Your biggest yuri manga disappointment?

Oh yeah, Tropical Fish. It's a good manga, I love how they treat fish, really, it's very relatable and also cute. There are many beautiful things there, and I don't regret buying it. But, spoilers:

I think citrus is the one that I was hyped about along with everyone else, and eventually I dropped

@HaruHaruLove
that's pretty fair imo, even as a huge Citrus fan

I remember being frustrated over it multiple times at the beginning until I really started loving it.

There are indeed quite a few dark yuri series. I would like to try some darker manhwa series if anyone has recommendations. The only yuri manhwa I have read are 'Shim Chong,' 'Girl in the Birdcage,' and half of 'Serenade.'

I like the toxic storylines, but I have other issues. The paneling(single panel mostly). I prefer details to color in my artwork generally, though it's not like you can't have both. The translations are often poor. I also want more words, more dialogue than most of them have. There are often way too many sex scenes, often somewhat "rapey", whereas I generally prefer them to be more wholesome. Still, I know there are some good ones, and I will definitely give 'I'm More Dangerous Than You' a try. At least I won't be bored with it lol.

Hm, speaking about things I dislike generally…

I’m not happy when the couple in question is a bunch of useless lesbians. For volumes. With a single conversation that could have solved it, but it is prolonged for increasingly convoluted reasons. Yeah, I do not like it one bit.

I also don’t like this thing that we could probably call a tropical fish effect. I guess you know what I mean.

Oh, and what also really makes me disappointed is the mishandling of eroticism. Sometimes you feel that things getting more erotic is what should naturally happen, but it never does. Or on the contrary, a manga suddenly gets too physiological, like in-your-face physiological. Like, come on, read the room. Just imagine Flowerchild suddenly taking over YuruYuri. It just shouldn’t happen, with all the respect I have for Flowerchild.

But worst of all, I so, so loathe fan service in yuri. This one is completely unforgivable if you ask me.

Ah, and yes, yuri bait is an evil belch of Beelzebub, but that goes without saying.

I’m so, so sorry about this rant

@Karakira, fan service, at least in my book, is just about using angles that show underwear for no reason and with no relation to the story—just for the sake of another panchira. This is not necessarily underwear, of course, but in most cases, it's just it. Imagine you're reading a manga, everything's fine, then you are shown panties peeking from under a skirt very explicitly and in your face, and then the story continues like nothing happened. This, however, should not be mixed with or mistaken for showing undergarments in a genuine erotic manga since there is a very good reason for it.

For example, there is a lot of fan service in Otome no Teikoku, especially in earlier volumes. It's so aggressive and senseless, and the entire story seems to exist solely to support showing different kinds of underwear that I initially dropped it. Then things happened: I got ill and was bedridden, and I decided to give it a try nonetheless, given the nearly 300 chapters there. It subsided substantially over several volumes, but I still cringed at first. I don't regret reading it, though, since it proved to be quite good at times.

And then there is, for instance, Asumi-chan wa Lesbian Fuuzoku ni Kyoumi ga Arimasu. It's a funny and, at times, touching manga, but it is also extremely erotic. There is a lot of underwear and nudity and lots of explicit scenarios shown. I wouldn't say there is much fan service there, if any.

I hope this helps

@KuroNeko5097, this manga is actually a great example of what happens to a great idea if it doesn't take off for whatever reason. It was clearly intended as something bigger and more elaborate but was axed prematurely—hence this lack of proper explanation and the rushed ending. Personally, I think it had great potential, but it was completely squandered because they just decided to end it in just a few chapters. Sci-fi yuri is a relatively rare occurrence, and not all sci-fi takes on yuri are any good, I'm afraid. I really like what it might have been, but I can't deny that what it is is just disappointing.