User blog comment:IamJakuhoRaikoben/Chapter 253: Let's Join Hands, Review./@comment-251220-20111001181019/@comment-251220-20111001183542

But still, 1 to 3 years of solely training without unexpected encounters allows for physical maturity but not so much mental and personality changed so one doesn't see to much unnecessary and unlikeable change like the timeskips in One Piece, Naruto and Bleach, but 7 years is a tremendous amount of time for maturity to occur in their mindsets, they may not even be the same characters anymore, sure they may have moments of "immature regression" at times but most of the time they'll be like serious, responsible and determined adults... Happy sounding like a teenager, a Lucy that's good with men, a Grey that manages to have partial control over his stripping fetish, a patient Gajeel and an Erza with titanic-sized boobs! And it was these silly qualities that made them so lovable... and all this happened in such a short time and so many things were left undone from the pre-timeskip...