I’ve finished watching both Citrus and Bloom into you and I want to review and compare the relationships (and plot). In this post I will talk about lesbians, teenage romance, consent and my own sexuality and experiences. If that’s something you do not feel comfortable with, please skip this post! Also beware because potential spoilers!
Okay so, both Citrus and Bloom into you focus on romantic relationships between young girls who are still learning about their own feelings and while I didn’t fall in love with either of these shows, I did like watching them (kind of)!? It felt like they both were flawed in different ways but nonetheless I found them somewhat entertaining. *I’m currently reading the manga but I’ll stick to the anime for this post! This post will not be a detailed review, so if you want me to do that please let me know!
Not gonna lie, Citrus was somewhat a mess!
While I kinda liked the concept and the character of Yuzu Aihara (please, wait and hear me out) I didn’t like the anime’s pacing at all. For me Yuzu was a fun character because she seemed extremely girly and silly but she wasn’t your average shallow princess.The character wasn’t at all like I thought she would be. She has spirit and is all happy and friendly while experiencing various insecurities. I liked how she cared a lot about her status and her appearance because many teenagers do feel like that, especially the younger girls. When I was a teenager I was very self-conscious about the way I looked and what others might think about me. Yuzu only knew her ‘basic’ straight girl-friends and wanted to fit in with them but to me, she never really appeared to be mean or completely ignorant. I liked how she didn’t know much about romance and her own sexuality and I could relate to her feeling like she’s missing out on something.
I started dating and exploring my own romantic feelings and sexuality later than most girls my age and it wasn’t easy! In hindsight, I think that Yuzu accepted her feelings and sexuality way too fast! When you and those around you basically identify as straight and let’s face it, this sexual orientation is the norm in society, it is very difficult to accept that you’re ‘different‘. I know that this isn’t the case for everyone but I think that for most people it would’ve taken them longer to accept that they are either bisexual or gay. The way I understood the anime Yuzu is gay but she did crush on that one teacher in the beginning, so I may be wrong.
I’m really not sure if Mei had serious romantic or sexual relationships with guys before but the main focus is the lesbian relationship between her and Yuzu. I was also surprised that Yuzu never had been with a guy but I actually liked that because it was refreshing and not every girl needs her first experiences to be with a guy. In fact, my first experiences were all with girls. The way her character was shown, I feel like Yuzu was mainly interested in girls or at least one girl in particular and I honestly liked that idea. Being attracted to someone and feeling confused about these new feelings is something I could relate to and I liked that.
What I didn’t like was the way these girls suddenly became sisters. Why? Two cute girls falling in love, nothing weird. No, they are sisters now! It’s not cute. To be fair they are not biological sisters but it still felt weird and unnecessary. They could’ve forced Yuzu to join the student council to make her fit in with the other girls at school or make Mei her tutor to make them spend more time together but the whole stepsisters and being forced to live together thing wasn’t my cup of tea. It’s a trope I’m not really fond of in general but especially in this anime it was not at all necessary and didn’t contribute much to the plot development. Maybe it did in a way but it didn’t make the plot any better.
The huge problem I had with Citrus was how the anime handled consent. There was a lot of forcing on each other with kisses and intimate touches. If I remember correctly, Yuzu has been the victim most of the time and it made me feel so uncomfortable. To be fair, she seemed to like the affection but there were scenes that made me feel like Yuzu was being straight up assaulted! Consent is a sensitive topic and personally, I think that it should be treated with care.
I hated how this anime handled consent and I really want to comment on that because I can’t stress enough how important consent is! Just because someone doesn’t verbalize their discomfort doesn’t mean that they are consenting. Please, make sure that your partner is comfortable with what you’re doing and talk about physical affections and such. When I was around seventeen years old me and my friends went clubbing and I met a woman a bit older than me. We were chatting for a bit and I quickly noticed that she was very drunk. Back then I was not really sure about my sexuality and felt insecure. The woman suddenly grabbed my face and tried to kiss me. I pushed her away and she got angry and started insulting me. I know this isn’t the worst thing to happen but back then it shocked me and I felt very uncomfortable. So, don’t take after Citrus when it comes to kissing, touching or anything else concerning consent.
Talking about Mei as a character all I can really say is meh. I don’t really like her because to me, she feels a little one dimensional but I can appreciate her quiet demeanor and her being under constant pressure. She needs to be perfect and disciplined all the time and hides her emotions to protect herself. Don’t get me wrong, I like the concept but I don’t think it worked in this anime. There were moments when Mei was pretty much molesting Yuzu (which by the way, is not okay) and then emotionally punishing her by saying things like: ‘I don’t care about you.’ or ‘I have no interest in you.’ Mei often appeared confident and sure of her sexuality while Yuzu was still confused by her feelings. Sure, this could be a front put up by Mei to shield herself from emotional pain but the anime didn’t convey that. It felt like Mei was explicitly trying to intimidate Yuzu by getting close to her physically and nope, I’m not feeling it! Of course, this could also be due to poor pacing but for me, that doesn’t really make it better.
In the end I didn’t care much about Yuzu and Mei’s relationship but for some reason I was a little happy that they ended up together!? Maybe, because I did like Yuzu as a character and felt like she deserved her happy ending or maybe because these girls had their sweet moments that made me feel like they were actually cute together. All in all, their relationship is not all bad and their personalities work together but the way they became a thing felt rushed and somewhat forced. They could’ve toned down the erotic scenes too. I don’t mind fan service and suggestive content but combined with my consent-issues in this anime it made me feel even more uncomfortable watching. In the first or second episode (I think) Mei and Yuzu bathe together and you can probably imagine the rest.
I’m not a big fan of Citrus for the reasons I’ve mentioned but I think that the characters had potential. Too bad the fast pacing, weird tropes and the whole consent issue did somewhat ruin the anime for me. I’m still glad that they featured two lesbian characters who fallen love with each other and show that a girly character like Yuzu doesn’t need a male love interest to work.
Bloom into you has a story line that is similar to that of Citrus but it takes a completely different turn. Yuu Koito is a young girl who doesn’t really understand love and after a guy has confessed to her she feels even more lost since she doesn’t feel anything. When she meets a beautiful girl named Touko Nanami she gets to join the student council and helps Touko run for student council president. Yuu secretly watches a guy confess to Touko (there’s a similar scene in Citrus) but Touko turns him down saying that she just isn’t interested in dating anyone. The two girls later talk about love and Yuu admits that she’s never felt anything resembling romantic feelings. Touko on the other hand, suddenly confesses to Yuu and says something like: “You talked about fireworks. I think that I’m feeling it now.” And damn, I loved this scene so much! It felt so strong and emotional despite coming out of the blue and I was sure that we’d get to see them get together in the beginning of the series and the rest of the anime shows their hardships and developing relationship but oh boy, I was not prepared. Because Yuu does not feel the same for Touko. There is no sudden mutual love but rather Touko openly verbalizing her romantic feelings for Yuu and Yuu staying by her side because it is what Touko wants. Even though, Yuu doesn’t really have any hope of ever falling in love.
I love the idea of a character like Yuu who needs time to get closer to someone when usually, there’s the whole love at first sight trope or the moment of realization in anime. Which in itself is fine and I can enjoy these as well but not everybody works that way. Personally, I like a slow burn romance when done well. In my opinion, Bloom into you did this much better than Citrus and managed to establish certain dynamics and character development. Yuu and Touko were more interesting than Mei and Yuzu because they actually talk about their relationship and grow closer as the anime progresses. Touko knows about Yuu not feeling the same way about her and while their relationship doesn’t seem to be utterly healthy it is still balanced simply because they communicate with each other. They talk about their issues even if it’s mostly Yuu pushing Touko to face her inner demons. Either way, Touko is very open and vocal about her romantic interest in Yuu and doesn’t touch nor kiss her against her will. Consent was handled so much better and it made me feel like these characters were developing a sincere relationship. There is one scene in the anime in which Yuu has lost a bet against Touko and Touko asked her to initiate a kiss. However, when she noticed Yuu’s obvious discomfort she drops the bet and doesn’t push Yuu into something that she is not comfortable with.
Yuu is a character I can relate to because it takes me much longer to develop trust and feelings for another person and I’ve never experienced that fire works moment either. Love can be slow and grow as you spend time with the other person. Yuu starts to care about Touko and develops feelings for her (romantic or not) when she learns who Touko really is. I liked the different sides of love expressed by the characters. There’s Touko who quickly feel in love with Yuu (resembling love at first sight), Yuu who is unsure of her emotions and doesn’t know how to grasp the concept of love and another character who appears to be asexual or at the very least aromantic. The character I’m talking about is Seiji Maki who is also part of the student council and finds himself invested in other people’s love lives but does not show interest in being romantically involved with anyone himself. He even says that he is incapable of falling in love and that he feels that Yuu is different. The way that the characters are presented in the anime they feel raw and that makes them seem real. The focus seem to be on emotions rather than sexuality. The story is about the slow burn romance and emotional growth and it shows that love is complicated and people can experience romance in a different way. Yuu doesn’t dislike Touko’s affections but she doesn’t feel the same love that Touko feels for her and that’s okay.
Another character I could appreciate (and this one surprised me) is Sayaka Saeki who works closely together with Touko and developed feelings for her. Sayaka resembles Mei in a way that she also seems more distant and quiet than the other characters but I liked how Sayaka dealt with her jealousy and feelings for Touko. There were side characters that were jealous of Yuzu and Mei’s relationship in Citrus but I honestly didn’t care about most of them. Sayaka experiences unrequited love and jealousy but she’s more mature about it and does not blindly obsess over Touko just to create an unnecessary sub plot.
When I started watching the anime I thought that I wouldn’t’ really care about the characters because Yuu was so bland and Touko seemed pretty generic as well but as I followed the story I started to get invested in the relationships and characters. It’s not like Bloom into you is perfect! The anime had moments that felt a litte dragged and I wasn’t sure if Yuu and Touko’s relationship is too unhealthy since it was very one sided in the beginning. Still, I think the anime is a nice representation for girl x girl relationships without sexualizing and fetishizing them. Just to be clear, I’m not saying that fan service is inherently bad or that two girls shouldn’t have sexy scenes but I think that sometimes these scenes are completely out of context and don’t make any sense. Personally, I can enjoy steamy scenes with characters that have great chemistry and are into each other but also, I don’t think these scenes should be forced and included just for the sake of it. There’s one episode that features Touko and Yuu in Yuu’s room and Touko implies that she’s also sexually attracted to Yuu and it felt authentic.
I guess I made it pretty clear that I prefer Bloom into You over Citrus and like I said, I believe that Bloom into you is more of an emotional, slow burn anime that focuses on love itself whereas Citrus is much more about sexuality and physical attraction. This is just my interpretation and I’m only talking about the anime! Sometimes anime plot differs from the original manga and nobody knows why because more often than not the changes suck but oh well.
I’m happy when media explores same sex relationships in a respectful way and I do think that it is very important to include the LGBTQ+ community much more in anime as well as other media. I’m not a spokesperson for this community but as a bisexual woman I do feel like representation is an important thing and contributes to the acceptance of all minorities. I don’t want to turn this into a social justice warrior blog post because let’s face it; all I want is to write about anime and manga. However, the perception of sexuality heavily depends on society and modern society is influenced by media. There are labels, expectations and categories everywhere and this causes a lot of pressure. When I was a teenager I felt very insecure about myself and my sexuality. I wasn’t sure if I was interested in sex at all and avoided both physical contact and romance for a very long time. I lied about being in relationships because I felt like I needed to do that to fit in with kids my age and I would not have known how to explain. For a very long time I thought that maybe I just don’t experience romance and hey, if that’s the case for you it’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with the way you feel and you don’t have to force yourself to do something you don’t want to. Asexuality is a thing and it’s just as valid as any other sexuality. As for me, I started crushing on girls and started dating. I noticed that I don’t care about gender all that much and that I just feel attracted to certain people. I know that this could also be seen as being pansexual but that’s not the point here. My point is that it’s okay not to put a label on your identity. I still don’t know all the answers and I refuse to choose a category because then it would be easier for other people to understand me. I wanted to share this because I think that it resonates with both Bloom into you and Citrus. Not knowing your sexuality and not knowing what love really is.
I’m sorry that this turned into a messy essay but I enjoyed picking apart the characters and motives. As always, these are my personal thoughts and interpretations. Did you enjoy one of the two anime? Or both? Or maybe neither? I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you so much for reading!
Patsie
Desudesuanimu 