The only useful shounen female is, of course, Sakura from Naruto: she can smash rocks when in PMS mode. She's not to be taken lightly, as a consequence.
(It always tickled me in Naruto how, after knocking her out in response to her declaration of love/willingness to procreate, Sasuke placed Sakura on a bench... and then left. Clearly rape isn't a common problem for ninjas!)
Doesn't Gundam SEED have that crying, selfish bitch everyone wanted dead/celebrated over dying in it? Flair, or something...
I'm not sure about characterization/mindbangbanginanus (/censor) heavy NGE being a shounen work when I don't even recall a manga coming before the anime, but regardless: it does have incredibly strong/desirable 2D ladies. Asuka practically rapes 'poor' Shinji with her realistic bitchiness and Misato had that whole older sister/mature woman thing going. (And that 'poor' bastard Shinji got to live with her, as well as Asuka... AND kiss Misato. ****!)
More seriously: Urumi from GTO is probably the best shounen lady. She puts men in their place with her intellect and has Onizuka act as her slave. (She also demands his semen, at the start of the sequel-prequel, FYI.)
There's also Minami from Touch. She's an old school, Japanese dream girl, and far too faithful to an idiot, but she had the brains and spunk required to argue her corner when needed. Her personality, combined with how devoted she was to her love, made her an impossible character not to love; a little too perfect or not.
Adachi (Touch's author) has a talent for creating lovable shounen females WITH personalities that make you believe in them. Hikari from H2 is cut from the same cloth as Minami; Hikari having more of an older sister vibe and being slightly more boyish but pretty much the same. His female creations can more than fight their own corners, verbally, when required.
Sorry if my Bakuman message was confusing: I was referring to the first volume of the manga when tying about sexism. The sexist conversation of the leads about Miho hasn't been seen animated by me, yet.
It's Miho going along with what was said about her, rather than what was said itself, that irritates me. It's obvious she's going to keep waiting; happy to marry a guy she's yet to hold a conversation with, and - since the author wrote the dialogue and created her character - it's no doubt true that she thinks women are meant to marry/stay at home rather than work.
The difference between Iori and Miho is that Iori never promised herself as a reward. As you (Roy) know, I have gone on record and said that Iori remained as no more than a distant dream girl because of her perspective never getting shown. However, romance being the focus of I''s gave her character far more time than Miho is ever likely to get in the broship, shounen manga focused Bakuman.
(I do see the similarity, though.
<-- CG **** smiley)
I think Bakuman's representation of females has drawn so much heat because of Ohba's previous work. Death Note practically had no females, and the ones that were included got used and discarded by Light; both lusting after his penis and, at one point, the short-haired woman being 'seen to' by him off camera and falling fully in lust with him/his penis.
The usage of females in the two series highlights pretty clearly that either the author is a guy (going on how he seemed like an idiot in v13, very likely) or a woman hating woman.
