In terms of being dark, are there any ways where Tokyo Mew Mew could be seen as darker than the first season of Sailor Moon?
I mainly ask this because Tokyo Mew Mew has always been thought of by many people as more lighthearted than Sailor Moon.
From what I've seen, Tokyo Mew Mew gets pretty dark sometimes — The image in the 'Read More' being a list that I made from my research, written before researching Sailor Moon, and is also a snippet of a larger text I made trying to sort out my thoughts and feelings so that I could answer this post — Compared to Sailor Moon, which's research that I conducted didn't give me much that could be interpreted as dark, the show is actually pretty daring. Sailor Moon, as far as I can remember, had (minor spoilers for Sailor Moon's Season 1: a few villain deaths, and The Whole Deal with Episode 45), which while impactful, isn't nearly as much as Tokyo Mew Mew's, and that show also has very disturbing moments. Though nothing as drastic as Sailor Moon's EP45 until the final episodes.
In general, I actually think, from my own research and memories, that Sailor Moon seems more lighthearted than Tokyo Mew Mew in general. Tokyo Mew Mew has a good variety of Filler Episodes where there isn't much angst, but it has many more dark moments than Sailor Moon seems to have, from what I've researched and remember.
Edit: Oh! And another thing I didn't remember while writing this in the text file: There's a lot of trouble with Ichigo's relationship with Aoyama, due to her having to go away to do Mew Mew business, and hide away her identity. Those create some tense moments as well. You can decide whether those are dark enough.