It’s really too bad Rito won’t remember any of this.
Chapter 51 opens with Yui seeing a young family as she walks across the street.
She immediately relapses into her gajillionth Rito marriage fantasy which now also doubles as a motherhood fantasy. Right now, we should be suspicious that something is up, because these early panels are often used to foreshadow.
Meanwhile, Nemesis ambushes Rito with a biological weapon that she believes will turn him into a rampaging giant. But because the confection wasn’t designed with humans in mind, the results go differently than expected and Rito turns into a baby instead. Rito’s powers are frightening- even attacks against him can turn into clumsy, happy accidents.
Now faced with a bit of a problem, Nemesis dumps the baby off on Yui who happened to be passing by, then runs off. This causes several misunderstandings about Yui being a teenage mother, which activates Yui’s flustered innocent girl mode.
Yui brings the baby back home where Mikan also happens to be. It turns out Rito was a cute baby himself, and Mikan wonders if… nah, couldn’t be.
Baby Rito is very much a baby. Unlike his previous shapeshifts or body-swaps, he’s lost all of his adult mental faculties and does not seem to fully realize who Mikan or Yui are. He’s just a baby doing what babies do. In this case, an accidentally lecherous baby.
Things get interesting when Yui tries to cheer him up:
I never thought we’d see golden showers in To Love-Ru, but there you have it.
Realizing that diapers are needed to take care of the baby, Mikan speeds off to buy some while instructing Yui to clean up with the new baby in the bath. Prepare yourselves.
Awesome.
Of course, the fun has to end, as Rito suddenly reverts back to adult form.
Every time a girl sees Rito’s junk, she’s got that ‘o…m…g…’ expression on her face. Just something to file away the next time you wonder why they all want him so badly despite him being such a huge spaz.
As usual, you can find the full scans of each chapter at CxC scans.
Off topic for a sec. Rito’s character has always felt like a derivative of Tsuna from Reborn! to me. Based on appearance if nothing else:
But the similarities go beyond that. Both are, in Clark Kent form, self-doubting nice guys with spiky hair and shiny eyes who happen to be shy and lacking in stature. But whereas Tsuna awakens into his ultimate ‘cool kid mode’ where he can do no wrong, Rito was blessed with the exact opposite kind of super power, yet still have everything break the way any red blooded male would want it to.
Tsuna is trained by a master hitman who had been turned into a baby. And now Yui has been unwittingly trained to breastfeed by Rito who had been turned into a baby. The circle is complete.
