Of course, we all adore our girl Mercury, but let’s be real here – she used ice and bubbles most of the time. If we’re talking about the queen of the seas and the most dangerous water user in the series, Sailor Neptune takes that crown easily.

By using her Deep Aqua Mirror, she can unleash powerful tidal wave attacks like Deep Submerge and Submarine Reflection. Along with Pluto, she used these attacks to rescue the Inner Senshi from a trap they couldn’t escape from. She can also use the mirror to predict the future, see the truth behind illusions, and create a shield. An elegant warrior needs an elegant weapon, and the Deep Aqua Mirror fits Neptune’s mysterious personality perfectly.

Skipping forward to a much more recent magical girl series, we have Cure Mermaid from Go! Princess Precure. Each of the four cures in this show has beautiful and highly effective magical attacks to go along with the surprisingly hardcore martial arts that the Precure franchise is famous for. Minami Kaido, heiress to the successful Kaido Company and aspiring marine biologist, becomes Cure Mermaid to fight the evil Dyspear and her army of minions who threaten to steal people’s dreams for the future.

She has four different keys that can be used to perform variants of her main move, Mermaid Ripple. The most powerful one is the Sango (Coral) key, which changes the attack into “Coral Maelstrom”. She summons a massive river filled with coral and dolphins, and then charges at her opponent with the power of the ocean behind her. Seems like all that time spent studying marine life was worth it!

Michiru (no relation to Sailor Neptune) used to be a devoted wife and mother to her family, but became cold and distant after she turned into a Contractor. She carries out secret jobs for the government by using her power over water in some very creative ways.

Uniquely, she can actually detect bodies of water with her mind and locate her enemies based on their proximity to the water source. And once she catches up to them, she can change the pressure and density of the liquid to drown anyone who crosses her path. And as a bonus, she’s also great at baking!

Ayase has quite the odd approach to how she manipulates water – she uses her hair! With her “Noble Tempest” alter ability, she can extend her hair many meters from her head and turn anything that it touches into water. And since the process is completely silent, she’s excellent at covert operations.

Later in the anime, she allows herself to be experimented on and gains new powers as a result. With this refinement of her ability, she can now summon a large sea monster, whip up violent whirlpools, and overwhelm opponents with tidal waves. And coolest of all, she can use the sodium and magnesium that water contains to create rapid-fire explosions! Must’ve been taking some alchemy lessons.

In a world where every single superpowered individual is cursed with an inability to swim, control over water is a priceless skill. Luckily for the Straw Hat Pirates, Fishman Jinbei is on their side. Jinbei, a highly respected member of the Fishmen race, is a seasoned practitioner of Fishman Karate and Fishman Jujutsu. He can use the water vapor in the air to force shockwaves through his enemies’ bodies and send them flying! Even the normally impenetrable Luffy was injured by this attack. In addition, Jinbei can throw a whirlpool like a spear and a drop of water like a bullet. Don’t mess with this guy!

Once a member of the Phantom Lord guild’s Element 4, Juvia has since joined Fairy Tail and fought for the forces of good (and for Gray’s love). And thank goodness for that, since her water powers are fueled by her constantly intense emotions and pack quite a punch!

Juvia’s unique ability, among others on this list, is that her body is made entirely of water. She can disappear into a puddle for a sneak attack, breathe underwater, and dodge most attacks by letting them pass through her body harmlessly. She’s also skilled at Unison Raids, combining her powers with Lucy, Gray, and Meredy on different occasions to form combos that can incapacitate their enemies in one hit. As long as she has her friends and her love for Gray, Juvia will keep fighting until the bitter end.

For another unusual take on water powers, we have Unno Rokuro, Yukimura’s Brave of Water from Brave 10. Instead of directly attacking with water for blunt force damage, he takes an approach similar to Jinbei and uses shouts and his triangle swords to resonate waves through the water and incapacitate his opponents.

In addition to that, he also has a Water Crest eye underneath his eyepatch, which gives him the power to instantly record information and even extract memories. When he loses it later in the anime, he replaces it with the God’s Jewel – an even more powerful artifact that can directly control all forms of water, including blood. Yikes!

At first glance, Tier doesn’t seem to have any water powers at all. She’s an excellent swordswoman and the third highest-ranking member of the Espadas, but her elemental mastery doesn’t come into play until she releases her Zanpakuto. Then, her normal Arrancar clothes transform into shark-based bone armor and she gains the power to create and manipulate water from the gill marks on her enlarged blade.

Along with slicing water attacks, Tier can also boil any water around her with her Hirviendo ability. Even if it’s ice, she can turn it into steam and deflect it around herself. And with Cascada, she can create a massive waterfall large enough to cover several blocks! She’s definitely more than just a scary face.

Devout DIO supporter N’doul is blind, but don’t let your guard down around him. He and his Stand Geb, a sentient body of water small enough to fit in a canteen, were able to drown someone in the middle of a desert! By combining N’doul’s superior hearing and Geb’s ability to hide in the sand, they killed two people and seriously wounded one of the protagonists so much that he was benched for most of the season afterwards.

Geb can harden its water form and travel at speeds so fast that it can puncture metal or rip a person’s head clean off. It can also work with the natural desert environment to form quicksand and detect an enemy’s presence with falling sand particles. If someone with water powers can kick ass even in the Sahara, they’re truly a force to be reckoned with.

Spoiler Alert!!

She may not be a true fighter, per se, but Lala-Ru’s control over water makes her the most important person in the entire story. In a world where water is scarce, constant brutal wars over natural resources are just a normal reality of life. But Lala-Ru’s pendant necklace has the power to restore water to the world! This makes her a target by those who want to steal her life-giving pendant, so Shu makes it his mission to protect her.

This amazing power has a downside, however – every time she conjures water from the necklace, it chips away at her lifespan. Eventually, it will kill her. But in the finale, she decides that Shu has restored her faith in humanity and she sacrifices her life to drown the warmongering Hellywood and restore proper balance to the Earth. For such a little girl, she made a gigantic impact!