On the one hand, people are overreacting; video games aren't even the worst place women are portrayed in the United States, for example, and while the Japanese are ridiculously disturbing at times with their own portrayal (there's a game called Rapelay, for example), at least they keep their worst examples to themselves, I guess. I personally think the feminist movement in video games has become the new terrorism or piracy; it's cool to blame everyone you don't like for it, whether they're inflicting any actual harm or not.
Justifying it by saying it's apart of Japanese culture is pretty damn sad, though. If you're going to present yourself on a global scale, and indeed, portray your female characters as from around the world, then you'd probably better be more sensitive to people around the world if you're going to try to sell it to them as well. Saying "Oh, well that's just how we do things, and you don't have a right to complain." is an eyebrow-raiser when you're marketing it to us.
I mean, if it was within your culture to shoot people in the head with rubber balls as a form of greeting, yeah, I might have an issue with it, but as long as you keep it to yourself and everyone involved is cool with it, I guess I don't have a right to complain about it. Note that not everyone in Japan is cool with the portrayal of women in it, and Japan's culture is such that people who aren't happy with the country are typically intimidated into not doing anything about it, but we'll pretend otherwise for the sake of the illustration. When you come over here and start popping me in the head, my rights change a bit. "That's part of Japanese culture" isn't a solid defense when we're not in Japan, and maybe people outside of Japan would appreciate it if you reigned in what they see as insensitive or obnoxious when you're dealing with them.
Granted, there are some aspects of Japan most other cultures on the whole see as obnoxious, but attracts certain other people within them; the at-times ridiculous sexualization of women is one of those things, for better or worse, but most products of that are in dark, seedy corners of the internet where most do not tread. Dead or Alive goes too far over the line as far as I'm concerned - even if not by a particularly noteworthy degree, but we're talking about it, so it bears mentioning - by being as shameless as it is while also being out in the open, and to criticize people who don't like it when you're shoving it in their faces is a bit... delusional, really. I still don't think it's worth being that up in arms about it, though; men are sexualized in video games all the time themselves, even if not always intentionally, which while making it funnier, doesn't make it less prominent, so unless we're going to take topless men glistening with sweat and Solid Snake's well-toned ass out of video games, there's not much to whine about on the feminism side of things, either.
She's a B-cup at best and still awesome while being humanly flawed. There are -plenty- of women in Japanese games that are strong and still dressed with some sense and not begging for attention.
