Retasu Midorikawa

''"Mew Mew Lettuce, Metamorphose!" - Retasu's transformation call.''

Retasu Midorikawa (碧川 れたす, Midorikawa Retasu) is a main character and protagonist from the manga series Tokyo Mew Mew and its anime adaptation. She is the third member to be introduced and her DNA is merged with a finless porpoise.

She is a shy, second-year junior high student who attends Okumura Junior High School and she also works at Café Mew Mew as a waitress, a cover-up of her real duty as a Mew Mew.

Civilian
Retasu is an average, fair-skinned young girl with dark blue eyes and dark green hair that she keeps in two long braids down her back. She wears large round glasses with thin frames. She has a modest style of dressing.

Café Mew Mew
Her café uniform consists of a green dress with light green trim-like stitches at the bottom and a heart-shaped white apron. Underneath, she wears white pantaloons with small light green bows on each side and has a light green ribbon tied into a neat bow on her chest. On her sleeves are green cuffs that end in white frills.

She also wears black mary-janes with green socks, laces and a small heart placed on the tongue. Retasu's hair is clipped with a green lace headband.

Mew Form (2002)
Her Mew Mark is two curves that resemble fish on her chest.

Mew Form (2022)
Aside from a few upgrades and a different color palette, her leotard is replaced with a tight green skirt. Her Mew Pendant no longer exists and in its place is a green ribbon with a green heart gem in the middle. She also has another ribbon, bigger and lighter in color, behind the choker. Her green garter now has a ribbon attached, and her new fingerless gloves have a white band with a small green heart gem. Her boots are laced-up and her once loose ponytail has been split into two with curls at the end that resembles the waves. Her long white antennas are now located at the back of the flower-petal skirt.

Mermaid Form
If Retasu comes into contact with Mew Aqua while underwater, she gains a porpoise tail in place of her legs and can breathe underwater, despite the fact that she cannot swim otherwise. This first occurs in episode 19 during an attempt to rescue Iruka, and again in episode 41 when trying to save Ryou.

Personality
Retasu is a sweet girl who is rather shy and timid. She is initially shown to have low self-esteem, thinking that she'd never have friends, but slowly becomes more sure of herself after becoming a Mew. Retasu is very polite and often refers to people formally, including her family and friends. She dislikes fighting unless absolutely necessary and would rather resolve conflicts peacefully.

As a Civilian
Retasu is very creative and gifted in tailoring, as demonstrated by the dolls she makes during her spare time. She is intelligent, and demonstrates some skill in hand-to-hand combat, even if she does not use it all the time. At the beginning of the story, she did not know how to swim but now is able.

As a Mew Mew
Lettuce's DNA is infused with the DNA of the finless porpoise, a cousin of the dolphin, so Lettuce's legs can transform into a porpoise's tail when underwater (if in possession of Mew Aqua), greatly approving of her ability to swim.

Lettuce is able to manipulate water as much as she wants by mind. Although this ability seems to be both related to her emotions, being able to intensify the power.

Weapons and Attacks
In 2020 Re-Turn, Mew Lettuce appears to still use her Lettustanets. She is also still able to use her "mermaid" form, as she dives underwater to try and rescue Masaya and Mew Ichigo from drowning. Her new attack is "LettuSniping Shot".

Name Changes (Manga)
As in most cases, the characters' names in Tokyo Mew Mew went through changes upon translation. For English manga translations, TokyoPop and Kodansha used the food translations for both the characters' names and Mew Mew names. For the Singapore English translation, publisher Chuang Yi chose to keep both the civilian and secret identity names.

Name Changes (Anime)
Tokyo Mew Mew was dubbed and localized in many different languages. The names of the characters were also subject to change. Many of the dubs that didn't use Retasu/Lettuce or Bridget often translated their words for "Lettuce" as her first name; for example, Wō-Jù, and Alface all mean 'lettuce' in their respective language.

Etymology

 * The name Retasu means "Lettuce".
 * Retasu's surname Midorikawa means "green, blue" (碧) (midori) and "river, stream" (川) (kawa).

Trivia

 * According to her official profile for the Playstation game, she is a 2nd-year middle schooler, unlike Ichigo and Minto, who are 1st years. However, since Retasu's birthday is April 29th, Retasu ages very early on to 14, from 13. This is because the Japanese school year begins in April (around April 1st) and ends in late March. Thus, Retasu would be 13 for about the span of a single month.
 * In Mew Mew Power, Bridget is shown to be intelligent, while Retasu is not mentioned to be especially smart.
 * Retasu's eyesight improves as Mew Lettuce, no longer needing glasses to see.
 * Even though she can swim as Mew Lettuce, Retasu at first could not.
 * The finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) (known as the "Sunameri" in Japan) looks like a small beluga whale and is named after its lack of a dorsal fin. There are two subspecies: the Indo-Pacific and the narrow-ridged. According to the IUCN Red List, the former is "vulnerable" and the latter is "endangered". Their current population numbers are unknown.
 * It is unknown which subspecies provides Retasu's DNA and powers.
 * Retasu's birthday, April 29, is the "Day of Green" in Japan. (Or at least was when Tokyo Mew Mew was created.)
 * In Mew Mew Power, the beginning portion of Retasu/Bridget's transformation is cut due to the brief nudity and 4Kids high standards of a broadcast.
 * She doesn't have a solo transformation in Mew Mew Power.
 * She shares her surname with voice actor Midorikawa Hikaru, who voiced Keiichiro. Although, the kanji used for "Green" is different.
 * In Berry Berry Mew Mew, Retasu speaks formally in the first half of episode 3 and speaks informally later on; while in the original Japanese version, she speaks formally all the time.
 * As a pastime, Retasu enjoys making dolls.
 * Retasu's favorite foods are shortcakes, mille crepes, and stewed foods.
 * Her least favorite food is shiitake mushrooms.
 * In both Cantonese dubs, the translated name they chose for her, Heung-Choi, actually means "Parsley".
 * When the voice actors for the original Tokyo Mew Mew anime were announced in the March 2002 issue of Nakayoshi magazine, it showed that Yoko Asada was originally going to voice Retasu. However, before recording, she had to go on maternity leave due to her pregnancy. So the role ended up going to Kumi Sakuma.
 * Kumi Sakuma was Yoko Asada's understudy.

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