Despite being a horrific, heart-wrenching deconstruction of Touhou, Diamond In The Rough is filled to the brim with Shout Outs galore.
- Brolli lands on Yukari's pillow with a pomf sound.
- Jack Diehard has a fake wanted poster from Six Figs Thrill Park.
- Kogasa pops out shouting a-bloogy-woogy-wooooo!
- There is a sign out the front of Marisa's house reading Dead Fairy Storage.
- Meiling wants Marisa to TASTE THE RAINBOW MOTHERF-
- Brolli channels Peter O'Tool's puke face.
- "BOAT TIME!"
- Yukari's explanation of the realm she could gap Brolli into channels H. P. Lovecraft.
- On the censor box for the Yuuka X Arturo scene, it says "Too hot for minors! Yall should go away!"
- Arturo pays homage to another teenage monster by singing "Singing In The Rain" while raping Keine.
- "Gensokyo's a goldmine, so treat it like it'll melt tomorrow!" is a reference to "Steve McQueen" by M83, which contains very prophetic lyrics about Brolli's situation...I woke up stronger than ever,Driven by big waves of fire,To run and yell all the way.Nothing can hurt me today!There's a magic insideJust waiting to burst out.The world is a goldmineThat will melt tomorrow.
- The Kappa Valley's presentation and soundtrack is reminiscent of Pioneer 2.
- Nitori makes Brolli a lightsaber and says, "Melee weapons are no match for a good spell card at your side, kid."
- The Star Wars references continue in Episode 10 when Kaguya and Tewi re-enact the bar brawl scene with Brolli.
- A blink-and-you'll-miss-it one, Brolli tells Ferin, "Give me the swords!"
- From the deleted original version of the Sakuya scene...
- Sakuya used to be an incident resolver, and Brolli guesses she took an arrow to the knee.
- Rinnosuke has dolls of Fate/stay night characters.
- Yuyuko can't wait to eat that bagel! Yes, she can.
- Brolli tells Remilia, "I'm tasty and I know it."
- Lepus: "The trick, Colonel Diamondback, is not minding that it hurts... Or just getting hypnotized the bejeezus out of beforehand."
- A subtle one to PewDiePie when Chair Mode worked, Brolli screams, "IT'S WORKING! HOLY S#!%!!!"
- Brolli: THERE'S SO MUCH EVERYTHING!!!
- Also, Brolli's demands, "Now I'm ready," are very similar to Ed Gruberman's from "Tae Kwon Leap" by The Frantics.
- The Human Village in peacetime has music from Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon.
- Reisen's medicines can make you run faster, jump higher.
- In reference to Robert McKee's Story in its chapter about multidimensional characters, Aya calls Brolli, "a cluster of shallow traits pasted onto a name," and, "a collection of offputting eccentricities [he mistakes] for personality, [even though he's] as flat as cardboard."
- The backstory of Vic Chaos is a direct parallel to Spec Ops: The Line, with an homage to the white phosphorous scene after Vic orders Mokou to burn down Yuuka's flower garden, only to find she was hiding the village's children from Arturo within...
- Arturo needlessly slaughters an entire village full of children for the sake of his lover, who is shocked and appalled when the truth comes to light. Sound familiar?
- "Gensokyo is heading for a disaster of biblical proportions! I'm talking real wrath-of-God type stuff!"
- Brolli complains that he'd like to be on the side that's not full of assholes.
- With special thanks to DeityDiz, Yumeko is busy re-painting the Romantic Children signs from Mystic Square.
- "Guess who's back!" "Back again!" "Reimu's back!" "Tell a friend!"
- The spell card one of the celestials uses is called Game of Thorns.
- Vic tells Jack the noose is a neck-stretcher.
- "I'm sorry, Brolli. I'm afraid I can't do that." Plus, the entire conversation that follows.
- In episode 17, one of the guilty souls being judged by Eiki Shiki says: "Screw taking things seriously, I have green hair!"
- Episode 18's battle on Youkai Mountain has few Saving Private Ryan references, complete with shakey cam footage and a horrendously wounded tengu screaming, "MAMA!!!"
- Brolli and Yukari's final exchange comes from The Matrix Reloaded.Brolli: If I were you, I would hope we never meet again.Yukari: We won't...
- Tenshi is a walking series of Shout Outs.
- When Tenshi finally corners Brolli, she screams, "DAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAA! FINALLY!!! I've been trying to catch you ALL NIGHT!"
- "En Garde! Cafe Ole! Royale With Cheese! And so on!"
- Tenshi is not left-handed. Then she proceeds to illustrate the trope.
- In a Continuity Nod, the last line Tenshi tells Sanae before returning to Heaven is her victory quote from Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.
- Komachi's near-final line, "You're not going to remember any of this, so don't go kicking yourself forever," comes from Defending Your Life.
