Tokyo Mew Mew New

Episode 8

I think we could all be forgiven if we wondered why there was so much Bu-Ling in what was supposed to be Lettuce's episode. Not that a lot of Bu-Ling is a bad thing – her hyperactivity is infectious, and seeing how much she loves her younger, possibly quintuplet siblings is very sweet. That's especially true of how solicitous she is of Huacha, the one kid who's always a beat behind the others. Bu-Ling explains to Lettuce that people misjudge him because his pace isn't the same as everyone else's, and that causes them to miss how smart he really is. That seems like something that Lettuce is in a unique position to understand, if only because of her horribly low self-esteem. Lettuce continually underestimates herself because she's not as enthusiastic as Ichigo, as bouncy and coordinated as Bu-Ling, or as confident as Mint and Zakuro. She's so focused on what she can't do that she hasn't taken the time to figure out what she can, and that's really sad.

Fortunately, episode eight is here to help her with that. While the premise is straight out of a shoujo fever dream – Café Mew Mew is somehow well enough established that it can host a black-tie dessert tasting on Ryo's family yacht – putting the gang on the water is a good way for Lettuce to realize that she's more than the sum of her anxieties. It says a lot that she's so busy being upset with herself that she forgets what animal she's been fused with, because as someone who now shares DNA with a dolphin, the ocean is exactly where Lettuce is supposed to be in order to shine.

It does take a long time to get her to that point, though. The first three-quarters of the episode focus on Ichigo's increasingly complicated love life and Bu-Ling's cute family, while Lettuce bumbles around in the background trying desperately to be helpful. When the other girls note that she's trying too hard, they don't seem to be judging her, but it does both create a sense that Lettuce is the square peg in their board, unable to fit into the neat round holes everyone else slides into. Bu-Ling comes the closest to understanding, and that's largely because of Huacha; she sees that Lettuce and her little brother are both misunderstood by others, and she's observant enough to notice that the two of them are getting along pretty well. That does make it fitting that the most impressive moments of the fight against the most vicious fish since the last time the bluefish were running in the bay belong to the two of them, with Mew Pudding saving four of her siblings and Mew Lettuce rescuing Huacha.

The fact that we finally get Lettuce's full transformation almost makes it worth the wait, but more importantly, Mew Lettuce is the first to truly unlock the greater extent of her powers. We've seen Mew Ichigo flip around midair to land on her feet, but Lettuce's powers not only allow her to learn how to swim, she can full-out turn into an honest-to-goodness mermaid. A dolphin mermaid, so she can't breathe underwater but instead has increased breath-holding powers, but still, that's nothing to sneeze at. She can also use sonar to get a picture of what's going on around her when she's in the water, and she's the one who discovers the purification item as well. She may not get the bulk of the screentime, but Mew Lettuce has significantly upped the ante for what the girls should be able to do.

In the long term, Lettuce now has a better sense of herself as a competent person, and that's something she badly needed. It would have been nice for Ryo to be interested in her rather than Ichigo, but Lettuce is also better off seeing herself as complete without a guy, and Ryo does give her the push that she needed to start moving forward. She may not be as dynamic as the other girls, but Lettuce is more than capable of holding her own. I just wish the episode had trusted that she could carry it by herself.

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