>>111841867Cubone? Maybe. But it's certainly not the first time an animal wore the skull of another on its head.
Ryuko? You're reaching, and hard. Where's her edge? Where's the anger? Where's the wardrobe of blacks and reds? Where's the metaphor for puberty and sexuality, and the outfit that drinks your blood? It'd be a more apt comparison to say she was Akko or something, but she's definitely not Mrs "I gotta find out who killed my dad!", who is such a badass sourpuss the first thing we see her do is bite into a lemon like it's an apple.
Even then, if we go with the Akko comparison, she's not even at a school or anything, this is a single person apprenticeship under one woman with no peers her age to speak of. There's no Diana, no Sucy, nothing, she's just learning magic from this one old bitch. The witch lady seems to be an entertainer like Shiny Chariot was, but she doesn't have an alter ego or anything, and doesn't seem to be a conventional teacher at all. Sure, t/here are fantasy creatures and witch brooms like in LWA. But I don't think basic fantasy elements are enough to say, "Yeah, that was directly inspired by this other thing".
Also I can't really argue about the wholesale lifted fight scenes from Utena in SU, which is, make no mistake, lazy at best, shitty at worst. But I was talking more in a conceptual level. I haven't seen too many things like Garnet or Steven being his own mother and himself anywhere else.
