Citrus Review: The Yuri Manga Where Two Stepsisters Have No Idea How to Love Each Other

I picked up Citrus on a train ride home, expecting a soft, gentle girls-love story. The kind where two shy girls slowly hold hands by volume five. By the end of chapter one, Mei had already shoved Yuzu down and kissed her out of nowhere, and I sat there on the train blinking at my phone, completely thrown. This was not the quiet romance I thought I was getting. Citrus is messier, angrier, and more confused than that — and that confusion is exactly why it stuck with me. These two girls do not know how to love each other, and the manga is honest enough to show how ugly that can look before it becomes something real.

Quick Take

• Yuzu and Mei start from antagonism and a forced stepsister living situation, and the whole story is about two people who genuinely don't know how to communicate.
• It is drama-heavy yuri — arranged marriage, family expectations, rivals — not a slow soft slice-of-life romance.
• Rated M (Mature) for sexual content, a non-consensual kiss in the early chapters, and adult themes; this is not for younger readers.

Story Overview

Yuzu Aihara is a fashionable gyaru who transfers to a strict all-girls academy after her mother remarries. On day one she clashes with the cold, composed student council president who reprimands her for breaking dress code. Then she gets home and discovers that president — Mei Aihara — is now her stepsister, and they have to share a bedroom.

The turning point comes fast. In the very first chapter, after Yuzu pokes at Mei about a kiss she saw, a provoked Mei pushes Yuzu down and kisses her, then walks off leaving Yuzu alone and confused. From there the series chronicles the animosity slowly thawing. The big external conflict is Mei's family situation: she is the granddaughter and designated successor of the school's chairman, and is pushed toward an arranged marriage with a teacher, Amamiya, to secure the family's future. Yuzu refuses to let Mei be crushed under those expectations.

The ending wraps quickly — almost too quickly, which I'll be honest about later. Mei nearly accepts the arranged marriage out of duty, Yuzu fights for her, and in the penultimate chapter Yuzu finally tells their family about the relationship. Both mothers accept it fast, and the series closes on a wedding between Yuzu and Mei with brief shots of the other characters at the ceremony.

Characters

Yuzu Aihara is the loud, warm, fashion-obsessed heart of the story. She moves into a school that has no room for her personality, and instead of shrinking, she keeps reaching for Mei even when Mei gives her nothing back. Her arc is learning that her relentless warmth is actually what Mei needs, and finding the courage to defend that love in front of the whole family.

Mei Aihara is the stern, cold student council president — honor student, the chairman's granddaughter, and the designated heir to the school. She is so emotionally walled off she can't articulate what she wants, and she expresses herself through that abrupt first kiss rather than words. Her arc is the slow, painful work of admitting she has feelings at all, and choosing them over the duty her family has dropped on her.

Himeko Momokino is the student council vice-president and Mei's childhood friend, who is in love with Mei and very possessive of her. She becomes one of Yuzu's early rivals and obstacles.

Harumi "Harumin" Taniguchi is the friend who adopts Yuzu on her first day — perky, perceptive, easy-going, and the grounded outside voice the story needs. There is also Matsuri, a manipulative younger girl, and Amamiya, the teacher arranged to marry Mei who turns out to only want the family's money and status.

What I Love About It

The scene that won me over isn't a kiss — it's when Yuzu goes to confront the chairman, Mei's grandfather, and finds him collapsed on the floor instead. She doesn't gloat, doesn't hesitate, doesn't think about whether this old man has been cruel to the girl she loves. She gets him to the hospital. After that, Mei silently shoulders all of his workload on top of being student council president, grinding herself down with stress and exhaustion, and Yuzu watches her self-destruct out of pure duty.

What hit me is how this reframes the whole romance. Up to that point Citrus had been all heated misunderstandings and angsty pushing-and-pulling. But here Yuzu's love stops being about getting Mei to kiss her back and becomes about refusing to let Mei disappear into the role her family carved out for her. The Amamiya engagement is the same idea pushed to the limit — Yuzu literally takes a stage and exposes the teacher's affair in front of the whole school to break it. I grew up feeling like the people around me only valued what I could do for them, so watching Yuzu fight specifically for Mei the person, not Mei the heir, is the part of this manga I carry with me.

Memorable Scene ⚠️ Spoiler Warning

That first kiss in chapter one is the moment I can't unsee. Yuzu has just met this cold, perfect student council president, gotten reprimanded, and then learned she now lives with her. When Yuzu needles Mei about having seen her kiss someone — implying she's read Mei wrong — Mei snaps. She pushes Yuzu down and kisses her, hard and silent, then leaves her sitting there alone and bewildered.

On the page it lands like a slap, not a romance beat. There's no music swell, no confession, just Mei using the one act she can't put into words to shut Yuzu up and assert control. I keep coming back to it because it tells you everything about who these two are before they've said anything real: Mei is so locked up that intimacy comes out as aggression, and Yuzu's whole journey is teaching her that she doesn't have to do that. It's an uncomfortable opening, and the manga knows it — but it's also the most honest first chapter I've read in the genre.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• A complete 10-volume story with a real ending — no waiting around.
• Mei and Yuzu are a genuinely compelling pairing, defined by what they can't say to each other.
• The family-pressure and arranged-marriage stakes give the romance weight that pure school yuri usually lacks.

Cons:

• The early chapters lean hard on miscommunication and that non-consensual kiss, which a lot of readers find uncomfortable.
• The final two chapters rush — the family accepts everything almost instantly and secondary characters get no real closure, just wordless wedding shots.
• The step-sibling framing plus the messy power dynamics genuinely won't work for everyone, and that's fair.

Is Citrus Worth Reading?

If you want a soft, gentle, conflict-free yuri, this is not it. But if you want a complete girls-love drama about two emotionally clumsy people learning to actually love each other through family pressure and their own bad communication, Citrus delivers — especially once it moves past the angst of the early volumes into the grandfather and arranged-marriage arcs. Just go in knowing the opening is rough and the ending is rushed.

Where to Buy

Read the first volume. If it doesn't hook you, put it down. It'll hook you.

Start with Volume 1 →

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