How do Japanese females view anime?

American media tends to portray females as strong willed, goal minded, intelligent people.  While anime does this as well, there tends to be an emphasis on characters driven by emotions.

How do females in Japan view representations of females in anime?  In other words, what seems "off" or "wrong" about a certain female portrayal, and what seems accurate?  What do females in Japan criticize or feel offended by with character representations. 

For example, a shy, narrow minded, ditzy girl might seem "sexist" in the US, but would simply be one of any number of personalities in anime.  Other examples include girls that are overly enthusiastic, overly emotional, overly shy, naive, innocent, hyper, etc.

Do Japanese females prefer certain types of personalities, or wish females were represented in different ways than they currently are?    

A lot of early feminists, and some still today, reacted very strongly against traditional feminine lifestyles and personalities because they had felt so unsatisfied with their lives when they were forced to live up to that.

Most newer-wave feminism has tried to embrace some traditionally feminine things like motherhood (as in not having an outside career, only being a mother), sensitivity, feminine clothing and such.  The point of feminism is for women to be able to choose their own lives, to be their own people--if that means choosing to focus solely on raising children, or choosing to sew, or choosing to wear high heels and skirts, then fine.  But women should have the option to wear pants or flats, have short hair, not be mothers (or divide parenting duties with a spouse while still working their job, or have a husband who takes care of the kids, or whatever), and not be harassed because of it.

As I see it, the problem with female anime/manga/video game characters is not that characters who are stupid or shy or whatever exist, it's that almost every female character is like that.  They're almost all cute little delicate flowers, and they're usually stupid and incompetant to boot.  Most of the time if you see a female character who's physically overpowering someone, she's doing it while being tiny and girly and cute, and usually while shrieking about perverts or whatever.  There are some awesome, strong female characters who don't fit this and stand on their own, like Major Kusanagi from GitS, Maki, Kai or Sakiyama from Air Master, or Utena from Shoujo Kakumei Utena, but not enough to balance out the badly characterized sexist characters.

But yeah, Japan's pretty sexist in real life too.  Domestic violence and rape are only just beginning to be addressed as problems over there.  Most rapes aren't reported and the men aren't punished, because the woman would be too afraid to shame herself or her family, or to compromise the honor or position of the man who did it (I hear this is especially the case when girls at school are molested by teachers).

And that doesn't even begin to touch on the racism.  Whooo...