you know. thinking about formative animes and its really funny how i never watched any of the more "classic" magical girl stuff that played the genre straight like sailor moon and card captor sakura growing up (though sakura DID leave an aesthetic impression on me if nothing else) but instead made the beeline from princess tutu -> madoka magica -> utena
skipped the construction part and went straight to the deconstruction
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i did not know it at the time, but this series would leave a psychological impression on me so strong it would later lead to my lifelong obsession with revolutionary girl utena and also narratives that feature characters breaking free from their "destiny"-ordained textual confines in general
like the main villain is licherally just evil white noise and the characters are trapped inside a fairytale that keeps spinning on its wheels ad infinitum i don't know what else to tell you