Lucky Star and K-on for CGDCT
Evangelion for meta-commentary and deconstruction, to the point that future works that qualify often get called the “Evangelion of <genre>”
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and Attack on Titan for battle shounen
Bocchi the Rock for girls band anime, specifically
Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro for pretty much all of Ghibli
Akira for 90s anime
Yeah, it’s good, but there are plenty of older ones: K-On!, Sound! Euphonium, Show By Rock!!, BanG Dream!, arguably Carole & Tuesday… (also quite a lot of others that came out around the same time; the genre seems to be in vogue this decade or so).
It’s an interesting and original take on the giant mecha genre, I’ll give it that, but I can’t think of anything that’s specifically riding on its coattails, no.
AoT itself is inspired by muv luv, which afaik founded the whole “humanity on the brink of extinction fighting against some enemy” concept. But while AoT is the first anime of a story like that to my knowledge, I also can’t really think of another anime with that concept outside of 86 (i will not acknowledge the existence of the horrendous muv luv adaptation that came out a few years ago, plus it wouldn’t make sense to include as something AoT inspired anyway).