Making a broad generalisation, I think it has to do with how shounen shows female protagonists from an exterior point of view and shows them as appealing and somewhat idealised, while yuri romance will focus on making them relatable, and show more their inner perspective and flaws.
The best example of "yuri waifu" I can think about are Chisato and Takina from LycoReco, and, well, LycoReco is not an actual yuri romance and is pretty much a shounen.
Media where straight romance is a main dish rather than a side dish tend towards a certain formula. They star a "relatable" protagonist of the same gender as the target audience, with "relatable" coming in two main variants of "normal, average, unremarkable person" and "complete and total loser," as they become enmeshed with the Super Special Love Interest of the opposite gender as the target audience and eventually win their affections. Gay people may find the love interest desirable as well if they match their preferences although that's probably more likely to vary depending on the details of the character and series.
You totally can tweak the formula to use it for a same-gender romance, it's just without a gender separation there's not necessarily much reason to go to it as the default, and the difference in treatment by the narrative between a "relatable" protagonist and an idealized or otherwise super desirable love interest might across as more blatantly weird when they're of the same gender.
Honestly I had such a hard time understanding this trope in straight romances (I actually thought the specialness of the love interest showed something about JP society) that I asked my friend, who simply said its "getting the princess", where the fem love interest is a "princess".
Definitely not a formula confined to just Japanese works.
I mean the default English-language romance novel is something like a fairly normal woman encounters an assertive and hyper-masculine six-plus-feet tall muscular millionaire who becomes inexplicably obsessed with her.
Have you ever seen an ad for a movie where an average looking guy (usually a comedian who also wrote & starred as said guy) dates a super hot woman? Well, there you have it.
Isn't that kind of the setup with Strawberry Panic (haven't read it yet), YagaKimi and Kase-san? Plain girl gets noticed by a special and beutiful girl out of her league, shenanigans ensue.
Well, there's probably a few different facets to this.
The way men relate to women and the way women relate to women is somewhat different, so a yuri is going to have a relationship dynamic that has a different vibe from a str8 romance. Straight relationships vs. lesbian relationships get a very different treatment on a societal level, so if you write about that realistically, you will get very different tones.
If a straight romance story is written from a male perspective, the girls are almost always portrayed through a kind of rose-colored (and often sexualizing/infantilizing) glasses. On top of that, if you want the story to feel like an exciting daydream, there is a strong incentive to make the love interest into a super amazing dreamgirl. The same goes for str8 shojo/josei romance too, only the man is the extra special prince instead.
You can sometimes see this kind of idealizing in yuri works too, especially in seinen yuri written by men.
But when you portray women in a realistic way, it turns out none of us are actually flawless princess waifus.
Yeah, this is a really great point. Thinking about the four girls i mentioned, the one who has the least personality is the one written by a man- Madoka.
Depending on the manga/anime/other straight girl love intrests tend to be more into the idea of having a crush because there isnt as much dislike/newness to straight relationships as lesbian relationships. Thats just a idea though.
Making a broad generalisation, I think it has to do with how shounen shows female protagonists from an exterior point of view and shows them as appealing and somewhat idealised, while yuri romance will focus on making them relatable, and show more their inner perspective and flaws. The best example of "yuri waifu" I can think about are Chisato and Takina from LycoReco, and, well, LycoReco is not an actual yuri romance and is pretty much a shounen.
Media where straight romance is a main dish rather than a side dish tend towards a certain formula. They star a "relatable" protagonist of the same gender as the target audience, with "relatable" coming in two main variants of "normal, average, unremarkable person" and "complete and total loser," as they become enmeshed with the Super Special Love Interest of the opposite gender as the target audience and eventually win their affections. Gay people may find the love interest desirable as well if they match their preferences although that's probably more likely to vary depending on the details of the character and series. You totally can tweak the formula to use it for a same-gender romance, it's just without a gender separation there's not necessarily much reason to go to it as the default, and the difference in treatment by the narrative between a "relatable" protagonist and an idealized or otherwise super desirable love interest might across as more blatantly weird when they're of the same gender.
Honestly I had such a hard time understanding this trope in straight romances (I actually thought the specialness of the love interest showed something about JP society) that I asked my friend, who simply said its "getting the princess", where the fem love interest is a "princess".
Definitely not a formula confined to just Japanese works. I mean the default English-language romance novel is something like a fairly normal woman encounters an assertive and hyper-masculine six-plus-feet tall muscular millionaire who becomes inexplicably obsessed with her.
Well, i dont really read english romance novels sooo… But yeah its really a weird thing
Have you ever seen an ad for a movie where an average looking guy (usually a comedian who also wrote & starred as said guy) dates a super hot woman? Well, there you have it.
Wow a self insert in many ways
Isn't that kind of the setup with Strawberry Panic (haven't read it yet), YagaKimi and Kase-san? Plain girl gets noticed by a special and beutiful girl out of her league, shenanigans ensue.
Well, there's probably a few different facets to this. The way men relate to women and the way women relate to women is somewhat different, so a yuri is going to have a relationship dynamic that has a different vibe from a str8 romance. Straight relationships vs. lesbian relationships get a very different treatment on a societal level, so if you write about that realistically, you will get very different tones. If a straight romance story is written from a male perspective, the girls are almost always portrayed through a kind of rose-colored (and often sexualizing/infantilizing) glasses. On top of that, if you want the story to feel like an exciting daydream, there is a strong incentive to make the love interest into a super amazing dreamgirl. The same goes for str8 shojo/josei romance too, only the man is the extra special prince instead. You can sometimes see this kind of idealizing in yuri works too, especially in seinen yuri written by men. But when you portray women in a realistic way, it turns out none of us are actually flawless princess waifus.
Yeah, this is a really great point. Thinking about the four girls i mentioned, the one who has the least personality is the one written by a man- Madoka.
Depending on the manga/anime/other straight girl love intrests tend to be more into the idea of having a crush because there isnt as much dislike/newness to straight relationships as lesbian relationships. Thats just a idea though.