With Symphogear practically being the lovechild of Magical Girl, Mecha and Toku, you can bet on your life there are tons of references.
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General
- Hibiki? Kanade? Noise? Mephisto? Maria? Shirabe? Why does it sounds so familiar?
- Chris's armor the Ichaival refers to a fake weapon invented by Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War which somehow ended up mistaken for a real European weapon on Wikipedia.
- Chris's solo special attacks in particular are invariably named after various rock or metal bands, such as BILLION MAIDEN, MEGADETH PARTY, and RED HOT BLAZE.
- So Chris has Mystical White Hair, a red color scheme, uses lots of guns and is Conveniently an Orphan. Where does that sound familiar?
- Maybe it's just coincidence, but if you take Toyosatomimi no Miko from Touhou Project and wear those hair ears down, she looks a lot like Hibiki.
- Berserk Hibiki has some interesting similarities to Asura, completely with being shrouded in darkness with ominous glowing eyes.
- It seems that Noise have started manifesting outside of Shibuya.
- Miku's Symphogear form is a pretty much a Murokumo unit, mixing elements of Nu-13 and Lambda 11 (the Anubis-like head gear and visor) with elements of Mu-12 (having special devices that allow beam spam).
- Speaking of BlazBlue, Chris happens to have white hair, wears prominently red clothes, swears up a storm and has very tragic past. Sound familiar? And in pure coincidence, she temporarily works alongside a man voiced by Tomokazu Sugita.
- Kirika's mashing up of the Japanese word "desu" and the English word "death" might be one to Babymetal, who do the same thing.
Symphogear
- A newspaper headline in episode 1 indicates that Chris was orphaned in, and later rescued from, the war-torn country of Val Verde, a fictitious Latin American country used in several 20th Century Fox movies from the late '80s such as Commando, Predator, and Die Hard 2.
- The story begins when our hero(ine) is impaled by dozens of shards of shrapnel and has to carry them around inside her, close to her heart, while she becomes a superhero with a transforming robot suit.note A flashback in episode 4 also shows her predecessor is so desperate to fight she consents to be injected with dangerous chemicals that make her scream in agony, yet she demands they proceed anyway.
- When Tsubasa bleeds from eyes and mouth in episode while executing her Ultimate Song against Chris, she looks almost like Miki Sayaka during her "I'm such a fool" moment. Jarring, because Tsubasa normally doesn't make that kind of face, her emotional spectrum considered.
- At one point during the Training Montage in episode 4, Genjuro is dressed exactly like Akuma/Gouki. Considering his badassery, it's not exactly inappropriate. Hibiki is also wearing Makoto's clothes.
- Genjuro and Hibiki also wear the iconic yellow tracksuit of Bruce Lee from Enter the Dragon.
- Ichaival's weapons in season 1 are mostly visual shout-outs to various Gundams:
- In its first appearance, it packs the quadruple gatling-guns and micromissile pods of the Heavyarms Custom. This might also be a Xenosaga reference, except that KOS-MOS and T-ELOS don't have built-in micromissiles.
- In episode 10, Chris transforms into the Dendrobium Orchis.
- Chris's Superb Song at the end of the first season combines visual references to no less than three different Gundams: Gundam Double X, Turn A, and Wing Zero Custom.
- When talking about the Treasury of Babylon being a Hammerspace that contains weapons from time immemorial, the first thing that comes to mind is Gilgamesh's. The ultimate ability of Solomon's Cane, which opens an entrance into the Treasury, is even called Gate of Babylon.
Symphogear OVA
- The movies Genjuro lends out are generally real movies with the numbers filed off, such as Equilibrium and The Thing (1982). A cartoony version of the Kennel-Thing from the latter movie even features in a couple of the title cards.
Symphogear G
- The Training Montage is a full-blown Shout-Out to Rocky, complete with punching frozen carcasses and the library staircase. Meanwhile, Genjyuro and Hibiki sing "Hero Story", the theme song of the Police Story series.
- Hibiki's design from G onward homages Junk Warrior, and she pulls off what is unmistakeably a Scrap Fist in the first episode of the season. Understandable, since the director for G onward was also a director for few episodes of 5Ds (as well as Duel Monsters and being the main director for ARC-V).
- The opening song for the show that Yumi, Shiori and Kuriyo sing (or rather, attempt to) is called Denkō Keiji Ban. It seems to be a parody of Space Sheriff Gavan, especially since the song has "Genchaku!" in the title, a lot like Gavan's henshin call of "Jouchaku!"
- Tsubasa's line in G when carrying Chris and company away from danger - "If you keep talking, you'll bite your tongue" - is a paraphrase of a similar line from Mobile Fighter G Gundam.
- Kirika's jump at the end of her G Transformation Sequence looks a lot like of Cure Pine's.
- Ver, he's the LASTO AKSHON HIIRO.
- The Frontier resembles Castle in the Sky, especially the generator room.
- The final episode of G. Vitalization? They might as well have called it Hell and Heaven, with a bit of a Big Bang Punch thrown in for good measure!
Symphogear GX
- In Episode 6 of GX, Carol pulls off a very familiar
◊ looking Drill attack... - While fighting Kirika and Shirabe in GX Episode 8, Micha tells them they need to sing harder, better, faster, stronger to beat her.
- When Dr. Ver appears in Episode 9 of ''GX'', he has now grown a mutated arm similar to William Birkin's first form in Resident Evil 2.
- The Relic listing in GX E9 has quite a few:
Symphogear AXZ
- Tsubasa cuts down a ship in AXZ with a giant-ass sword. Does that make you recall the Ship-Cutting Blade/Zankantou?
- The first episode of AZX has biohazard containers labelled ''Drei''-Oxin 245, "drei" being German for "three".
- One of Adam's attacks in AXZ consists of him throwing his hat at his enemies, much like either Oddjob or Kung Lao.
- Hibiki's giant form heavily resembles an Ultraman.
- Hibiki going gold seems to take direct inspiration from both the Super Mode and Hyper Mode.
- When Hibiki defeats Adam, she rapidly punches him, lifting him up into the sky. What does she shout as she does this? "ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA!!"
Symphogear XV
- The aircraft carrier attacked in Episode 2 of XV is called the USS Thomas Whitmore.
- in XV, Vanessa fires missiles from her breasts, just like Aphrodite A. She also uses a Rocket Punch, like Mazinger Z and also uses a Buster Collider. Shes a walking Shout-Out to the Super Robot genre.
- Not to be outdone, Millaarc gets her own Super Robot Shout-Out ability: Open Bat.
- Chris' transformation sequence in XV has her loading her guns by bouncing bullets into them from her cleavage, a la Grenadier.
- Fudou Kazanari's fighting style as shown in XV gives him a dark purple battle aura, and aside from his sword play, often depicts various kanji in his strikes, is very similar to Akuma from Street Fighter, making Genjuro's Akuma cosplay from Season 1 rather prophetic.
- G3FA, as in the Hexa-Revolver technique used by the team in the first episode of XV, stands for "Glitter Gear Gathering Finest Arts". Now where else have we heard of an acronym with three Gs?
- In the final battle of XV, Chris summons a giant spiritual version of herself aiming a giant gun◊. This is a reference to an attack◊ of Space Sheriff Shaider.
- Near the end of the series, it's revealed that Enki copied his consciousness into the Moon's operating system in order to warn anyone who comes across it about Shem-Ha and her plans for humanity. The idea of a being from a previous era of humanity copying their mind onto the operating system of the moon's ruins was done earlier in Sailor Moon, during the Dark Kingdom Arc.
