Terrible subversions/ Parodies.

[nyarlathotep]

I might have less of a problem if I felt like anyone in the West had ever done an even vaguely timely parody of anime. Maybe there are there, but I'm not aware of them. Abridged series excepted here. And maybe Samurai Pizza Cats if taken as an anime parody rather as much as a comedy, best dub ever.

And while I'm almost certainly biased the aspects they are highlighting are not something I as a fan look back on fondly at all so there's nothing to be gained by drawing on them. I'm probably being to serious, but I still feel like stuff like that still stinks of "hah hah anime is so weird and foreign hah hah" superiority and not taking it as a serious medium.

Not something I feel can result in successful parody.

I think you're taking it a bit too seriously and are a bit too defensive of anime. More to the point given the nerd generation that the majority of futurama's writers came from they were most likely parodying anime that they grew up on rather than what is around right now. Just like the video game segment wasn't about Gears of War and Wii Sports, but was about games that were far older. It is an episode about the past and silly things that come from it.

What would you suggest as a remedy then?

I'm interested because I'm not the biggest fan of this sort of thing either, in part from awareness of this issue. Yet I feel a certain nervousness raising the point that yeah, size and strength do matter. And men in a pretty solid majority have both on women, without some stronger but slower trade-off either. Yet off the top of my head I can only think of Karrin Murphy in the Dresden Files really facing this head on and drawing attention to it.

The alternative seems to be "strangely" women only get in fights with other women. Or being straight up non-combatants. I'm not sure I've come up with a satisfying solution, other then I guess going for more realistic gun fights but shooting someone dead has its own set of issues.

I'd say if you want some sort of she-hulk woman who defeats people in a single punch then she should look the part and be muscular enough to actually do said punching. There are muscular women out there hollywood simply doesn't hire them. Either that or have the slim waifs use fighting styles that emphasize speed and mobility due to their massive lack of muscle mass, and just generally try to not be hit during the fights.