English Dub Review: Citrus “love you only”

Mei finally gets a girlfriend – but it’s not Yuzu.

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Fresh off another rejection from Mei, Yuzu finds herself down in the dumps on their school trip. Luckily, her new friend Sara is always ready to dish out some encouraging advice, inspiring Yuzu to speak her true feelings to Mei honestly. Unfortunately, Sara has already confessed her feelings to Mei, unaware that she’s also the object of Yuzu’s affections. No matter how complicated things may get, Yuzu’s love for Mei stays the same. Now if only she can work up the nerve and find the right time to tell her!

Our Take:

I’m surprised how much I liked this episode. A new character butting in-between our two main girls yet again feels like something that shouldn’t work, but it does thanks to a couple things. The main reason is the fact that Sara, unlike Matsuri, is not literally Satan. She’s sweetly naive, kind to everyone, and is just following her heart wherever it leads her.

Unfortunately for Yuzu, that just happens to be straight to Mei. While Momokino and Matsuri’s shenanigans felt too confrontational (sometimes unnaturally so) to really empathize with or root for, Sara’s crush on Mei is a different matter. While I will always be supporting Yuzu (duh), I definitely got a little happy for Sara when her dream girl accepted her date. Are they truly destined to wind up together? I’m betting not, but who knows? Even Yuzu admits her life sucks. (At least she’ll always have Mama Harumin to tickle all the bad feelings out?)

The dub had some great lines this week, like Yuzu’s annoyed retort to Harumin at the shrine: “I have a lot of relationships that need prayers, okay?” Yuzu’s inner-monologue while drunk on orange juice is also worth highlighting: “Jeez. What am I doing with my life?” Felecia Angelle’s performance as Sara is still wonderful, and really helps to add to the positive naivety of her character.

With only one episode remaining, our main couple has yet to really even admit their true feelings to one another. I don’t dislike Sara and her sister’s addition to the storyline, but why couldn’t it have just replaced Matsuri’s arc? I am a little disappointed that we won’t get to see much of Yuzu and Mei’s future relationship at all. The journey has been fun, but I just wish we had gotten to the destination a bit sooner.

SCORE
8.5/10