Skyward is basically Gurren Lagann

[Patrick Star]

So I just finished Skyward, and throughout the whole thing I couldn't stop thinking "this sounds like Gurren Lagann"

So let's recap. 

- Humanity is trapped in underground caverns on a desolate world, with most shreds of prior civilization eliminated.

- An alien force raids the surface, but only when human populations exceed a certain point.  We later find out that this is done to prevent humans from advancing further and to keep them in a less advanced technological state.

- The main protagonist is a town runt who's really freaking weird, who finds a broken down piece of technology from the past in a random cave while exploring.  This piece of technology becomes crucial to fighting the alien threat, and the protagonist discovers that they have an inner power that is essential for unlocking its full potential.  In addition, this inner power was a key part of why humanity ended up in this situation to begin with.

- Your drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens!  Don't think I need to say any more here.

All it's missing is a Spiral King figure.

Also, both are hype af

[Unstoppable Force]

Never heard of it, will have to take your word for it.

[Govir]

I immediately thought this when I was reading the preview chapters. I asked Brandon during a Reddit AMA if he drew any inspiration from there, but it seems like he hasn't seen the show.

 

Quote

 

Govir

An actual Skyward question: Were you inspired by the anime Gurren Lagann at all for this? That anime starts out with humans living in caves and being attacked in order to keep their population down. The cave dwelling and constant attacks is the only connection so far that I see (the rest of the anime gets pretty crazy and I don't think you'd go that far).

Brandon Sanderson

I'm afraid I haven't seen Gurren Lagann, which is probably an oversight--a lot of people talk about it being great.

source

 

I hope it doesn't go as crazy as Gurren Lagann did (which wasn't a bad thing, just not what I want from Sanderson).

[weremermaid]

I definitely got those vibes from the start. It's not the only thing with that sort of theme, but it's certainly got a looooot of similar stuff. 

[deacon he/him]

Yeah!! As soon the stuff about "keeping the population down" I thought of exactly the same thing!

[Andy92]

I haven’t read that but the vibe I got from Skyward was that it’s Ender’s Game if the humans lost the first war against the buggers. 

Young pilots being trained on flight simulators, an alien race the humans don’t really understand that operates like a large computerized unit sending information to each other, the jumping in and out of reality for FTL travel...there’s a lot of similarities to Ender’s Game. 

[Patrick Star]

On 2/26/2019 at 7:32 PM, Andy92 said:

I haven’t read that but the vibe I got from Skyward was that it’s Ender’s Game if the humans lost the first war against the buggers. 

Young pilots being trained on flight simulators, an alien race the humans don’t really understand that operates like a large computerized unit sending information to each other, the jumping in and out of reality for FTL travel...there’s a lot of similarities to Ender’s Game. 

Yeah, the tech and side characters definitely mirror some other stuff, but the basic plot progression and premise is far more Gurren Lagann than anything else

[+Ark1002]

On 2/26/2019 at 4:32 PM, Andy92 said:

I haven’t read that but the vibe I got from Skyward was that it’s Ender’s Game if the humans lost the first war against the buggers. 

Young pilots being trained on flight simulators, an alien race the humans don’t really understand that operates like a large computerized unit sending information to each other, the jumping in and out of reality for FTL travel...there’s a lot of similarities to Ender’s Game. 

Wow, yeah, that's an amazing similarity