Fashionable school girl needs to learn to fit in at her new, strict girls school while dealing with the sexual assaults of her new stepsister, the student council head.
Poor old Yuzu, for all her gyaru stylings, really is an innocent at heart and as such finds it hard to cope with Mei, who seems to use sexual assault as a weapon to avoid getting too close with Yuzu. It’s a horrible thing to do in any case, but it leaves Yuzu constantly wondering what her new little sister really thinks of her, as she earnestly tries to get along with her. Personally I partially blame her mother, falling in love with and moving in with a guy who immediately leaves the country, dragging Yuzu into a family for which “dysfunctional” would be an improvement. Should’ve done the research first, ma, but then there wouldn’t have been a series.
Mei then is a puzzle for Yuzu to solve, which’ll take her the rest of the series. So far every time she thinks she does understand her, Mei does something that makes her doubt herself. Even without Mei groping her out of the blue or suddenly going in for a kiss, Yuzu finds herself thinking of her, trying to figure her out. Mei randomly kissing her doesn’t help either, leaving her constantly worrying what it means. She isn’t sure yet if she actually likes Mei, let alone in that way and yet there she is again stuffing her tongue in her mouth.
Pseudo-incestuous sexual assault is what sells the series, what got the original manga its reputation. Normally that sort of thing would annoy me, but here it’s all part of the melodrama, so I can’t really take it seriously. Everybody’s emotions are screwed up to eleven anyway, so no wonder sexual assault is as common as saying hello in Citrus. Having read the source manga I know this aspect of the series isn’t really going away, though it gets better, as Mei is forced to confront her own issues more. What helps is that Yuzu is such a good, decent character, earnest and open with no side to her. It’s worth following Citrus just for her and her reactions.
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