@Monkey:
So then more than one person has an incredible tunnel vision of "warrior chick in bikini thing". Wow! That makes it more legit somehow!
To be fair, Red Sonja's chainmail battle bikini is pretty iconic and instantly recognizable, and being a huge Conan fan personally, I instantly thought that too. I wouldn't be surprised to find Oda was inspired… but there's also zero reason to think he's ever even heard of her, and there's nothing specifically to indicate any such thing, especially since Sonja isn't a part of the actual Conan stories, there's 0 reason to think Oda's seen the old american comics.
If she appeared in color and had red hair and the chainmail was silver, or it wasn't in a braid, or her name was closer to Sonja, or she was specifically a barbarian warrior instead of a gladiator, or she was more clearly a one off gag, then yeah. But as is, she might also be inspired by this random Boris Vallejo painting.
![](http://t.wallpaperweb.org/wallpaper/fantasy/1280x960/BY_BVnJBCal05wall1280_VallejoBoris_WarriorQueen.jpg)
A warrior woman in a metal bikini! It's just so… only applicable to one character ever!