Are Battle Babes also Girls with Guns?

At MovieFanCollectibles, when we contemplate the phenomenon of "Girls with Guns" in cinema, we wonder if a rose by any other name smells as sweet?  There seems to be a number of sub-sets to the action heroine, or anti-heroine, genre so we are confused about the similarities and differences between tropes that sound as if they are related to Girls with Guns, such as "Battle Babes," "Warrior Women," "Soldier Girls," or "Lady Cops."  

G.I. Jane (Demi Moore)

In this very important inquiry the latter two categories, thankfully, are straight forward.  These days, having a gun is pretty much definitional to being in the military or law enforcement.  So Lady Po-Pos and G.I. Janes are most definitely welcome to the Girls with a Gun party.  Others are going to take a little more time to pin down.  For now, let's consider "Battle Babes."

Battle Babes seem like they would be naturally synonymous with Girls with Guns.  But as is often the case with fan culture, things are more complicated than one might think.  It looks as though Battle Babes are mostly about visual representation outside of cinema.  These girls figure most prominently in the fantasy fiction of comics and graphic novels.  

In the west, Battle babes are sexy science fiction cyborgs or sword toting princesses who look like they wouldn't be at all surprised if a unicorn casually strolled into the frame.  Cyborg Battle Babes are most famously rendered by the artists Tariq Raheem or H.R. Giger.  Fighting princesses of never-was are the handiwork of artists like Robert Kraus.  Live action characters like Star Trek's Seven of Nine or Lord of the Rings' Arwen Evenstar are far from original.  They are there to tap into a pre-existing fan base.

Battle Babes are also very prominent in Japanese artwork of manga comic books and anime cartoons.  Where the western Battle Babes are campy scantily-clad fulsome fodder for male fan titillation, the Japanese versions are just a little too barely-legal looking, with a creepy emphasis on the little girls' flashing their tighty-whitey under panties.

Speaking of representation that is tipping over a little far into fetish and kink, another prominent version of Battle Babes are the porn star women who battle each other.  Here we have either girl-on-girl action, or they are side-by-side to see who is the biggest, fastest, whatever, at performing or completing some sort of sex act.  Closely related to the Battle Babe porn, but not as explicit, is the very popular Bikini Karate Babes video games, in which you and a friend make the hot cartoon avatars kick the stuffing out of each other.

Our inquiring minds wanted to know what was up with Battle Babes.  After checking it out, we feel a little sorry we went there.  But for you, we did it anyway.