Lettuce Midorikawa
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Lettuce Midorikawa (碧川 れたす Midorikawa Retasu?) is a fictional character in the manga and anime Tokyo Mew Mew. Lettuce is known as Bridget Verdant in Mew Mew Power, Brigiti in As Super Gatinhas (Portuguese version) and Lory Midorikawa in Mew Mew: Amiche Vincenti (Italian version).
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Manga
[edit] Tokyo Mew Mew
Lettuce is introduced shortly after Mint. Ichigo finds Lettuce at the museum, where she is being bullied by three girls who to go Okumura Daifuzoku Junior High, who are yelling at her because she brought them hot coffee when it was hot outside, even though they said they wanted hot coffee, meaning they possibly just did it to be mean to her. Ichigo runs to help but Pudding gets to the girls first annoying them by being very acrobatic, and they run off. They get angry and one of the girls is about to throw the hot coffee at Pudding, but Zakuro Fujiwara stops the girl by holding her arm in a rather painful position. Seeing this the other girls stop from bullying Lettuce and leave, with Lettuce follows. Lettuce states to Ichigo she'll have to apologize to them later, but she questions why, and Ichigo doesn't see Lettuce again until some time after the earthquake.
Later, the same three girls are sitting in Café Mew Mew, talking about a mysterious ghost that haunts the pool. They try to persuade Lettuce to go and find out what it is, most likely to frighten her, and laugh about it. As their aggressiveness increases, Ichigo runs over with some strawberry parfaits and purposely trips, dumping the food in one of the girl's face. They all get angry, and Keiichiro appears and escorts the girl to the bathroom to wash up, and Ichigo introduces herself to Lettuce, who says she only hangs out with them because she wants to be their friend. Lettuce says the girls may have problems in their life so they take it out on her. The three girls reappear and Lettuce leaves the Café.
Later that night, Mint drags Ichigo, who, as it turns out, is terrified of ghosts, to the school at night to see if the mysterious creature is a Chimera Anima, but it turns out to be Lettuce, who transforms into Mew Lettuce and attacks them. Ichigo is about to fight back when she notices Lettuce is crying. Ichigo confronts Lettuce, saying that she's only fighting because she's scared. Lettuce admits to this and cries that she'll never have any friends.
Mint comforts Lettuce, but Ichigo says she can't let hurting people go unpunished, and pretends like she's going to attack Lettuce, but Ichigo actually tickles her and afterward hugs her as they fall into the pool.
[edit] Tokyo Mew Mew à La Mode
While Ichigo is in London with Masaya, the rest of the Mews are left to fight the Chimera Animas. Mint is mad that she and the rest of the Mews are more busy defeating the Chimera Anima since Ichigo left. All of the Mews agree, but they are not angry like Mint.
Lettuce was among the Mew Mews who met Berry Shirayuki in her Mew form. When Ichigo returned, she and the rest of the Mews move to her school so the whole group could be together if an enemy shows up.
Later, the Saint Rose Crusaders brainwash the people to believe that Berry was the evil Mew, ruining Tokyo Mew Mew. However, Lettuce and the others stand by her side. However, their enemy is turned good and the people are no longer brainwashed.
[edit] Anime
[edit] Tokyo Mew Mew
Lettuce appears in episode three of Tokyo Mew Mew, titled "Gakkou no Kaidan! Obake no Shoutai Mitsukedasu Nyan!" (School Ghost Story! Revealing the Monster's True Form, Nyan!).
Running late for school, Ichigo runs into Lettuce, literally. A demonstration clip of a model car crashing into a wall and a dummy being pushed back by an airbag demonstrated how they crashed, added for comic relief. for some. The two fall over and Lettuce apologizes profusely. Ichigo notices that she has four schoolbags and wonders why, when three girls appear and tell Lettuce to hurry up. Lettuce apologizes one more time and runs off.
Later, the four girls are sitting in Café Mew Mew, talking about a mysterious ghost that haunts their school's pool. They try to persuade Lettuce to go and find out what it is. As their aggressiveness increases, Ichigo runs over with "Ketchup and Mayonnaise Parfaits" and has her hand "slip", dumping the food in the three girls' faces. The girls try to attack her but she ducks and the three girls crash into a table. Keiichiro appears and asks for the girls to forgive Ichigo's clumsiness. Charmed, the girls go with him as Keiichiro escorts the girls to the bathroom to wash up, and Ichigo introduces herself to Lettuce, who says she only hangs out with them because she wants to be their friend. She thinks she is made fun of because she thinks she always does something to upset the three girls. The three girls appear and Lettuce leaves the Cafe.
Later that night, Mint drags Ichigo (who, as it turns out, is terrified of ghosts) to the school at night to see if the mysterious creature is a Chimera Anima, but it turns out to be Mew Lettuce, who attacks them. Ichigo is about to fight back when she notices Lettuce is crying. Ichigo confronts Lettuce, saying that she's only fighting because she's scared. Lettuce admits to this and cries that she'll never have any friends because she has "this body" and that she is weird. Mint comforts Lettuce, but Ichigo says she can't let hurting people go unpunished, and pretends to attack Lettuce with her Reborn Strawberry "Jail", but she tells Lettuce it was to get rid of her "weirdness". Ichigo hugs Lettuce and they fall into the pool.
[edit] Mew Mew Power
In Mew Mew Power, Bridget is bossed around by three popular girls called 'The 3 Beckys' and vents out her anger at nighttime at the school. However, Zoey and Corina befriend her and she stops hanging around with the three girls. She also seems to be intelligent, while Lettuce is not mentioned to be especially smart. Although, Zoey once said that Bridget had a t-shirt that said "Me+Math=Love". This could mean that Bridget is exceptionally good at math.
The first part of her transformation has also been cut, due to her being silhouetically naked during most of the sequence. However, 4Kids has not given her a specific transformation, unlike the other Mews, and she only appears in group transformations. They are also very inconsistent in doing this and sometimes she spins two times on herself. In the Japanese version, she spins only once.
[edit] Personality
Lettuce is a smart, shy, clumsy girl who is very polite. She comes from a positive family and always speaks formally. She always has a hard time opening up, but she is very sweet. She doesn't believe in fighting but does if she has to. She always does what she thinks is right. She loves to sew and makes beautiful little dolls to sell. Lettuce has strong moral values, but doesn't like to enforce them on people because she is so shy. At Café Mew Mew, Lettuce always tries her best, despite her clumsiness where she might break some dishes.
[edit] Familiy
Little is known about Lettuce's family, as they don't appear in the manga, and only in one episode 34 in the anime. Her whole family wears glasses, and she looks more like her mother.
[edit] Romanization
In the Japanese version of the manga, Lettuce's name is written in katakana and hiragana. When she is in Mew form, her name is written in katakana, and when she is "normal", her name is written in hiragana. This was most likely done so that she can hide her identity as Mew Lettuce, and for emphasis, as it is common to write Japanese words in katakana. Due to the difference being different writing systems, this was omitted in the English version of the manga, as English has only one writing system. Because of this, fans who have only seen the English version could find it odd how no one found out her identity.
[edit] Profile
- Name Translation: "れたす Retasu"-Lettuce (Japanese equivalent in kana), "碧 Midori"-Green, "川 kawa"-River/stream
- Name Pronunciation: Reh-tah-soo Mee-dou-ree-kah-wah
- Alias: Mew Lettuce (ミュウ・レタス Myuu Retasu)
- Signature Color: Green
- Age: 12-13, as she ages during the series. (15 in Mew Mew Power)
- Birthday: April 29, which is the Greenery Day in Japan. This day was most likely chosen to be her birthday because her signature color is green.
- Grade: 7th grade, 1st year of middle school by Japanese standards (10th in Mew Mew Power)
- Hair Color: Dark Green, light green in Mew Form
- Eye Color: Blue-violet, green in Mew Form
- Height: 5 feet 2 inches
- Weight: 92 lbs
- BMI: 18.7
- Likes: Making dolls
- Talents: Sewing
- Favorite foods: Shortcake
- Least favorite foods: Mushrooms
- Blood Type: A
- Mew Mark: Two Finless Porpoise above her heart, colored green (pink in the anime)
- Transformation saying: "Mew Mew Lettuce, Metamorphosis!" in Tokyo Mew Mew, "Power Pendant, Activate!" in the premire episode of Mew Mew Power ("Power Pendant, Mewtamorphosis!" in later episodes, but not all, as her transformation is often cut) and "Mew Lory, metamorfosi!" (Mew Lory, metamorphosis!) in Mew Mew: Amiche Vincenti.
- Animal: Finless Porpoise
- Love interest: Lettuce has her first love in the anime which ends up as just friendship (her crush loved someone else), but she later falls in love with Ryou Shirogane, and kisses him once in the anime. It is not known if her feelings are returned.
The anime adaption of the series gives Lettuce some kind of connection to Pie, as near the end she tries to convince him that humans and aliens shouldn't always fight and he seems to somewhat warm up to her. Also he sacrifices himself for the Mew team at the end, and when the aliens leave, Lettuce says, "Pai-san." Her love life in the manga is barely touched upon, aside from a single scene with Ryou.
[edit] Weapons and abilites
Her DNA is infused with that of the Finless Porpoise, though she cannot swim unless she becomes a mermaid with Mew Aqua (her legs become a porpoise tail). Later, apparently she can breath in water and swim a bit. In the manga, she instead becomes a mermaid when immersed in water while transformed. At first, her powers were fueled by rage, but after meeting Ichigo and Mint they were calmed down, so to speak. Her attacks focus on water.
[edit] Tokyo Mew Mew
- Weapons: Lettuce Castanets/Lettuce Tanet (レタス・タネット retasutanetto)
- Attack: Reborn Lettuce Rush (リボーン・レタス・ラッシュ riboun retasu rasshu)
- Weapon (manga only): Mew Aqua Rod (ミュウ・アクア・ロッド Myuu Akua Roddo)
- Attack (manga only): Reborn Aqua Drop (リボーン・アクア・ドロップ Riboun Akua Doroppu)
- Weapon: Lettuce Castanets/Lettuce Tanet
- Attack: Mew power extension!
- this attack is only used in volume seven with Mint, Pudding, and Zakuro to give time for Ichigo to battle Deep Blue.
[edit] Reborn Translation Error
"Reborn" was incorrectly translated as "Ribbon" in the English version of the manga. In the Japanese manga it was written as リボーン riboun, which is "reborn". But, to an English native speaker, it roughly looks like "ribbon", so Tokyopop assumed it was "ribbon" which is seen throughout the entire manga series. However, many fans still call it "ribbon," as do fansubs and fandubs, as a vast mojority of fans do not know the correct translation.
"Ribbon" was to be used only once in the Tokyo Mew Mew' fanchise; the opening song of the anime, sang by Rika Komatsu, which sounds very different from リボーン riboun. リボン ribon was never to be present in the manga, but the English version of the manga has "ribbon" present.
リボン ribon and リボーン riboun do look similar, with the only difference being a dash between ボ bo and ン n, called a chōon, used in katakana. The chōon represents the length of the a vowel, which is very important in determining the meaning of a word, regardless of a words looking similar. Many non-Japanese fans who have seen the Japanese version of the manga and the anime most likely either didn't know that the chōon is important in determining the meaning of a word, or knew but didn't catch this.
[edit] Attack Name Translation Error
In the earlier volumes of TokyoPop's English translation of the manga series, Lettuce's attack was misromanized as "Ribbon Lettuce Rash" and "Ribbon Lettuce Flash". "Rash" is most likely due to the way "rush" is written in Japanese. In katakana, "rush" is written as "rasshu" (ラッシュ), which looks more like "rash" than "rush". As for "Ribbon Lettuce Flash", the "r" and "l" are the same in Japanese, and Tokyopop used the "L", making it "lashu", which would translate to "lash", which sounds a bit like "flash".
[edit] Pun of Lettuce's Weapon
The pun of her weapon in the Japanese version is a cross between "lettuce" (レタス retasu) and part of "castanet" (タネットtanetto, from カスタネット kasutanetto), making it "retasutanetto" (レタス・タネット), which translates to "Lettuce tanet", or "Lettuce castanet".
[edit] Mew Mew Power
- Weapon: Combat Castanets (Also known as "Morse Code Castanets")
- Attacks: The name of her attack is constantly changing. Some examples include: Deep Sea Surge Attack, Tidal Wave Rush, and Underwater Surge Attack.
[edit] Mew Mew: Amiche Vincenti
- Weapon: Fiocco di Lory (Lory's ribbon)
- Attack: Fiocco d'acqua (Ribbon of water)
[edit] Voice Actresses
- In Tokyo Mew Mew, her seiyū is Kumi Sakuma.
- In Mew Mew Power, her voice actress is Bella Hudson.
- In Miau Miau Power, her voice actress is Dilma Gómez.
- In Mew Mew: Amiche Vincenti, her vocie actress is Elisabetta Spinelli.
- In As Super Gatinhas (Portuguese version), her voice acress is Letícia Quinto.
[edit] Character Songs
Lettuce has two character songs performed by Kumi Sakuma, Lettuce's voice actress.
- Hitori de Itemo (Though I'm Alone)
- Umi wo Miteita (I have seen the Sea)
Both can be found on Mew Lettuce no CD (Mew Lettuce's CD). They are also included in the CDs Character songs megamix, Super best hits-Cafe Mew Mew side, and Super best hits-Tokyo Mew Mew side.[1]
[edit] Trivia
- Lettuce is the only Mew whose Mew Mew Power name still references to her signature color, as "verdant", her last name, means green.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
| Tokyo Mew Mew Characters |
| Heroines |
| Ichigo Momomiya - Mint Aizawa - Lettuce Midorikawa |
| Pudding Fong - Zakuro Fujiwara - Berry Shirayuki |
| Ringo Akai - Hime Azumi |
| Friends |
| Masaya Aoyama - The Blue Knight |
| Ryou Shirogane - Keiichiro Akasaka - Tasuku Meguro |
| Masha - Ucha |
| Enemies |
| Aliens (Pie - Kish - Tart - Gateau du Rowa) |
| Deep Blue - Chimera Anima - Baku - Saint Rose Crusaders |
| Minor characters |
