Same reason roses ("bara") are associated with male homosexuality. Started as a slang and came from the titles of a gay mag called Barazoku. Likewise yuri comes from the Yurizoku letter column. Wikipedia has a little more info on those.
Homosexuality is not considered a real relationship, girl/girl relations are still chaste and pure. :/
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
This lovely doctoral thesis on the genre
has it as:
In the early 1910s, the symbol of the white lily was adopted by Japanese girls’ magazines (shōjo zasshi), but now it connoted only female sexual purity As I will show in part I of this study, the yuri genre is still closely associated with this general image of beauty and purity. Nevertheless, how the lily came to be associated with female same - sex intimacy has not yet been completely elucidated. The most common explanation is that yuri was an antonym for bara or “rose,” which in the 1970s had become associated with male “homosexuality” (see chapter 1 for details).
Chapter 1 goes on to state:
The usage of yuri in relation to female same-sex intimacy originated in the 1970s in Japan’s first magazine for “homosexual” men, Barazoku (Rose tribe). In this magazine, a regular column for “lesbian” readers was called Yurizoku no heya (Room of the lily tribe). Barazoku’s editor-in-chief Itō Bungaku chose the flower yuri as an antonym to the magazine’s eponymous flower bara (rose). In the 1980s, film company Nikkatsu used the term yuri for its series of roman poruno (“romantic porno” — pornographic movies produced by Nikkatsu between 1971 and 1988) with two female actresses, Sērā fuku yurizoku (Lily tribe in school uniforms). Among fans of manga and anime, the term yuri proliferated in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the boom of the series Maria-sama ga miteru (en. Maria Watches Over Us). As genre name, yuri only started being broadly recognized from the mid-2000s after the introduction of the specialized yuri manga magazines Yuri shimai and later Komikku yuri hime.
I'd recommend reading it if you're interested in the genre and don't mind reading a fairly long academic paper. Pretty sure I've linked it here before.
edited 10th May '16 1:33:18 PM by majoraoftime
I recently discovered this channel, which is more or less teaching English to Japanese people. This leaves me wondering how many of these English enthusiasts actually exist in Japan and how they get into the language, as gaining interest in, let alone actually learning English in a non-English environment is relatively difficult.
edited 14th May '16 7:31:02 PM by murazrai
My guess based on what I think I know:
Japan actually has a Foreign Culture Fetish with the West as much as the West does with Japan. More over, English speaking nations like the US are a big market with a lot of economic pull. Ergo, learning English is a pretty valuable skill.
"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"
They actually like the France the most out of the Western countries.
Don't really have anything to contribute but eeee that lady is so adorable.
It's such a strong fetish over there, that Americans moving and living to Japan by becoming a foreign language teacher is very common! Ex- Holden, from Holden Reviews and the defunct Podtaku, 100% American, is now living there teaching, and he's in his 20's!! It's popular for a Japanese woman to marry an American man.
Japan loves France. A lot. In fact, they have a name for depression that arises from going to Paris and having it not live up to your expectations!
edited 14th May '16 6:43:04 PM by kyun
Kinda like weebs moving to Japan only to find out it's not Animeland?
It's one thing to make a spectacle. It's another to make a difference.
I don't think the American embassy has a 24 hour hotline to help weebs suffering from that though. 
Thats a bit more then a joke too, our embassy in Paris does. ._.;
Paris is a beautiful place that is, unfortunately, occupied by the French. I can understand the disappointment, and I've been accused of being a Francophile.
i. hear. a. sound.
What exactly do Japanese people expect Paris to be like?
It's one thing to make a spectacle. It's another to make a difference.
You can get help at TAC (the Tokyo American Club) — and get pity "what the heck were you thinking" eyes the whole time.
Seriously, they have FAQ sheets and everything for the language exchange idiots. <_< Good luck in the rest of Japan: website only. Well, at least no pity eyes of embarrassment. 
A city almost populated by The Beautiful Elite, with structures that almost glow, and good smells. The last two might be hyperbole, so to put it simply, much like migrants who went to the United States near the end of the 19th Century thinking their streets were paved with gold.
When you put it that way I can understand where the disappointment and depression comes from. (They're probably still better off in Paris, though.)
It's one thing to make a spectacle. It's another to make a difference.
Paris is nice, but the London scene is more real, and the weather is nicer in Rome.
I think there’s a global conspiracy to see who can get the most clicks on the worst lies
Field Marshal of Cracked
I'm rather certain the only problem with Paris is it's filled with Parisians, even the French agree with us on that one! plus London has a better collection of stolen artefacts
advancing the front into TV Tropes
Formerly G.G.
Either way being a slightly poor American, I can really go except if I try an exchange program but even then it is not likely. 
I started playing Smash Dragoon and saw this line on the prohibited acts parts of the EULA:
This is weird, considering that the game itself is playable outside of Japan. Some games don't do this, though. If they really don't want foreigners to play, why they don't simply lock the game within the game itself, like what happened with Water Girl?
Because its for liscencing reasons.
Its less the company doesn't want forigners to play, and more the music artists dont want forigners listining to there music.
By putting that in the EULA they can point to that for liscencing, and then only enforce it if your caught.
edited 17th May '16 4:25:11 PM by Imca
That game is an action RPG with the soundtrack being done in-house, not rhythm game. For some rhythm games, this is understandable, but that doesn't explain why Nanobeat, a rhythm game with licensed (but of doujin/indie variety) music and Show by Rock!!, does not do this.
edited 17th May '16 4:46:21 PM by murazrai
Uhhhh, thats not for a rythm game either, I am speaking of the SEGA EULA as used in PSO2 which is an MMORPG.
I assume the same reasons apply for most things, its not the game they care about but all licenced content particularly music.
An additional benifit is they only have to comply by native laws when that is in there EULA and not yours.
Considering that these EULA mentioned violation of international laws and the law of Japan shall be the sole jurisdiction the service falls into...it's kind of redundant, but considering how licensing and copyright laws work, it is understandable.
Many Japanese gaming companies actually do not want their game played outside of Japan, especially the Free-to-Play and/or online ones since they view foreigners as leechers who do not or can not spend any money on it. They actually will go so far as to put worldwide IP blocks on their game like Kantai Collection.
It's hanakotoba
.
The association with female homosexuality is modern jargon. No idea why lily specifically though, but probably due to its significance of purity and chastity.
Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele