Minstrel Who Sings to the Red Moon: Juvia-san desu

Spying on Gray, Juvia's favorite pastime. So I know I said that I'd do this every week, but I lied. It's basically going to just be whenever I feel like it, and last week I didn't, because the anime and the manga were both bleh. Today we'll be looking at Fairy Tail's most successful stalker: Juvia Lockser. It's safe to say that Juvia is one of the most popular Fairy Tail characters, and rightly so. One of those "I used to be your enemy, but now I'm your best friend" types, it didn't take Juvia long to go from Point A to Point B. Compared to fellow turnarounds Laxus and Jellal, Juvia only took a few episodes to become a Team Natsu ally, where the other two took two seasons (admittedly Jellal was comatose for half a season and in prison for another, but it still took awhile before he and Erza finally reconciled in X791, seven years in fact). Juvia, on the other hand, only took seven hours before she started tailing Gray's fairy tail. Still, Juvia isn't exactly Vegeta, and wasn't much of an enemy to start with, since she turned into a puddle (not hard for Juvia) the moment she saw Gray-sama. Someday, Juvia, someday... It's hard to believe that there was a phase in Juvia's life when she had no idea Gray even existed, but there was. And it was a dark time. People shunned her because she always made it rain wherever she went and that ruined everyone's fun. The only person, unfortunately, to treat Juvia well was Jose Porla, who recognized how powerful she was and invited her to join Phantom Lord. Then she met Gray and he stopped the metaphorical tears from falling from the sky, because his everything made her all sparkly inside. It was at THIS MOMENT that Gray and Juvia should have gotten together. Putting an end to a woman's life-long depression and being the first person to treat her like a human being was great lead-up to living the rest of your life with her and having frozen water babies together. BUT NO! Gray seems to be missing several important genes in his DNA that govern intelligent thinking, because it took three seasons of stalking, stripping, Lucy-bashing, strange love charts, and requested spankings before Erza had to step in and say, "Dude, you know Juvia likes you right?" -__- Why hasn't this happened already? Admittedly, Juvia has fantastic taste, and she was on Gray like white on rice forever after, her stalking adventure beginning the very next episode after the Phantom Lord arc (if I'm not mistaken). Even though the chase is half the fun and Juvia's chase is full of hilarious moments, one almost feels sympathetic to Lyon (not really, it's Lyon afterall), since he's actually offering himself to Juvia, and he shares many similarities with Gray (stripping habit and Ice-Make Magic). Juvia still wants nothing to do with Lyon, despite his persistance and dedication as a stalker rivaling even her. To an extent, letting go of Gray would essentially destroy Juvia's character, because it's been a motivation for 105% of all of her actions in the series, from somehow tailing along to defeat Jellal to joining Fairy Tail and beyond. But, at the very least, Gray does seem to be coming around veeeery slowly, thanks to Erza's intervention. Erza knows what it's like to hold a crush on someone for three seasons with no progress, so thank you Erza. If Mashima has a soul, Gray and Juvia will be together by the end of this crap-arc we call the Grand Magic Games Eclipse Project 5 (yes, number 5 is coming, I can almost promise you; and why is Princess Hisui so extremely unimaginative when it comes to naming things? ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)...for that matter, how does she have the resources to build a giant time machine under her castle on her own initiative? Wouldn't she have been a child when the Eclipse project started seven years ago? Is she some sort of conspiratorial prodigy? Does her father do anything, or does he just watch sports while his teenaged daughter runs the country? *sigh* but I digress...). Why doesn't this happen more often??? Now that my Gray x Juvia rant is complete, let's look at the other, less important aspects of Juvia's character. I personally find Juvia's design rather uninspiring. She isn't unattractive, I guess, but she lacks the sort of umph that Erza and Mirajane's character designs seem to have. At least she's made of water; that's cool I guess...Her first outfit reminded me somehow of actress Ingrid Bergman, and I thought her second outfit was dumb, so I'm glad she brought it back in the third season. Her newest look in X791 is okay, but it's basically a less serious version of her traditional look. The best parts of Juvia's character aren't really in her look, or even her magic, but her wacky personality. We've already covered the Graysics basics, so now I'll go over some of her other interesting points. Juvia is really a friendly person, and easily fit into Fairy Tail once she joined. Her only problem is when she comes across a perceived love rival, like Lucy. As some of you may know, I despise Lucy and love when my favorite characters beat her up. It's really strange, though, that Juvia thinks Lucy is interested in anyone, since Lucy seems to like no one. Even though she showed up with a boyfriend list on her first day at FT, we haven't seen it since and she doesn't seem to be making any moves on anyone, despite various interested parties. Considering Juvia's sad past, fitting in at Fairy Tail was a very important moment in her life. So when Freed said she would always be "Phantom's woman", that really hurt her feelings; but Freed can be excused for his rudeness since his neglectful boyfriend was being a jerk to him at the time. Nevertheless, Juvia was determined to sacrifice herself to prove her loyalty to Fairy Tail and let Cana escape the rune trap. This, to me, really defines Juvia's character as a very loving, selfless person. And we have seen this time again, except during the Nirvana and Edolas arcs, in which Mashima for some reason thought it was a good idea to include Lucy but not Juvia. So much for one Juvia to keep up with... Other things I'll throw out here at the end that I like about Juvia is her habit of speaking in the third person, her friendship with Gajeel, and her hilarious, ridiculously overactive imagination. >o< The fact that even though Gajeel was a really big jerk during Phantom Lord, but he still seemed to be on good terms with Juvia and then later developed a good friendship with her really impresses me. For some reason Mashima likes focusing on characters with no character development (Natsu, Lucy, Gray, etc.), so it's nice to see characters that actually change over time, like Juvia. Erza has really come a long way, so she's an exception. I just wish Juvia was used more, though Gajeel actually appears quite often. As for Juvia's imagination, that doesn't need elaboration, though I will add that I like how complicated her mind-theatre movies are getting, like when she was worried about Lucy and Gray being alone together at the hotel even though they were right behind her and how Juvia imagined her and Gray living together with kids. XD Your love is as great As an ocean, deep depths stretch To new horizons Character rating Category Score Art design Role in the storytelling Combat abilities Compelling personality Total score Tell me!