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Mei Aihara is the co-protagonist of the yuri manga Citrus and its 2018 anime adaptation.
She was voiced by Minami Tsuda in the Japanese version, and by Amber Lee Connors in the English dub.
Personality
As a girl, Mei used to be a well-adjusted and friendly girl who deeply admired her father and was best friends with Himeko, but after he left her, she became a cold and stern figure of authority who maintains an aura of seriousness and ruthlessness, burdened with the responsibility of having to take over the Academy and torn with her existing but dwindling hope that her father would return and take his rightful place. She is both greatly admired and feared by her peers as the Student Council President, her demeanor preventing her from developing friendships and even her friendship with Himeko becoming more of a cold professional relationship. At times, she can be short-tempered and due to Amamiya's indicated frequent molesting, even sexually violent, as repeatedly shown by how when she was provoked by Yuzu, she had no qualms lashing out on her sexually and making sexual advances seems to be her way of coping whenever she feels she is losing control of a situation.
However, due to Yuzu's influence, which allowed her to reconcile with her father, Mei slowly begins to change, finally developing genuine feelings for Yuzu that has allowed her to develop as a person, becoming less cold and more kinder towards Yuzu. She also becomes more accepting and tolerant of violation of the school's rules, although only minor ones, and even supports the voting for changing the school's rules and starts developing friendships with Yuzu's friends. Despite still having difficulties conveying her feelings, Mei has nevertheless grown tremendously to finally be able to acknowledge her feelings towards Yuzu and start living her own life instead of being bound to her family's wishes, as shown by how she was distraught over having to be engaged to Udagawa and eventually came to abandon it for Yuzu. Her continuing relationship with Yuzu has ultimately provided her the happiness and self-peace Mei has always wanted, coming to abandon the notion of having to rely on the expectations of others and choosing her own path.
Relationships
- Mei and Yuzu: Yuzu is Mei's new stepsister, who is a month older than her. At first, Mei sees Yuzu only as a nuisance and makes in the hopes of shutting her up and repelling her away. She warms up to her after she got rid of her arranged marriage with Amamiya, though still cold and she tries to make it clear they are sisters, yet begins to become attracted to Yuzu's brash personality, though at the time, she often forcibly uses this as a source of comfort by exploiting Yuzu's feelings for her end. However, after Yuzu helps Mei reconcile with her father, Mei finally starts to reciprocate Yuzu's romantic feelings, becoming rather possessive of her due to Matsuri's advances on Yuzu opening up to her, and feeling guilty when she believes Yuzu is troubled or sad because of her actions. She expresses to Matsuri she's thankful for having met Yuzu. After both confessing their true feelings for each other she starts dating Yuzu. Mei constantly worries about Yuzu and was concerned why Yuzu came home crying, after hearing it was because she had found out not everyone will approve of their relationship, Mei writes in Yuzu's dating notebook to encourage her by saying no matter what hardship may happen in the future, it shouldn't stop you from being who you are. She subconsciously cried tears of joy when Yuzu put the ring she had got for her and since then Mei tries to wear the ring whenever she has the chance. In Chapter 36, Mei left a letter for Yuzu, stating she felt that she had hurt Yuzu, and left the Aihara household to marry her fiancé and run the Aihara family, but ensured her that she was deeply grateful of the time they spent and promised to pray for her happiness, leaving Yuzu in a emotional wreck. However, she was truly deeply remorseful and hurt by having to betray her, which she initially tried to cover up by taking as much work as possible and distancing herself from Yuzu in school and even quitting school to rush the engagement so she could stay away from her, but when Yuzu finally confronted her, Mei finally broke after saying that she hates her, stating that no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't stop herself from thinking about her. No longer able to deny her feelings for Yuzu, she quit the engagement when Yuzu proposed to her, to which Mei accepted. As of the end of the original manga run, the two characters are now married. In Citrus Plus, Mei is now content with her relationship with Yuzu, especially as she prepares herself so hard and successfully removes any chances of future arranged marriage. She has become more open and trusting of their relationship, even letting Matsuri and Harumi be told about certain moments by Yuzu and only getting mad when Yuzu goes too far.
- Mei and Shou: Mei greatly looked up to her father, who also played the part of her sensei and role model, aspiring to be just like him. However, after her parents divorced, Mei saw her father changed a lot and refused his offer to leave home to travel, placing the burden of taking care of the school in his absence upon her shoulders, hoping he would return to become the principal after her grandfather. She was still at first fond of him to the point where the first time she smiled genuinely was when Yuzu pointed out how Shou should have taken his responsibility, but upon learning Shou had no intention to return, Mei was left devastated upon realizing how pointless her efforts were and distanced herself from him, broken by how she has nothing left living for as taking care of the school for the sake of her father had been her assumed purpose in life, being willing to let him leave. However, Yuzu's influence leads her to begin repairing the damaged relationship with her father, as well as to search for her own purpose in life. She has a habit of calling him "sensei", as he was more of a teacher to her than a father, which annoys him, but at the airport thanks to Yuzu's encouragement she called him father for the first time. Mei expresses that she is proud of Shou and appreciates his help to ensure her relationship with Yuzu can go on.
- Mei and Her Mother: Mei's relationship with her mother is unknown, though she was willing to accept her divorce from her father and chose Shou. Although she seemed to have some sadness over it, Mei apparently focused more on her father than her mother.
- Mei and Ume: Yuzu's mother immediately accepted Mei into their family and treats Mei no different to how she treats Yuzu. Yuzu's mother genuinely cares and worries for Mei, and as a result, Mei has taken a liking to her.
- Mei and Her Grandfather: Mei looks up to her grandfather, despite his strictness. After he was hospitalized, she decides to take on his workload on her own, which, along with her work at the Student Council president, causes severe stress and fatigue to her. When Mei and Yuzu kiss in the chairman's office, Mei puts his portrait face down as a sign of respect to him. Despite his strictness, her grandfather does care for her, cancelling her arranged marriage with Amamiya upon realizing the way he was treating her and coming to regret placing too much burden on her, deciding to let her lead the school her way. Although he arranged her to be married to Udagawa, he did ensure that he was the right person and apologized for the burden he had to place on her again, with Mei saying she respected him truly and her grandfather stating he is truly grateful of her. He cancels the arranged marriage even for Mei's sake and helps her free herself.
- Mei and Himeko: Mei and Himeko were best friends since childhood, often playing together and being friendly affectionate and calling each other by nicknames, Himeko "MeiMei" and Mei "Hime-Chan". However, after her father left, Mei's relationship with Himeko became coldly professional as she took out her bitterness over her father's abandonment on their friendship, with her distancing herself and viewing Himeko as a nuisance, though she did trust her with being her second-in-command. She had no qualms lashing out on her and even berated her for believing herself capable of taking over her if she couldn't attend an important meeting, but Yuzu's influence allowed her to reconcile their friendship. Although she still speaks to her formally, Mei shows she is grateful towards Himeko for everything she did to her, asking that she remain an important person to her.
- Mei and Harumi: Mei and Harumi seems to have a distant relationship. Harumi doesn't like Mei's attitude and Mei clearly doesn't like Harumi's attitude, though it is clear that she isn't aware that Harumi breaks rules. Thanks to Yuzu's influence, they became closer, enough that Mei trusts her with some important moments between her and Yuzu, though once Yuzu goes too far, such tolerance is immediately off. Harumi supports Yuzu and Mei's relationship.
- Mei and Matsuri: Mei's first encounter with Matsuri was witnessing her kiss Yuzu. This leads her to develop and instant dislike of Matsuri, who threatens Mei to leave Yuzu alone. Mei notes that the two of them aren't so different. Matsuri realizes that Mei never wanted to take Yuzu from her and realized even Mei cares for her feelings too, all conflict gets resolved and eventually Matsuri stopped thinking about her as a rival and starts seeing Mei as another older sister. they both get along as Yuzu's younger sisters. Mei tutors Matsuri with her studies from time to time.
Citrus
When she first met Yuzu, Mei was initially cold towards Yuzu for a variety of reasons namely because of her rebel nature when it comes to the rules, or that she could be too rash with her decisions. After her father had remarried, Mei was unwilling to have anything to do with Yuzu, going as far as to refuse to refer to her as her older sister unless in public, and even went as far as to make sexual advances on her in the bath, mocking her for her desires, and later on lash out on her and nearly molest Yuzu but she managed to calm her down. However, in time, with her arranged marriage with Amamiya cancelled, she starts to become attracted to Yuzu's brash personality, though she tries to squash this by insisting they are sisters, only to be more confused by Yuzu's forceful kiss.
Mei's father returns after traveling the world, Mei becomes disheartened to learn that he had no intentions of returning to the academy, even nearly acting sexually on her attraction to Yuzu and attempting to manipulate Yuzu's own attraction, although she is stopped by Yuzu slapping her and telling her she doesn't want it like this. She nearly considers letting her father leave again while she sulks, but Yuzu convinces her to see her father off, and the two take Harumi's bike to the airport. With her daddy issues being resolved, this culminates in the first genuine kiss between her and Yuzu. As her feelings towards her older sister started to develop, Mei initially tries to bottle those romantic feelings for her sister by convincing her that what they were doing wasn't "sister-like" behavior. this comes to its head when Yuzu reunites with an old childhood friend of hers named Matsuri Mizusawa. Mei becomes jealous towards Matsuri openly showing her affections towards Yuzu and as such, Mei caresses Yuzu only to stop when Yuzu told her that she was holding plates. Later on, Matsuri calls for her to meet her in an isolated place. After Matsuri tells her to keep her palms off of Yuzu, Mei responds by kissing Matsuri, proclaiming that she had taken back the kiss that she had stolen from Yuzu. After Matsuri's plan to severe the bond between the two stepsisters failed, Mei tells her that she wasn't too different from Matsuri in that they had both closed their hearts to love and became bitter as a result, and how it took a "bothersome" person to breakdown that mask of security. Yuzu and Mei officially become a couple in chapter 16 whilst attending a field trip.
Sometime later, Yuzu works a part-time job to buy a pair of matching rings for her and Mei. When she earned enough for the rings, Yuzu reunites with her friends from her hometown who are anxious to hear about her boyfriend. Realizing that her friends were homophobic and thus wouldn't accept her, Yuzu becomes saddened by this and apologizes profusely to Mei. Thankfully for Yuzu, Mei convinces her that there is no right or wrong when it comes to their relationship, and that they would face it together. However, the truth of the matter is that it is revealed that Mei's grandfather is pushing for another arranged marriage attempt despite the fact that she clearly did not want to take part in it. While her final action in Chapter 36 is heavily controversial, it makes it a point that regardless, Mei is deeply grateful for everything Yuzu had done for her.
However, her feelings towards Yuzu is something she cannot shrug off so easily and she instead began thinking more and more about Yuzu, no matter how hard she tried not to and to burden herself and avoid her. When Yuzu confronts her just as she hastens her arranged marriage with Udagawa, Mei is no longer able to deny her feelings towards Yuzu and she breaks off the engagement and the series end reveals that she and Yuzu got married.