Actually, thinking about it, with the obvious exception of Lillie, the girls have had almost no direct damsel in distress moments anyway. In fact, amusingly, despite the difference in physical involvement, it's more likely that Ash and Kiawe get captured/taken out to push Lana and Mallow's credibility than vice versa, to the point it's almost all they have (eg. Tsareena's two evolution episodes, the shrinking episode, the Dhelmise episode, and more comically the running gag with Kiawe). Ash's moments are actually more liable to utilise team work or at worst have the others absent, or watching stupidly in background forgetting they HAVEN'T been captured/taken out. 
I guess my apathy with Mallow and Lana is that they're kinda in that mediocre role where they aren't really getting big moments of competence but they're not really given fallible qualities either. As said nothing really targets them in the first place. The more powerful characters are more liable to fall or face daunting situations before them. I feel more for Lillie or Sophocles getting their big moments because they have weaknesses and suffer the same crap Ash does, and thus a need to branch out, and they don't rely quite as much on 'cutting the tall poppies' whenever they're in the limelight (even if they have got to return the favour for Ash a few times).
The trading of the 'leadership' role is something I wanna see more of too though, granted Ash himself is a de facto leader at best in SM, being fine listening to others' directions (I actually like premises where the main character isn't necessarily the leader).
I guess my apathy with Mallow and Lana is that they're kinda in that mediocre role where they aren't really getting big moments of competence but they're not really given fallible qualities either. As said nothing really targets them in the first place. The more powerful characters are more liable to fall or face daunting situations before them. I feel more for Lillie or Sophocles getting their big moments because they have weaknesses and suffer the same crap Ash does, and thus a need to branch out, and they don't rely quite as much on 'cutting the tall poppies' whenever they're in the limelight (even if they have got to return the favour for Ash a few times).
The trading of the 'leadership' role is something I wanna see more of too though, granted Ash himself is a de facto leader at best in SM, being fine listening to others' directions (I actually like premises where the main character isn't necessarily the leader).
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