Tokyo Mew Mew was, basically, my first anime. It was, overall, actually a pretty good place to begin.
Right then, story wise it's interesting but more in a new-spin on an old idea way; the concept of adding the environmental and animal focus to the magical girl idea was neat and I liked that some of the animals were less typical. The basic collect-the-pieces-and-destroy-the-monster plot is nice enough and pretty entertaining, and comes across as less repetitive as some could. There are some decent twists and turns, and I like one early on where we get a total 180 for Lettuce. The romance is... generic, but oh well.
Art wise, it's nice. I like the style, it's very much modern girly anime and it's wonderfully bright a lot of the time. It has the frilly lolita sections, the girly cafe... it's all just so girly looking, but not in a bad way. And design wise I love it- the magic-girl uniforms have something that sets them apart from most, they're a bit different, nicely designed, especially Ichigo's.
Sound wise, it's fine. Decent voices... nice opening theme... obnoxiously catchy ending... Nice.
I like the characters, too. They're stereotypes, but very well executed ones I think. Mint sticks out as the one that you'd expect to be all rich and aloof but secretly 'omgLONELY' but they really kind of diverted that one away. Ichigo is cute, no Mary-Sue and she feels well rounded. Pudding is cute, does the whole kid-with-responsibility thing nicely and is, well, cute. Zakuro is the least interesting, very cut out but never annoying, and Lettuce is sweet and has some development I feel.
I enjoyed the whole thing. Funnily enough, more the start than the end, which is odd for me, but it's a good anime to watch when you need something quite light, happy but still solid and it really is something that just cheers you up.
Never, EVER watch the dub though.
EVER.
Whooooole 'nother story.
