavage out in the sun, skirt hacked up, buttermilk tan, all manner of frilly things, school outfit altered beyond recognition, a personality as loud as her appearance; a self-proclaimed gyaru and a shameless attention-seeker at that—this is "much deep" cuz spunky gurl in a world of conformists.

And standing as her polar opposite, there's Mei Aihara, a soon-to-be molester dressed up as a Mary Sue. She suffers heavily from PerfectGirl-syndrome: honor-role pupil, top of her class, student council president, poised, admired by everyone, the chairman's granddaughter, built like a walkway model, good at literally everything she does. She probably farts out Chanel No. 5 too. You get the drill, she's as interesting as wallpaper. Perfect to a sickening degree. Well, that's all before she decided to turn her new step-sister, Ms. Rowdy Rebel, into her personal play-thing.

And who better to bring this together than Takeo Takahashi, a man that's equally known for his hentai contributions as he is his "safe for work" content.

Citrus certainly has that kind of attribute to it. That sort of sleazy undercurrent that flows throughout every moment, well-intention or otherwise. Camera-panning that ogles the female form without concern for respecting boundaries. Narrative threads meant to help audiences relate to the cast quickly expedited to get to the next sexual encounter. Endless monologues for every characters' dilemma—subtlety isn't allowed in this universe. A sense of objectification, even if it's in regards to actions expressed with consent. Nothing is ever pure. Everything smeared with the fingerprints of hedonistic high-gloss.

Even smut like 2017's Scum's Wish, at the very least, had small spurts of respect displayed for its cast, occasionally loosening its vice grip to allow a chance to express feelings openly. By comparison, everything in Citrus feels bought off. An act of slave-like procurement over the characters' bodies that's too readily apparent to ignore. Awkward half-chubs spurred on by involuntary stimuli. In a meta-sense, we're also made victims of visual misconduct (go figure). It's the kind of eroticism that arrives quickly and leaves you feeling dirty.

An anime that will have a heated shower scene where non-consensual groping occurs, then follow it up with this dialogue exchange:

"No!"–Yuzu pushes away in abject horror– "Why are you doing this!?"–her eyes closed, as she stands there naked and vulnerable.
Mei innocently answers back without hesitation, a tone of motherly matter-of-factness:
"Because you looked like you wanted me to touch you."

The scene ends, never to properly address the disturbing exchange again.
As long as the money shot was secured and a few man-tents were pitched, nothing else matters.
This is the kind of "feeling dirty" I'm referring to.

I love perverted content as much as the next guy, but sometimes, what Citrus attempts to do is genuinely off-putting. Sexual harassment shouldn't be confused with love. And if it is, a level of accountability needs to be put in place to avoid idealistic handwaving. But this is a show that thinks that if it holds a "this is wrong" PSA after it indulges in sexual misconduct, that it's suddenly not culpable of wrongdoing. An anime that sells Stockholm syndrome as a shot of Cupid's arrow. Where fighting sexual harassment with sexual harassment is treated as an actual solution. Serious issues trivialized to create marketable eroticism and comedic gags.

Any act of earnestness is completely lost in a title devoid of finesse. After a while, you sort of just roll with it. Jokes at the expense of serious issues. Illogical reasoning made by characters to justify their actions. You might even buy into the lack of audiovisual effort as a part of the "theme" to contrast everything against Yuzu's personality. Of course, you'll be wrong, as even her living quarters and look has been rendered flaccid, lacking in any sense of creative vitality or noticeable effort. It's all very surface-level. Pedestrian sleaze that isn't arousing enough to keep the Kleenex nearby nor respectful enough to genuinely stimulate discussions regarding the content on display.

And that's perhaps this show's biggest downfall in a nutshell: it's vanilla, but a souring type of vanilla.

A type of middling existence occupied by works of far more distinction than itself. If you're interested in the taboo themes that this anime addresses, there's no need to compromise with inferior goods to get your fix. There are better alternatives out there for those actually seeking integrity (Koi Kaze) or far more titillating eye-candy (Scum's Wish). Why settle for vanilla in a world full of flavor just waiting to be discovered? Is Citrus entertaining? Sure, at times. But when 17-minutes of content is glazed over just for 3-minutes of "sexy-time," and the "sexy-time" itself is neither well-animated or concerned with addressing the elephant in the room that surrounds its content; at that point, what you're left with is a show whose sole purpose for existing is left dead in the water from the moment it dives in.

Citrus challenges today's anime standards by introducing interesting topics like "How cringy can character dialogue become in an anime until I drop it?" and "Is it sexual assault if I kiss my step sister without consent...and get away with it?"

This is by far the worst anime I've seen this year and I'm just 4 episodes in. Dialogue doesn't feel natural at all, exposition is thrown in my face every second and characters don't make any sense.

The pacing of Citrus is way too fast and we never get any real sense of knowing how to feel about a moment. There is a scene where Mei kisses ... her sister in the first epiosde without her consent and it feels super uncomfortable but next episode, the main character pretends like this thing was super romantic, not literally, but this is what it feels like.

Animation is also something we should talk about. It commendable that the director actually changes the clothes of the main character multiple times, which isn't done as often as you might think, but the actual animation is piss poor and the art still suffers from time to time. It's also sad that nothing about this animation seems to have any personality.

Now on to the topic of Gay bait. Is this show some gay bait for people that browse through tumblr and twitter 24/7? Yes. Yes it is. Instead of developing a genuine, natural romance between two highschool students that happen to be girls, we get some of the most rapey, uncomfortable Yuri scenes I had the displeasure to watch. It is amazing how people are willing to justify abusive and toxic romance as long as it's gay.

If you want to watch a shitty gay Telenovela in anime form, then boy, is Citrus the anime for you.

If I got a dollar every time this show featured a kiss scene, I’d probably be filthy rich now. No, not really but you have to admit, there’s almost an absurd amount of kissing in this show known as “Citrus”. To me, this show is a modern example of a trashy soap opera made with the intention of cash grab.

Adapted by the manga of the same name, Citrus is one of the few series in recent years that decided to take on the idea of lesbianism and turn it into a modern day drama. In anime form, it’s defined more as yuri/shoujo-ai. As someone ... who has read parts of the manga, Citrus focuses on the concept of female relationships. Unfortunately, I can’t really express any hope after reading the manga. This anime adaptation set off red flags from the start and isn’t able to fix them. It’s a shame really.

Diving into this show may feel a little uncomfortable at first if you’re not used to this type of genre. The first few episodes makes it clear that there’s more going on between main characters Yuzu and Mei. Although they don’t have similar personalities, it’s shown that Yuzu feels an uneasy attraction towards Mei after getting into some compromising positions with her. Throughout the show, the both of them engage in many activities that adheres to lesbianism. The anime doesn’t hide the fact that there’s seems to be mutual attraction as each episode ventures on. Other characters gets involved in their story but the main focus is on this pair. And to be honest, it feels pretty embarrassing to watch. The show tries to be a love story but instead filled with laughably bad dialogue and clichés. I also can’t remember the number of times I shook my head at how their relationship developed. That’s actually what holds the show back a lot. Relationship dynamics in Citrus dances with an immense amount of teenage feelings and attempts to make it seem complicated. However, it ends up being washed up with little value and doesn’t seem to know what to make of its characters.

Individually, Yuzu and Mei aren’t actually bad characters. At least from a realistic point of view, Yuzu is a normal girl who wants to explore romance and grow up. She’s also a bit of a daredevil and isn’t afraid to speak her mind or help others when in need. On the other hand, there’s Mei with a personality as cold as the snow. My impression of Mei is someone who would be incredibly difficult to be friends with. Her values are high standard and she never seems to let people get close to her, with perhaps the exception of Yuzu. We also get some background story about the two characters in later episodes to make viewers understand them more. However, that’s pretty much the extent of it. Yuzu and Mei are basically carrying this show while other characters are hardly worth talking about. I mean, there’s Yuzu’s best friend Himeko but she gets annoying every time her mouth opens. Harumi Taniguchi’s borderline obsession with Mei is incredibly obnoxious to watch. Oh and who can forget about Matsuri? It seems the show tries to make the audience hate her as much as possible. The Tachibana sisters introduced in later episodes are hardly likable either with their oddball personalities. The point is, most of these characters are one dimensional and hardly develops. In fact, I would say the characterization in this show really shoots itself in the foot with how certain episodes conclude. And that’s too bad really.

Besides the characters and story, it seems Citrus loves to service the fans. While it’s not as explicit as some scenes in the manga, there’s quite a bit of kissing in the show. If you fancy make out scenes and yuri fan service, then this might be the type of show for you. I’m not going to lie though, it can be a bit of guilty pleasure at times. However, it gets tedious fast and after you’ve seen it a dozen times, it almost feels senseless. That being said, Citrus does do what it’s intended to do: bring out teenage feelings from characters and making a trite soap opera out of it.

If there’s one thing to smile upon Citrus, it would definitely be the visual quality. To put it simply, the show is vibrant, colorful, and is full of life. The character designs are attractive and really enhances the feminine charms of the cast such as Yuzu and the Tachibana sisters. The way characters expresses their emotions is also highlighted through the choreography that’s hard to ignore. In many ways, the technical quality of Citrus is a sight for eyes to feast on. Whether it’s the fan service or characters themselves, it’s definitely there to impress.

There’s not too much to go on about soundtrack as both theme songs gets its point across with the teenage drama style performance. However, the character voice mannerism is what makes some of the characters feel consistent with their roles. Yuzu is the most prominent example as she often speaks her mind and has a voice to match with her personality. Mei has a much colder voice tone that reflects her reserved persona. However, there’s also other characters that I can hardly stand whenever they speak. In particular, Matsuri’s voice sounds like she’s a 12 year old. Get ready for the ear plugs…

By the time I finished Citrus, I had to question myself why the anime is even called that. The literal definition of Citrus is a type of fruit that has somewhat of a sweet and bitter flavor. Does that stand as a personification of the show’s themes? Who knows but I honestly find this show more than just bittersweet. What could have been a chance to make monumental history turned into a sour experience.

If you're a queer woman looking into this anime and hoping for some decent representation like queer men got with Yuri on Ice!, then I would suggest not even watching the first episode of this, because it's not just a disappointment, it's a goddamn disgrace.

Just the first episode alone contains multiple scenes of sexual harassment and assault, and even worse, the way they're played off is always either comedic or fetishized! (Not to mention that the two main characters are step-sisters, which makes all of this even more disgusting). I didn't expect much from this show, considering all I'd heard about it was from ... male yuri fans who also thought "Sakura Trick" was good, but trust me, this went even lower than I thought it would.

If you're a wlw, especially if you're a young one and don't know what unhealthy relationships look like yet, I warn you to steer clear of this show.

However, if you're a non-LGBT person who likes to fetishize gay people like the disgusting excuse of a human being you are, then you'll probably enjoy this.

I try to complete it. Citrus is just hard to watch. The characters act without any thinking, consent is not even existing, I think. The dialogues are often cringy and contribute nothing to the story. I don't know the original source, so I can't compare it, but the Anime itself is according to my thinking: a trainwreck, which tries too hard to be relatable in some sort, but fails horribly.
The art is mediocre, nothing too special, but still good to look at.
I wouldn't recommend it, especially to those, who prefer story over fanservice yuri scenes.
I'm actually disappointed. I expected nothing and still - Disappointment

Not a lot can be said of this anime except that it was literally written to fetishize lesbian women.

To begin with, the story is basically 100% trash. There's nothing really redeemable about it. It's about a girl who basically sexually assaults her step-sister. After a while, her step-sister thinks it's love. That's pretty much it. NOTHING ELSE HAPPENS. Even as someone who indulges in shoujo, I really hate the sexual assault tropes that they try to normalize.

The art is the only part I have no complaint about. Everyone is gorgeous and the backgrounds are so well done that I wished I could just ... watch it on mute half the time. Not to mention that all the characters' eyes were simply breathtaking.

The sound could have been better. The opening and closing theme were a little annoying and they just got on my nerves. The voices of the characters were alright.

Oh god, the characters. There is no development. Whatsoever. The characters are stagnant, fetishized stereotypes of lesbian women (or pan, as it seems in Sara's case) and there's nothing beyond that. After watching this, I feel uncomfortable knowing it probably served as something for people with a lesbian fetish to jerk off to and nothing else. There is no plot or characters pretty much-- this anime exists purely for those who looks for lesbian smut and nothing else.

I didn't enjoy this. I dreaded watching the episode every weekend as it came out. It was terrible. I watched a lot of airing anime this year (which I usually don't do) and this was always the worst part of my weekend, spent banging my head against a wall and going "why?". As one of those OCD people who has to finish all the shows I start, this was torture for me.

I would recommend this if you: like lesbian smut for the sake of having girlxgirl in it, like the classic sexual assault trope, like the pretty art

I would NOT recommend this if you: are big on consent, were looking for real romance, wanted real plot, wanted real characters/character development, hate fetishism of sexuality

I wish I had read an honest review about this before I started watching. Anyways, have a great day everyone!

I have never, in my life, felt this compelled to write a review about an anime. I was on board with citrus for the first 75% of the anime, I really was, before I realized why I'd had this weird tinge in the back of my brain that made me ultimately uncomfortable with the entire anime.

It's not the stepcest, it's not the pushing each other around and pulling at each others clothes although it's still pathetic how yuri and sexual assault go hand in hand in anime.

No, it was the fact that the main character, Aihara Yuzu, is the classic abusive relationship victim. She's not ... the perfect protagonist, and she makes her mistakes, but she without a DOUBT, makes solid leaps and bounds early on in character progression. She sees her mistakes, she sees her faults, and she actively works on herself in an effort to appease and comfort Mei.

In turn, Mei rewards her by treating her like garbage at almost every step. What is once seen as being shy, or reserved, turns into full mental and verbal abuse towards Yuzu. Every time Mei seems to make some sort of character progression, she undermines herself by reverting back to being terrible towards Yuzu who is always, actively, trying to help create some sort of peace.

Even the near psychopathic side loli character ends up being more redeemable than Aihara Mei.

Yuzu does NOT know when to stop, and give up. In my opinion, that should've been very early on in the anime. It's almost uncomfortable to watch her be consumed almost obsessively by this love for Mei that Mei doesn't really shoot down. Yuzu is being led on and taken advantage of for a large portion of this anime.

I'd say watch this anime, if only you want to learn more about what abusive relationships look like so you can better see signs of it in your day to day life and try to help anyone suffering in an abusive relationship.

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAIN SPOILERS

Citrus is a Girls Love story where we learn about Yuzu and the development of her romance with Mei, at least this is what the premise tells us. Unfortunately, this show quickly lost all the attributes that could have made it different from others Girls Love stories. Let's analyze the main problems that this program presented:

1. Yuzu's development: During the first episode, we saw her enrolling to a new institute becuause of her mother's new engagement. The rules of this place were strict and very conservative and this constrasted with Yuzu's personality. To this point the story sounded cool beacuse there ... was a lot of potential with how Yuzu can adapt to this new lifestyle in the institute and, of course, with the new members of her family. Well, this potential was thrown away in the same episode. Despite that she was warned about her current clothing, she continued going to the institute with the same clothes making a contradiction of the rules of the "strict" institute. We saw her being a carefree girl when she spoke about her priorities at her new institute. We saw, also, this attitude reflected with her interactions with her classmates and the student council director. Later, Mei was introduced and she decided to touch some parts of Yuzu's body and this characterization started to fade away. It is revealed to us, later, that Mei would be Yuzu's new stepsister, yes, fucking convenient and, after that, Mei decided kiss Yuzu and, from now on, Yuzu was rewritten as an one dimensional girl in love who only want to bed with Mei and a fan service source. Are you seriously going to tell me that by a kiss all of Yuzu's characterization was modified? Couldn't she ask herself, in the first instance, her doubts about his sexual inclination and, progressively, fall in love with Mei as in any real life romance, especially if it is this type of GL romance? No fucking idea. In adittion, the show clearly indicated that Yuzu was a straight girl seeing her bad reaction to knowing that she was going to an all-girls institute, so the fact that she fell in love with and obsessed with Mei for a simple kiss, without rethinking her sexual orientation for even a few minutes, makes things even worse.

2.Conflict avoidance: This show, I don't know why, tried to avoid any type of conflict that can have lead to a good character development and, instead, made worse the quality of the same. For example, Mei's grandfather was introduced as a character who strongly opposed a possible relationship between Yuzu and Mei during the second episode, however, minutes later in the same episode, he simply forgave her by lifting the penalty she had received and this conflict ended. The worst thing is that, after this, the grandfather had no relevance to the plot. This formula was repeated during the next episodes. A new random character was introduced in order to interfere with the relationship between Yuzu and Mei, the conflict was resolved in the way that suited the script best and Yuzu and Mei ended up without making any progress in their relationship, even, in many cases, it seemed that they ended up hating each other even more. Also, the random character introduced disappear from the scene permanently and the cycle repeats.

3. Mei: She's just a manipulative edge girl that tried to torture Yuzu because her dark past with the abandon of her father. This doesn't have any type of sense. To begin with, Yuzu is a person she has just met, there is no need to escape her anger and repression with her, did she not think of going to a psychologist for professional help? Mystery. Mei's family had a lot of money, so paying for a professional shouldn't have suppose a problem if you ask me. This show, also, gave us a terrible message about toxic relationships because while Mei treated Yuzu worse, the second, for some illogical and stupid reason unknown to me, falls more in love and gets more horny for her. It is not that the series tries to criticize or point out this type of relationship as something negative since it focuses more on the fanservice scenes and that the viewer inserts himself into the character of Mei in this case, telling us that while we treat the couple badly and we give him/her a simple kiss, he/she will fall in love and he/she will be much more faithful to us. Terrible.

Another aspect that I really disliked about her is the fact that Yuzu always apologize to her for... nothing, because most of the time the problems are Mei's fault by not doing anything for the relationship unless a third person was involved, so yes, she had no real interest in Yuzu. It's an one side romance that didn't go anywhere thanks to the inexistent character development from both sides to this point.

4. Ending?: After the first episode, the show limited to be an episodic one with the formula presented in the second point, trying to force the viewer to watch the manga to see if they are finally established as a couple in one point, aka, cliffhanger. The worst part is that none of them had any significant development, Yuzu kept making the same mistakes without learning from them (like dressing inappropriately at the institute), Mei was still an edgy girl who tried to justify her behavior with her past. So, it's very hard to find hope that the manga (in case you haven't seen), will be able to solve this basic flaws in the characterization.

CONCLUSION

It's a terrible anime that wasted all the potential that it had after the first episode focusing more in the fanservice and the cheap melodrama instead of make a proper character and romance development.

*spoilers, language* trigger warning: sexual assault, incest, and harmful stereotypes of lesbians

Let’s talk about problematicism. This isn’t a word, but if it was, let’s go ahead and slap it on Citrus. That’s what this show is, problematic in every way but its core. Let’s slap dreadful and sickening on there as well.

Citrus, at the surface, is a simple show that could go to many places narratively. We then meet the MC. Yuzu Aihara just stepped out of an 80s movie/ poorly written Episode story (props to you if you know what those are) and has entered a new, private all-girls school. Her mother was ... recently divorced and remarried to the son of the Chairmen of the School, whose daughter is the student council president. So we’ve got a typical start of a romance school anime, nothing out of the ordinary here.

However, not ten minutes in, after an OP that sounds like it has been pulled out of the bucket of standard anime OPs and riddled with incestuous hints at what’s to come (aren’t you just so excited?), is a scene where Yuzu, as she is arriving on the school campus, and in many violations of this school’s strict dress code, is explicitly touched sexually, without consent, mind you, by the student council president, whose name we later learn to be Mei. Mei’s hands are everywhere a stranger’s hands shouldn't be, and Yuzu has repeatedly said “stop, leave me alone”. That probably just took you off guard since, you know, her stepsister just sexually assaulted her. And she just walks away like it was nothing.

I wish I had counted how many times a character sexually assaulted another character in this show. I am positive I couldn’t count it, on one hand, let alone two. And it’s not just the occasional throw of the skirt or grope, it’s full-on, I’m ripping off your shirt and trying to kiss you while having an emotional break down by BOTH of the MCs, Yuzu and Mei alike. And this continuously happens throughout this excruciating series. None of the characters get any sort of punishment, chastisement, NOTHING to even point out that their behavior is predatory and wrong by any of the other characters, mostly because the two who are doing it to each other are stepsisters and have come to terms with the fact that is just a part of their sisterly relationship. But the point still stands, sexual assault should not occur this often in anime where it is glossed over and used as a plot point to further the story.

But I digress, and I shall continue to my next qualm with this anime. Due to this show’s status as a romance anime, it is, naturally, going to be character-driven. Character-driven shows usually aren’t hard to pin down. As a writer myself, I find it much easier to create character-based stories, especially if I am writing romance. But the characters, in a character-driven story, need to, you know, have character. Firstly, let’s discuss Mei Aihara, the chairman’s biological granddaughter and, to put it simply, the most fucked-up character of this show. In the first episode, she kisses Yuzu without explanation after it is revealed that they are going to be living together because of her mather’s remarriage to Mei’s father, and Yuzu confronts her about her romantic relationship with their teacher that she witnessed. Mei claims she is clueless because she has not been kissed, so she shuts her up with a big ole, unconsented smooch, leaving Yuzu writhing in confusion, but also arousal as it is portrayed. But this doesn’t stop here. Oh no, there is still more incest to come. At the end of the third episode, Yuzu visits Mei after she has been taken away by her grandmother due to Yuzu’s embarrassment of the family name, and while they are having just sisterly “come back home” talks, Mei throws Yuzu on the bed and rips her top open, beginning to cry as she attempts to make physical contact with her stepsister. And then, more simple things, she calls her father “professor” because he teaches her so much, she can’t make up her mind about what she wants to be with Yuzu. She never shows emotions and is constantly leading the characters in this show on, just to throw them off when push comes to shove. Mei Aihara needs HELP, this character is irredeemable. The only redeemable character, to be frank, is Yuzu’s best friend who has to put up with all these character’s bullshit, props to her.

For my final point, I’m going to touch on something that this anime contributes to on a wider scale, harmful LGBTQ+ stereotypes, especially towards women who are attracted to women. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll say lesbian. Lesbians are constantly suffering from the stereotype of being called predatory, promiscuous, or just sick and messed up in the head. So for this show to just come out of the water with lesbians who are sexually assaulting their stepsister is frankly appalling. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself, this show genuinely makes me sick at my stomach because the people who watch this without being aware of those stereotypes are going to take it at face value and think all lesbians are like the girls in Citrus. This show is hurtful and harmful to lesbian representation in anime, and the folks over at Studio Passione need to learn from their mistakes.

Was there anything good about this anime? Other than the animation, I can’t think of any. The pure idiotic writing of this show sucks the life out of you as you watch it. I binged it, and I can honestly say, do not binge this show. If you want to watch it and get it out to the way to laugh how bad it is, then do it, but take caution cause this show is downright awful in so many ways. I hope to see this show in the dictionary definition of these words: problematic, dreadful, sickening. That’s what this show is.

Out of 100 Nobles watching...
42 were impressed.
35 got sick of the durdling plot.
15 just want characters in shows to be humans acting like humans doing human things instead of weird aliens acting like what their science division determined what they think humans WOULD act like.
8 would like Yuzu to have more lines of dialogue than just "Mei!"

Straight to the point. Citrus presented an interesting concept for a romance story. Our Gyaru protagonist (woo!) Yuzu falls in love with her new-to-the-family slightly younger step sister. The show sets up a plot that would have this couple face the problems that come with this sort of ... relationship as well as Mei's (the younger step sister) obligations to her biological family. If the show stuck to this it could have been something really powerful and probably had a lasting impression on me. The show didn't keep things simple though. Instead the story fell back on the worst kinds of romance tropes with each arc introducing some new character to throw a wrench in the protagonists relationship.

Instead of focusing on a story that was well grounded in reality we delve into strange melodramatic tropes and reasoning's for character actions and it just comes off feeling hollow. Something every romance must do is balance the conflict in it's story. If things get too heavy or absurd than the suspension of disbelief allowed for immersion is broken, or the viewer will get frustrated at characters not acting like sane human beings. Citrus absolutely failed in this regard.

The OP and ED was fairly typical and nothing to write home about and the same few tracks were recycled for the entire show. The art style had a really indistinguishable shoujo look. With a bland visual aspect the story needed to carry this one but the relationships exampled in this story were just plain toxic with the exception of Harumi Taniguchi who was a pretty legit friend in all honesty.

Citrus was like a waiter carrying a platter with a fresh and interesting Yuri romance to my table, but on their way over they kept stopping at other people's tables, forgetting what order was mine and bringing me the wrong thing. I only have so much patience and Citrus really tested it. I completed the meal, but have no intention to come back for more.

Being a fan of yuri is hard, atleast when it comes to anime. The list of all yuri shows is very, very short, and most of them suck real bad. And so every new show that resolves around such themes always gets a lot of attention. With Citrus, the expectations were big. But sadly enough, it didn't fullfil many of them.

For what made Citrus so interesting to begin with is that it's the first full-on yuri show without the element of moe in a long time. Now that's not saying that I don't like moe, actually it's the complete opposite, but seeing a show that ... tries to add a bit of drama and reality into it's greater themes really did lit up the fire of expectations, for both, the fanservice and the story. And the story, for the most part, is the main reason Citrus as an anime completely failed in what it tried to do.

It resolves around the relationship of new step-sisters, Yuzu and Mei, who don't get along very well at the start. It's just a matter of time before Yuzu, the more lively out of the two, gets kinda obsessed with her sister and after sharing their first kiss, falls in love with her. However, Mei has a lot more admireres than Yuzu thinks and that is soon to be revealed... While the story doesn't try to be very complicated, you can't but feel that not much thought had been put into it. It it completely shallow, without a clear original idea and even though the promised drama is kinda there, it is actually the thing pushing the whole anime down. The way story develops is also very questionable, as instead of focusing on it's main couple, the anime constantly brings-up weird and non-relevant characters that somehow manage to create a fuss between the girls.

Propably the best way to describe the character cast would be saying that they're just not very impressive. Starting with the better, Yuzu is not a terrible main lead. She has this outgoing and dumb personality which I was never a really big fan of, but since it's so common in RomComs I kinda got used to it at this point. There are not many positive things that I could mention about her but she's just the kind of girl that is hard to really hate. Unlike some of the other characters. For example the second main lead, Mei. Who is, by any means, a bad character as a whole. Her melancholic attitude, her bitchy assertiveness and even her forgettable design all forge a very uninteresting character whom I couldn't care less about. The way she makes the biggest poor soul out of herself while constantly mentioning her somehow depressing past, which is by the way not depressing at all, is also not a very good way of making such a shallow character look better.

While the supportive cast was supposed to have positive impact on the growing relationship of Yuzu and Mei, by throwing some dramatic moments into their faces, they didn't really deliver either. There is Himeko, who started off as the biggest and most annoying Tsundere ever while also being a student coucil vice pres which is great combination indeed (sarcasm). Then there is Matsuri, who is supposed to be one of those bitch-ass characters. The problem with her is that her bitchiness is on the complete wrong side of things. I mean, comparing her to Akane from Kuzu no Honkai for example, Matsuri losses that battle on every line. She, unlike Akane, uses pretty lame tactics to get attention, her reasons to do so are not really valid and overall she just acts like a total kid. I mean, she doesn't just act, she literally is a kid. There is hope tho, and that is Harumin. Thank god for once atleast a little likeable character that saved many episodes purely by showing her friendly and funny attitude. There are also those two twin sisters who appear towards the end of the show, but since their addition worked only as another reason for Mei and Yuzu to argue and then make-up, they were pretty much completely irrelevant.

I mentioned drama, right? Yes, I did. On the scale of forcing Drama, Citrus would propably rank somewhere around the likes of Kuzu no Honkai, which I mentioned already I know please don't kill me for it. Which in itself wouldn't be such a problem, if the drama was the show's only goal. The mentioned Kuzu no Honkai, for example, was undoubtedly a very over-dramatized show. However, because the drama (and sex, but these two were related) was the show's only intention from the start, it was able to take it's sweet time with it and actually make it good. Which is the main problem of Citrus. It doesn't take it's time with anything. The jumps between comedy, drama and kissing are way too damn fast and unlogical to the point where you'll never even take the dramatic moments seriously, because they were literally trying to make you laugh like half minute ago. The cycle of every episode is almost always the same too. Starts off lightly, then something occurs, then Mei gets mad, then Yuzu cries for whatever reason, then she saves the day and then they kiss. And it's like that for the majority of the show.

Another area in which Citrus does terribly at is building relationship, which is something RomComs should be all about. Seeing your favourite couple coming from a blushing duo to full-on lovers mode is an important development aspect to this kind of anime. Citrus however, does it all wrong. Instead of resolving the whole story around Yuzu and Mei and giving them the time to fully develop their relatioship by themselves, the show constantly introduces new random characters that create some love drama through which then tries to continue the story. Not only this kind of appoach won't work because the ones pushing the story are not those who should, it also takes away any kind of satisfaction the moment they actually end up together, because outside of some rare moments, they just haven't had any remarkable time to set-up this kind of ending.

Credit where credit is due tho. What I really liked for example are the personal changes of some characters. Himeko in particular. You see, she starts off as the biggest and loudest Tsundere ever, but as soon as she gets rejected, she redeems herself and becomes a fairly respectable character for the rest of the show. Which is a good change compared to other harem-like animes when even the characters who get harsly rejected never actually stop with their sexual intentions. I also already mentioned that Harumin was a very likeable character herself and I loved whenever she appreated on the screen.

The whole yuri fanservice also wasn't very bad. Once I started ignoring the complete unlogicalness of the kissing situations, I got to enjoy them quite a lot. Though it's needles to say that there is almost no way of fucking up this sort of thing. Two girls kissing each other will always be hot. I still feel like they could've pushed the whole fanservice a bit further tho, and it's also a shame that Harumin never got any.

The overall art was good, but not anything breathtaking. The scenes look polished and clean, but little is actually animated and almost every background is just a static image. I should also add that the character desings weren't very appealing to my eyes. They were either forgettable or just not very well looking. The fact that a lot of characters were using earrings, which is a thing I hate in and outside of anime, didn't help the whole art situation either. And the sound was.. okay, I guess? I don't really know. The voice-acting wasn't the worse but I can't even remember if the show had an OST, which means it had but it was just very shallow and beyond forgettable.

----

Citrus had a tough task coming into anime. There are tons of yuri fans, but only a handful of yuri anime. And having to adapt one of the more popular yuri manga didn't lower the expectations either. Even though however, Citrus as an anime fails at almost everything it tries to do. It's drama is not good, it's comedy is not funny and it's characters didn't hit the spot either. It still somehow manages to make the thing we all want, that being girls kissing each other, but that is just not enough.

So is the closure of Citrus, an anime that tried to bring drama into the world of only moe yuri, but failed miserably at it's quest along the way.

Utter nonsense. I tried very hard to be lenient while watching this show but it's an embarrassment. I pretty much knew what I'd rate this show as soon as Matsuri was introduced.

Entirely unrealistic and the climax is a major letdown considering the ridiculous amount of plot points that came out of nowhere to add tension. Too many random makeout scenes (that are actually extremely rape-y). Matsuri is deranged, and the sexualization of her character is pathetic. Not sure where the show was trying to go with the sugar daddy subplot. Just way too many bizarre scenarios are excused and forgiven for seemingly no reason at ... all aside from moving on to the next absurd thing.

Very, very bad. Citrus seesaws between boring, stiff dialogue and creepy, obscene lesbian interactions. There is no in between. And no payoff, either.

I'm gonna preface this by simply saying I'm a bisexual transgender woman so I just kinda GET it. I know how important representation of LGBT is..

That being said I constantly have an issue with certain forms of media being seen as better simply because it represents LGBT and you can bet my ENTIRE ass that I definitely count this anime under the "bad but people like lesbians" category.

You know what this anime involves? Girls forcing each other into kisses. Which by all accounts is literally sexual assault and I hate that.

I actually don't know what to say without going onto a rant, but I was ... really hoping this anime was a good yuri anime, instead it gets praised so much for being one that some people don't realise it actually kinda blows.

The animation itself is nice to look at though, and for those that want fan service... It has it.

This is a lame review and I'm realising this now I'm writing it, but I still hope people can understand my opinion regardless.

Ah Citrus, how a disappointment you were. Some of my friends got me hyped up into Citrus after how shitty that NTR Yuri anime were (Netsuzou Trap). I don't know if this anime adaptation just sucks compared to the manga, because my friends kept telling me that it was very good. But after finishing this anime, I'm really doubting it. I'll try not to write spoilers, but you are warned.

Let's start with the introduction: Aihara Yuzu is a "rebel" girl that always lied to her friends telling them that she has a boyfriend and that everything is going so great between them, after moving to ... another highschool that only features girls (girl only highschool) things starts to change. The main reason why she moved was because her mother got engaged to a man whose father is the director of the school. After being scolded by many girls (of the school committee and teachers) she finds a male teacher that cheers her up. After some events Yuzu spies on that male teacher because reasons, and finds up that he is having a "private" time with that girl of the committee that scolded her, and this is were everything begins. I don't remember that much, but I believe that Yuzu after hearing some rumors about their relationship being "forced" she went by herself and argue with that girl (which name is Mei) and voala, Mei kisses Yuzu for no apparent reason. (This should give you an idea of how Mei is) Then after some events, her mother tells Yuzu that the daughter of her new father is going to stay at home, and what a surprise, that girl is Mei.

That pretty much sums up what the first episode were. At first glance, I was okay with that, Yuzu trying to sort her feelings after knowing Mei was her sister and thinking a lot about that kiss Mei gave her. But everything goes downhill beyond this point, why? Well this anime seems to have the most retarded and generic stories ever. Each time Yuzu starts to get closer to Mei, someone appears and slowdowns their "development" just to spice that "drama"(a very cringe inducing drama I must say) That serves no purpose whatsoever but to destroy their relationship where the one at fault is always Yuzu.

Each episode, this show just gives me even more reasons to punch Yuzu in her face because of how stupid and submissive she is. I mean, being submissive is not a bad thing at all, it is cute in a certain way, but in this case is very infuriating and cringe inducing. Her whole personality is the same as your typical generic harem protagonist. They always want to be nice with everyone. So it doesn't matter if someone does bad things against her, she will stupidly smile at them and forgive them for no apparent reason. I mean, if a "friend" of mine comes at me full of jealousy and tries to destroy the relationship I have with someone I like, I would probably be really mad at her while leaving things clear between us, and if that doesn't work, nothing that cutting ties with that "friend" won't do.

Even worse, Mei is a fucking bitch, no matter how excused she is, or how sad her background is, she won't be forgiven on my book. Each time Yuzu fucks up, Mei won't listen to her and will go around acting like bitch and submit herself with whoever she finds (in this case girls that comes to "spice" the drama), what makes it worse is that Mei harasses Yuzu each time she has the chance which is very cruel for Yuzu who is trying to reach her heart. This is were Yuzu's submissive being ruins everything, If it weren't for that, she would have move on and hang out with someone else, for example Harumin (which is best girl btw), but no, not matter how son of a bitch Mei is, Yuzu will always forgive her. And here I thought that Matsuri was the one that deserved to be hated the most, but that price goes for Mei.

The Animation and Sound department doesn't hold any interesting to talk of.

Enjoyment 6/10: Even if what I said sounded like I were dying by watching this, this anime is quite enjoyable if you forget what is happening. I mean, the fan service itself is enough for that matter if you know what I mean ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

Overall 4/10 (more specifically 4,4): Harumin is best girl.

No matter how bad it seems stuff is going, it will always end up in the most perfect scenario to help progress the plot and relationships, That was probably how this anime/manga was created.

With that way of progress it was easy to take this easily and not be disappointed by the anime, I knew that as no matter what happens everything will fall perfectly till the characters get back to being normal and that is probably one of the reasons people could hate this anime.

Tho the plot isn't great but it was not horrible as well as the relationships between the characters progresses in ... a weird pattern, reasonable at times and forced at other times, the story was also all over the place and very random most of the time yet somehow I wasn't annoyed or bored watching all that for some reason.

Most of the characters are good like Yuzu, Harumi, the mother and the 2 sisters that appeared later on while characters like Mei, the vice president and Matsuri I have conflicted feelings towards them, Mei and Matsuri felt weird to me because I didn't know what they were supposed to be feeling or acting like, they were made to be this cool deep-thinking characters yet they acted in completely random ways most of the time and the Vice president felt like a pushover character rather than an actual character that isn't shallow.

The art and the OSTs are very good but the animation is bad and very laggy at times which was very annoying.

Overall : 4/10.
The anime has lots of flows and could easily be hated yet I didn't really hate it and that's why I gave it a 4.

I Wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

I find it sad this Citrus is the most popular (not exactly in a good way) Girl love anime. It’s a terrible depiction of any sort of romance. Frankly I’m just disappointed the manga is just as bad if not worse. But as I’m on a goal to watch all the yuri anime (and this was my first stop) I must try my best to not turn this review into an angry rant.

Romance 1/10
For people who want Yuri recommandations (or just a good romance recommendation) and are wondering if this is a good GL series, I can say with confidence that it is not. ... Pretty much all the romantic scenes are clear fetishization of a lesbian relationship (if you can even call it that) Sexual assault is treated as something that’s meant to be arousing and the relationship development between the two main characters is laughably bad. The one good point for the romance category is that there is actual physical intimacy (consensual or not) such as kissing and handholding and it’s well animated.

Story 4/10
In its 12 episodes, Citrus manages to fetishize every relationship going as far as to depict scenes that are clearly sexual assault as something that’s acceptable and even romantic/arousing. I don’t even want to start about the incest (which is one of the least offensive parts) It layers on so many coats of drama that it just becomes a hilariously terrible watch. The story does develop at an alright pace for all that that’s worth. Overall the story is nothing remarkable, it’s a bad slice of life when stripped to its core.

Characters 5/10
The main character Yuzu is your typical gyaru character who just wants to have a good high school life until she is basically sexually assaulted by the student council president Mei, later to revealed as Yuzu’s step sister. The two main characters have ok personalities, fleshed up well enough for them being thrown into such a plot. Their interactions (outside of the sexual ones) are realistic enough. The side characters are more there to add to the drama than anything else. If they’re not part of it they really aren’t that all memorable.

Animation/Sound/Voice Acting 6/10
The animation is arguably the best part of this anime (not really saying much though) not in terms of what they are animating but just in general. The sound design is very forgettable. The Voice acting was well done, props to the voice actors for actually wanting (and doing a good job) to voice in this shit show.

Enjoyment 3/10
If you want to watch a train crash in 12 episodes (with most of them being unimportant) go for it. If you’re looking for a good girls love series that covers LGBTQ+ topics well forget about this series and go watch bloom into you or something.

Anyone who stumbled upon Citrus and is hoping for it to be a sweet and realistic girl x girl romance -- run while you still can.

This anime was overhyped as the new forefront for shoujo ai anime, something to represent the minority of us who actually want to see a realistic romance between two girls falling in love but instead, what does it turn out to be?

Complete utter garbage, and anyone who is willing to give this anything above 3/10 is simply a prepubescent hormonal boy who gets off to typical ecchi shit.
Let me elaborate:

Story:
what story? girl transfers into all girls school, secondary MC ... comes in and molests MC under the guise of "inspection", and for some reason this sparks her sexual and romantic interest in her. Realistic and romantic right?

Character:
The MC and 2nd MC are just horny individuals who due to an even hornier author, believes themselves to be in love. every other character in the anime is a plot device and the author isn't afraid to violate them in any matter to compensate for how severely lacking this is. I mean, the "rival" is a middle school girl who engages in sexual behavior and gets money from old men.
** oh and said girl, was made into a straw villain (look into straw characters online) and the author pushed it so far that THOSE OF US WHO WERE DESPERATELY CLINGING TO THIS HOPING FOR A SWEET ROMANCE were traumatized.
How? for half an episode we were forced to into a suspense of whether the 2nd MC was going to turned into a prostitute for old men or not.

seriously? wtf...
It's bad enough that the characters in this anime run around forcefully kissing and molesting people like as if it was the norm. It was difficult enough tolerating a character set whose morals seem to be as if they were raised at a brothel.

Art:
This was horrible too, proportions would be what you would assume to be if someone was drunk while animating this. There were multiple moments where we were given an overhead view yet the characters were standing sideways, so if flipped to real perspective, they were walking tilted downwards by roughly 45 degrees.

Lest we forget how in ep 1 MC wanted to put her phone in her cleavage but realized she was flat, then in her shower scene she suddenly has at least
C cups. LOGIC :D

she appears to be average in terms of her butt too, but on certain occasions she could compete against Kim Kardashian. once again, LOGIC.

Sound:
Either they purposely made the VAs squeal out the most annoying sounds they could or the VAs were just as disgusted as I am about this anime and couldn't be bothered to try.

The OP and ED aren't bad though, I'll give it that.


Enjoyment:
Want to get shock therapy to try and forget this shit / 10

Overall:
Preteen boys would be so turned on by this / 10

I usually don't write reviews - I'm horrendous at them. But I don't understand how people are writing positive reviews for this, so I wanted to throw my two cents in. I feel like some reviews are trying to justify this shit BECOZ GAY.

I understand the LGBT community is an under-represented demographic, but why don't we demand something better than the atrocities we've been receiving recently?

I just want good yuri/BL anime. I don't ask for much apart from 'let them fall in love, believably, and have a relationship that works and doesn't cater to the fucking will-they-won't-they formula, PLEASE'. Bonus points for well-made romantic scenes. ... But I have been forcing myself through this garbage despite somehow knowing it would never improve. Whilst watching, I was completely indifferent, yet also mildly frustrated. I say 'mildly' as this anime evoked essentially nothing from me apart from the occasional hand-raise in a 'but why?' gesture.

The characters, I feel, are the worst offenders - astoundingly bland and flat, and the protagonist is the only one to have the ILLUSION of a personality. Mei, in particular, is such a baffling idea of a 'character' - dull rapeygurl disguised as a dull cliche honor student. I'm sick of the more recent yuri anime doing this - one character sexually assaulting the other, questionably causing said other to 'fall in love' with them, whilst creating the most uncomfortable viewing experiences possible. We had this garbage with Netsuzou Trap, and I just absolutely despise it. I don't see how people can try and justify this sort of shit instead of demanding more established and healthy relationships.

The 'relationships' between any of the characters feel forced and monotonous, and I can't appreciate any of them. The 'plot' has no outstanding substance, and there are so many contrived instances of 'but WHY did this happen, exactly?' that is emphasises how unnaturally the anime flows. The actual 'provocative' segments instead become discomforting anti-fap material, despite the obvious intention. The dialogue is boring and cringey. The art/character design is uninspired and unappealing. I don't even recall what the sound design was like.

Overall, I was so bored that I felt strangely detached whilst viewing this shit.

My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.

Citrus is sort of like a gore video. You know you shouldn't continue, you know it's only gonna get worse, you know you'll regret it, and yet you can't take your eyes off of it. The viewing experience turns into a sort of analysis of trying to pinpoint all the ways in which the show is terrible, and articulating them. Now that time has come to properly verbalize all these ideas for the 2-3 MAL users that will ever read these words. Shoutout to you guys, remember to upboat.

Citrus actually presents us with a pretty solid first episode. ... Sure, when you hear "all girls school" and "student council president", you should already have extremely loud alarm bells telling you to abort the mission. Despite that, it gave me a sliver of hope for what was to come. It had some funny elements, and the twist of the semi-rape by the teacher spiced things up and left me wondering if this could be some kind of dark abuse story. I could have been more wrong, but i would have had to go to great lengths, like thinking "hey communism sounds like a dank idea". Already from episode 2, the downward spiral begins, and the acceleration only comes to a stop on the final minute of the last episode, when the viewer smashes into the bottom of the barrel at breakneck speed, shattering whatever was left of his sanity.

Citrus boasts some of the worst writing I've ever seen in any television show ever, including School Days. The "characters" are just tools for the author to go through her check list of different girl-fan-service scenes. The "girl" qualifier here is important. You will get no tiddies, but you will get almost exclusively abusive semi-rape kissing scenes; because we know that's the only way females can get off (looking at you, 50 shades). Every single exchange of dialog is complete non-sense, characters routinely come and disappear without any kind of explanation. For example the teacher that was assaulting Mei in episode 1? You never hear about him again after that scene. Seriously. He presented his fan service, and having outlived his usefulness, was discarded by this dumpster tier "author" without even a mention.

This is the kind of show where conflict is ENTIRELY rooted in vapid feeling-based quarrels between the characters (see Scum's Wish, another prime example). And naturally, these trivial events are being portrayed as life-changing catastrophes, and we're supposed to buy it. Worry not, our precious characters will not be burdened by real issues such as poverty, violence, or illness. X said something that made me angry! Woe is me! It makes you wonder, is this really how women see the world? Is this the most touching source of drama they can conjure?

The bright side is that this allows you, the viewer, to play the "new character" game. The goal is simple : you have to guess when a new character will be introduced out of the blue. Citrus makes this very simple, you know that as soon the current petty feud comes to a close, the brilliant author will run out of ideas, and copy paste some bullshit new girl. I'm happy to report that i have properly predicted the apparition of almost all of the characters!

For instance near the end, this new character comes in. She becomes "shinyuu" (close friend) with heroine A within 1 day of meeting her. And, behold, she falls in love with heroine B within that same day, confesses to her, and B agrees to go out with her. They have all met in the last 24 hours. If this happened between boys and girls, it would already be completely fucking retarded, but the fact that all the interactions are homosexual drives the non-sense up to 11 and shatters any sense of reality. I'm willing to concede that of this extremely sloppy rushing may partly be due to the short anime adaptation. But there is still not even the sliver of a doubt in my mind : this author is an absolute idiot, and would get outdone by the majority of teenagers writing a short story for their 9th grade English class.

In light of all this, Citrus is a fun trainwreck. The stupidity is jaw-dropping. You won't be able to look away; you will want to know how bad it gets. And when you think you reached peak absurdity, it will get dumber. As a bonus, you have well drawn, beautiful girls to keep your eyes busy while you analyze the shitfest.

This is this decade's School Days; truly awful, but almost a must-watch for that reason.

I had never been happier to have finished an anime. Holy hell this was so bad. so so bad. It gave me a headache.

I finished this anime yesterday and even till today, I AM STILL UPSET ABOUT IT. I don't ever write reviews on anything, HECK i have received so many bad products and watched so many bad stuff in my life, that i never ever wrote a review for; but holy hell i just feel like i have to do this to save the hassle to someone else who will waste their time watching this.

The story is just so- plain. Sexual ... assault in pretty much every episode is a theme, big yikes! clearly this show is just fanservice. Should've been named how many girls can one of the main chars kiss by the end of the show. The development of the story is so frustrating. the fact that every single episode just frustrated me and it had this hint of ntr every few episodes really just made me absolute hate it.

Being fair; the animation, buildings, background and overall art, was really beautiful! I wish most shows would put the effort that these series put into it, because it was stunning.

However all that; just, completely becomes irrelevant to such a poor story full of fanservice and the need to again- include some sort of sexual assault in every scene the two main characters are in.

I didn't feel emotionally attached or empathetic to the characters because they were all so plain, typical and just boring.

The thing that upset me the most was how poorly they develop as a character, there is zero character development throughout the whole thing until the very end. and it wasn't a very noticeable character development.


When i watch a show of any genre, the one thing i value the most is story and how characters grow throughout the episodes and you feel their growth, that growth that just makes you want to keep watching. This anime HAS NONE OF THAT.

~possible spoiler here~
THE TWO MAIN CHARACTERS:

Mei, has a beautiful face and the art is once again very beautiful. but she really, just is plain, boring, sexually assaults the other main to help with her" struggles and frustration, KISSES LIKE 5 PEOPLE, 5 DIFFERENT PEOPLE AND DATES SOMEONE SHE MET LIKE 1 DAY AND FOR LIKE A FEW MINUTES. I just cANNOT with her. I understand her struggles and her backstory but that doesn't justify how much of a b-word she can be. Worse, is that she's like this THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE SERIES. Only smiled like- one time before she somewhat finally took her head out of her a*s.

Yuzu, the other main character is straight up dumb. She is certainly a kind person, but she's also really f*****g stupid. She starts to magically like the person who sexually assaulted her - multiple times- and keeps falling under the trap of all these other girls that are trying to take advantage of her and shes just so OBLIVIOUS of everything thats happening. Jesus Christ. it's so FRUSTRATING!!!!!


In summary; i hate everything about this show. All 12 episodes made me ANGRY.

I AM STILL ANGRY.