Miraculous Ladybug pays homage to several pieces of media, adding its own quirky humor to the references.
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General
- According to Word of God, Hawk Moth's creepy grey mask is based on the one worn by the movie version of Fantômas.
- The in-universe superheroine Majestia has a resemblance to Carol Danvers.
- Marinette and Adrien go to the collège Françoise Dupont. Françoise Dupont is the secret identity of French teenage superheroine Fantômette, from a 1960s series of books later adapted into a live-action TV series and cartoons.
- The concept of the Miraculous timers is similar to the Colour Timers from the Ultra Series.
- Wayzz's name might be a reference to Master Oogway, who just so happens to also be a turtle and a Mentor Archetype.
- Gimmi references Shenron, a giant genie-like being that is summoned once a set of items have been assembled, and the Infinity Stones of Marvel Comics, possessing a universe-altering power that is sought by a purple-colored villain. Gimmi's method of granting the wish is similar to the Stand Made in Heaven in destroying a universe with a new one created to take its place.
Season 1
- In "Bubbler", when Marinette is standing outside of Adrien's house, her surprise at the camera ball and the blunt way she's being spoken to strongly resembles C-3PO at the gate of Jabba's Palace.
- In "Mr. Pigeon", Cat Noir decides to dance while waiting for Mr. Pigeon to show up. Among the recognizable moves include the Moonwalk and Gangnam Style.
- In the French version of the same episode, a hilarious quote from La Cité de la peur ("Good news for batavia lettuce lovers!") is used as a transition in TV news.
- In "Evillustrator", Nathaniel's undershirt has a symbol on it that resembles the logo for Magma, a famous French prog-rock band.
- Rogercop seems to be a PG mix of RoboCop and Judge Dredd.
- From the same episode, Cat Noir stands up and points just to say he and Ladybug should defend themselves in a court of law. Coupled with his dialogue about law, his pose is clearly a reference to Ace Attorney.
- "Rogercop" may also be a subtle reference to "Robert Cop", a bootleg Robocop action figure that has gained infamy online.
- In "Kung Food", Kung Food's minions use caramel to seal off the hotel he's in, which comes out similar to the slime wall covering the museum in Ghostbusters II. Kung Food himself is a shout-out of Goku's Super Saiyan form. Also, he fights using a Pepperoni Pizza Buster Sword.
- The battle against "The Gamer" is full of shout-outs to Street Fighter, with the heroes and Gamer trading signature attacks of the most famous characters (e.g. M. Bison's Psycho Crusher, Ryu's Hadouken, Ken's Shoryuken, Dhalsim's Yoga Fire). Ladybug and Cat Noir's robot even goes into Ryu's fighting stance.
- In addition, the giant robot fight uses attacks from (among others) Mazinger Z, Grendizer and Combattler V.
- A meta example: When confronting an akumatized Max in his robot mecha at the soccer stadium, one of the ads on the stadium walls is for "ZAG", the studio behind the show.
- Cat Noir also a very conspicuous barrel roll upon jumping off a building, complete with the appropriate quote from Star Fox 64.
- In "Antibug", Chloé (a powerless human) is trying to help Ladybug (superhero), but Ladybug thinks she is just carelessly putting herself in danger and doesn't listen to her "biggest fan". Crushed by this, Chloé becomes Ladybug's Evil Counterpart with the goal of proving that she is better. Sounds familiar?
- In "The Puppeteer", Marinette's address is revealed to be Gotlib Street, which is quite probably a reference to French cartoonist Gotlib, whose works frequently featured a snarky ladybug as a background character.
- "Guitar Villain" is self-explanatory.
- In "Princess Fragrance", the titular villain shares a name with one of the many, many characters in The Book and the Sword
. The novel's Princess Fragrance is a kind, gentle woman who's chosen as the Emperor's concubine and whose tomb starts emanating a divine smell after it's visited by a butterfly. - In "Origins", Alya theorizes that Ladybug got her powers by being bitten by a radioactive ladybug and tosses out every adjective that was included in a Spider-Man comic title for good measure (in the French dub, she also calls her "Coccinelle Girl", which translates to "Ladybug Girl"). For that matter, Ladybug's form-fitting red costume and her use of her yo-yo to swing around the city are strongly reminiscent of Spidey.
- Chloé can't resist tossing out superhuman references, referencing Cyclops of the X-Men and making a sardonic comment alluding to Hulking Out.
Season 2
- In "Riposte", Kagami Tsurugi's akumatized form resembles a cross between the Silver Samurai and the Shredder. The reason she was akumatised (bitter at losing to Adrien despite being trained from youth to be an excellent fencer) is similar to how another Tsurugi acted towards the end of Great Mazinger (the protagonist Tetsuya Tsurugi resented the return of the previous series' hero, to the point it affected his fighting ability).
- Another thing worth noting is that in the episode Robustus, in order for a wish to be granted on the Ladybug and Cat Miraculouses' combined power, something of equal value must be lost to keep the universe in balance. Also, Robustus' Combining Mecha body is quite similar to Devastator from Transformers.
- In "Gigantitan", Alya begins briefing her friends on Operation: Secret Garden using a rather familiar turn of phrase:Alya: Your mission, should you choose to accept it...
- In "Sapotis", when Ladybug explains that they have to destroy the hat of the clone that Hawk Moth akumatized first, Cat Noir asks if this means they've "Gotta catch 'em all".
- "Captain Hardrock" is a twofer to both Captain Haddock and Captain Harlock (whom the French dub had to rename to Albator to avoid confusion with the former). Coincidentally, Haddock was accidentally misnamed by Bianca Castafiore as "Harrock" at one point but instead of correcting her, he went along with it and called himself as "Harrock ‘n roll."
- In "Frightingale", to shut down the filming of the clip, André tells Clara that she forgot to procure the Permit A-38.
- In "Sandboy", Marinette's nightmare version of Adrien breaks through Master Fu's house with a Psychotic Smirk that parodies the infamous "Here's Johnny!" scene from The Shining.
- In "Befana", Marinette's grandmother wears a shirt that very closely resembles the album cover of "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd
Season 3
- In "Animaestro", one of the titular akuma's forms is Majestia, drawn and animated in the style of Justice League Unlimited.
- In "Oblivio", an amnesiac Cat Noir refers to the akuma as a Hakuna Matata.
- In "Desperada", the titular villain is a guitarist who pulls "guns" (actually music instruments she uses as guns) from her guitar case, much like a certain gun-totting mariachi.
- "Startrain": Max is an expert gamer. Whose best friend is an AI with emotions. Whose transformation gives him a throwing weapon on the back. Who has created and gone himself into a cyber-space game. Definitely not Kevin Flynn... right?
- "Bakerix" is a long homage to Asterix: the titular villain is shaped like a Gaul who gets stronger when drinking magic yeast from a gourd-looking container. Even before being akumatized, he boasted that this yeast was a secret recipe originating from his distant "indomitable" ancestor who lived in Armorica, and harboured a grudge against the Romans.
- "Kwamibuster" includes multiple references to Ghostbusters (1984). The titular villain is styled after the ghost hunters, including a vacuum-like device to capture and store kwamis, at one point Cat Noir states "I love this plan, I'm excited to be part of it," and after the battle, Multimouse says "We came, we saw, we kicked her hat."
- The beginning of "Kwamibuster" has Ms. Mendeliev trying to prove the existence of kwamis, at one point using a butterfly net to try and capture them. This is similar to Denzel Crocker's obsession with fairies in The Fairly OddParents!
- In "Gamer 2.0", when Cat Noir wins with Reflekta against Gamer 2.0's Roger Cop, he references lyrics from the song "Riding Dirty" by Chamillionaire. Though the lyrics were altered slightly to add in a cat pun.
- In "Timetagger", one of the titular akuma's blasts sends Bunnyx into the far future. She re-emerges from a portal being chased by unseen villains who shout "E-LIM-IN-ATE! E-LIM-IN-ATE!"
- "Cat Blanc":
- Bigger on the Inside? Check. White background? Check. Full of "the round things"? Check. Can be used for traveling through time and space? Double Check. Bunnyx's Burrow is basically a TARDIS..
- A superpowered, traumatized young man unleashes an Angst Nuke that destroys the city around him and blows a hole in the moon. He then spends months living as a shadow of himself until he's reunited with an old friend who manages to bring him back to his old self. Are we talking about Cat Blanc and Ladybug or Vash the Stampede and Nicholas D. Wolfwood?
- From "Ladybug", we have the titular villain: "Cat Noir, I don't feel so good..."
Season 4
- In "Gang of Secrets", a close-up in Alya's room shows that her door is painted dark blue and resembles a very familiar-looking police box.
- Also in Alya's room is a set of books on a shelf titled "The Crawling Dead".
- In "Sole Crusher", it's revealed that Chloé has a sister named Zoé. There's another cartoon series featuring a pair of wealthy sisters going by these names.
- In "Queen Banana", Vesperia introduces herself using a Sailor Senshi Send-Up pose that resembles a very iconic magical girl.
- In "Hack-San", the titular Sentimonster closely resembles XANA.
- Not to mention that, phonetically, "Hack-San" spoken in French sounds just like "AXAN", an anagram of XANA. It looks like a credible origin for the name of that Sentimonster.
- In "Dearest Family", Gabriel's desire to use the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses to destroy the world and rebuild it with his wife well and awake seems to reference Enrico Pucci's desire to use his Stand to speed up time so that the universe collapses on itself and resets to be a world where his sister is alive and nobody is in grief due to fate.
- "Ephemeral" intensifies the reference, as when Gabriel makes his wish, the Kwamis in Marinette's room shout in fear that it's the end of the world, and when Luka inquires as to why, Sass states that making a wish is like writing a sentence in a notepad, then erasing it to write it again with a different pen, meaning that Gabriel will erase the world and rewrite it to fit his wish.
Season 5
- The exo-suit that Nathalie wears to walk around bears a strong resemblance to the one that Bruce Wayne wears in Kingdom Come
- In "Deflagration", Gabriel's reaction to learning the identities of Scarabella and Kitty Noire, Ladybug and Cat Noir's replacements, is similar to Darunia when he hears "Saria's Song": Both looking serious before suddenly breaking into a dance number as a song plays in the background.
- The title of Gabriel's theme song, "Snapping My Fingers", is a possible reference to Thanos's quote from ''Avengers: Infinity War'': "With all the six stones, I could simply snap my fingers, and they would all cease to exist." Like Monarch, Thanos is a purple-colored villain seeking a set of powerful items to rewrite the universe.
- In "Confrontation", Nino proposes that to keep the gang together, everyone should apply to Jacques de Tremeuse High School. Jacques de Tremeuese is the alter-ego of the classic fictional French vigilante Judex (essentially a French antecedent to The Shadow and a heroic counterpart to the above-mentioned Fantomas.)
- In "Re-Creation", Alya and Nino hide themselves in cardboard boxes while tailing a Miraculized Mr. Damocles, much like one of Solid Snake's methods of sneaking in Metal Gear Solid.
