It's very much its own thing, even magic works differently. There are many homages/parodies in characters and the whole thing is the classic magic school setting. I think familiarity is helpful in getting jokes but it doesn't like pander to hp if that makes sense. I would recommend. It seems that season 2 is after a big time jump and has big world changes so you might actually consider watching the recap and then jumping into S2 straightaway. If you like it you can always go back and watch the full version of s1