Anime & Manga
- To the original Mobile Suit Gundam, Space Battleship Yamato, Captain Harlock, Lupin III, and others.
- Roy's (later Hikaru's) Valkyrie fighter and Skull Squadron, with the black tails and skull and crossbones as well as the very shape, honor the real life F-14A Tomcats (Bonus points for being carrier-based fighters) and the VF-84 "Jolly Roger" squadron.
- The Zentradi often speak with a slight echo, mirroring Gamilons from Space Battleship Yamato.
- The main ship has a massive, ship-mounted Wave Motion Gun.
- The transformation of Macross is inspired by a reader question in a magazine asking Gundam's director Tomino whether Whitebase can transform into a giant robot or not.(in which he answered "You watched too much anime, you should watch more Gundam".)
- The whole concept of the "Pinpoint Barrier" system (the Macross first shield system) is remarkably similar to the 1980 arcade game Missile Command
. That game played with a trackball and three buttons. - In some scenes one can see the Orguss Valkyrie, an Orguss Ogroid in Macross colors.
- One of the Lupin III shout-outs was a video game in episode 24. It was intended to be similar to the game "Cliff Hanger", which uses footage of the car-chase scene from The Castle of Cagliostro. The character playing the game seems to be in Lupin cosplay, complete with smoking cigarette.
- During Max and Millia's fight, a sign◊ that says "Sandybelle Connection" (with Sandybelle winking) is seen, as a reference to Toei's 80's anime series Hello! Sandybell.
- On the ADV dub side of things, in the final episode, when Kamjin's about to ram the Macross in the final battle, he says, "ramming speed!!", obviously a reference to Ben-Hur.
- When Hikaru is injured in battle, Roy Focker and his subordinates visit him to cheer him up in episode 18 ("Pineapple Salad"). It doesn't go too well. Roy muses that Hikaru's "got a case of the Mondays".
- Episode 35 features a toy shop window that shows the Dynarobo in somewhat different colors sitting next to a rather awful toy version of the VF-1.
- Also in Episode 35, one of the decorative flags strung up around town has Pac-Man on it.
