After her mother remarries, fashionable Yuzu moves to a new city. However, with her all-girls school being strict and conservative, she immediately butts heads with the stoic student council present. Worse yet, later that night, she discovers that the student council president is now her new stepsister.

Yuri manga fans seemed extra hyped for this adaption, and I get it now. It is a great exploration of realistic human emotion with some pretty aggressively sexual scenes thrown in for everyone else. As for anime recommendations, we are not going to go the “because yuri” route, and some of the below may not be yuri. However, we will tell you if it doesn’t fall into the yuri/shoujo ai category.

For Fans of Aggressive Romance

Netsuzou Trap

Yuma and Hotaru are neighbors and childhood friends. Nervous about landing her first boyfriend, Yuma goes to seasoned Hotaru for advice, but it turns out that advice becomes more like practice. And yet, this passion slowly drifts into the foreground as their secret tryst turns into real feelings.

Do you like that spark you feel during those exciting kissing scenes in Citrus? Then this can provoke the same emotions. However, many people gave this show bad ratings because of the NTR plot. However, if you enjoyed Citrus for the yuri fan service, then this will continue your roller coaster.

Super Lovers

During one fateful summer, Haru, the eldest son of his family, bonds with his new adoptive brother, Ren. The boy has no social skills and is distrustful of humans, but they slowly grow closer. Years later, Haru has forgotten his summer with Ren after an accident. However, when Ren shows up on his doorstep, Haru must struggle to remember.

This series is yaoi, but in it you have a relationship between siblings that aren’t related by blood. Furthermore, one of those siblings is excessively aggressive with their sexual advances. In Super Lovers, the age of Ren is a little concerning, though since much of their first meeting is when he is just a young teen.

Nana

This is the story of two girls, both of which are named Nana. Nana Komatsu is a naive girl addicted to love who is moving to Tokyo to chase after her boyfriend going to school there. Nana Osaki is a proud punk rocker that is moving to Tokyo to become a rock star. By chance they meet on the train. By even bigger chance they end up wanting to rent the same apartment only to decide to rent it together.

Nana isn’t yuri, despite some confusing emotions between the two Nana’s later in the series. However, what Nana has in common with Citrus is the fact that it shows that love often isn’t that sort of normal fairy tale romance that is painted for us as children. Sometimes it is sudden, unexpected, fleeting, and (apparently) borderline sexual assault.

For Fans of Realistic Human Feelings

Sweet Blue Flowers

Introverted Fumi is entering her new all-girls high school for her first year with a broken heart. However, she reconnects with her old best friend, Akira, who is going to another neighboring all-girls school. Together they both reconnect and discuss their various love problems.

As a shoujo-ai series, don’t expect the same passionate kisses you get from Citrus. Instead, you have two girls distinctly opposite in personality exploring all the options of love in front of them. This one of those great series that explores realistic feelings like Citrus does, but doesn’t do it with ample sexual assault or hardcore fan service.

Scum’s Wish

To the outside world, Mugi and Hanabi look like the perfect couple, but the truth is that they are only dating each other because they can’t be with the people they actually want to be with. For Hanabi, it is her childhood friend-turned-homeroom-teacher and for Mugi it is his older tutor that has been teaching him since middle school. In order to stave off the loneliness, the pair find solace in each other’s arms.

While the characters in Scum’s Wish are just awful people (they are good characters, but awful as people), it has a way of not sugar-coating romance. Both shows show romance as realistic, messy, and something that often makes people do kind of terrible things. Both shows explore romantic feelings really well, despite Scum’s Wish being a hetero romance.

Paradise Kiss

Third year high school student Yukari is only into studying so she can get into any college outside of her boring town. One day, she meets a suspicious stranger with bleached hair and piercings. She tries to politely leave him, but ends up meeting his friends who are fashion design students for an art school. They want her to model, but she is afraid it will interfere with her studies. Still, she ends up agreeing and it leads her into another less boring world.

Although a hetero romance series, Paradise Kiss isn’t one of those hugely dramatic shows, but rather displays a normal growth of romantic feelings and showcases more realistic human emotions. It also features highly fashionable people juxtaposed with the more studious, serious type of people similar to Citrus.

For Fans of Opposites Attract

Strawberry Panic

Aoi Nagisa has transferred to one of the three all-girls schools on Astraea Hill. There she discovers an innate hierarchy where two Etoiles represent the student body of the three schools. However, one Etoiles named Shizuma finds herself drawn to this new transfer student.

If you take out the whole stepsister plot of Citrus, honestly these two yuri series would be very similar in plot. Both have new transfers inexplicably drawn to the leaders of their school and yuri interaction ensues. However, the key difference is that Citrus is a bit darker.

Whispered Words

Sumika is a high school girl that gets good grades and excels at sports. However, she is secretly in love with her friend Ushio. While Ushio is constantly falling in love with girls, she is completely oblivious to Sumika’s feelings. This means that when Ushio is dumped, it is her job to console her.

First of all, you have a black-haired traditional girl who finds herself entwined with a blonde energetic girl. They are both there for each other, but their feelings are just slightly more complex than your standard hetero romance. While Whispered Words is bittersweet, Citrus is a bit darker. However, they both explore lesbian romance in a nicely grounded way.

Candy Boy

Yukino and Kanade are twin sisters who share a room in their high school’s dorm. Together they enjoy life with each other until one day another girl seeks to express her feelings for Yukino. It is this innocent interaction that causes the sisters to reveal their true feelings for each other.

Obviously, they are both yuri romance series between sisters that share the same room. However, in Candy Boy, they are blood-related sisters. While twins in Candy Boy, they also look similar to Yuzu and Mei. While Citrus is more aggressive with its romance, Candy Boy can be a touch sappy.

Do you have any more anime recommendations like Citrus? let us know in the comments section below.