Season 1
- Cornelia says in the first chapter that she's Gandalf the Grey if Uncle is a wizard. In "Not So Black and White", Wong is called "Saruman wannabe" by Captain Black and "anti-Gandalf" by Viper.
- Jade and Cornelia compare Elyon's belief that they're under the Heart's influence to the One Ring.
- Ratso has the same loophole for his Wouldn't Hit a Girl philosophy as Clay.
- Right before defeating Bartholomew Chang who's using a long-clawed prosthesis, Will jokes that Freddy Krueger wants his weapon back.
- When talking about Section 13 keeping an eye on the WITCH girls, Captain Black tells them "If Valmont or his cronies even sneeze in your families' direction, we'll be there with a hanky and a pair of handcuffs".
- Alchemy's reaction at seeing her friends' powers during "The Mudslugs" is almost the same as Dash's, falling on her back with a smile and saying "I love my life."
- Jade is about to call the Tracker "one ugly motherfucker" before Taranee interrupts her.
- When Valmont busts out the Armor of the Crystal Skull, it strongly resembles a Susano'o, specifically, Itachi's due to its color. Its requirement for blood draws some similarities to Attack on Titan's Titan Shifters.
- Yan Lin's speech to Valmont when shooting down his blackmail attempt is straight out of The Dark Knight.
- When Valmont bolts out of the Silver Dragon, Jade comments that he went all roadrunner on them.
- Chapter 11, Pleasure Cruise, is a full-on "Die Hard on a Ship", complete with homages to the original! Even Will lampshades this.Will: What do you think this is? Die Hard?
- To start off, the "terrorist" team is primarily composed of the leader (Valmont/Hans Gruber), the brute (Hak Foo/Karl), and the hacker (MC Cobra/Theo). Their goal is to steal the Golden Dragon, much like the original team's goal of stealing bonds. They even go so far as to use blowtorches when trying to open the safe, and when things are already on the ropes, they resort to using a big explosion that damages the ship. Fortunately, the Horse Talisman manages to magically repair it.
- Blunk crawls through the vents in order to learn more about their plan, much like McClane.
- Jade denotes that her favorite part of the movie was when McClane attempts to call the police for backup. Just like in the original, he calls the police, who sends in Al Powell. Powell initially drives off the suspicions before the enemies attack his car, causing him to call for more reinforcements.
- Even the references persist to the next chapter, where Chow mentions how Caleb drives a taxi like a character from the film. He might be referring to Powell in this regard, driving frantically as his police car was shot.
- Upon reuniting with her friends in the ship, Will mentions that "It's Guardian Time".
- Tohru suffers from motion sickness in the cruise, despite being one of the bigger and stronger characters in the team. In both Fairy Tail and Fairy May Cry, the Dragon Slayers are amongst the best assets of any of the magic guilds who infamously suffer from motion sickness. Tohru's sickness can be mitigated through the Horse Talisman's power; there's no way to stake off the motion sickness from Dragon Slayers.
- In "Big Trouble, Bigger Jade", Irma, Jade and Cornelia use the famous quote of Clint Eastwood: "You gotta ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?" Also doubles as a reference to Code Prime, where Ironhide introduces himself in the same way.
- In "Framed", Jade says "say hello to my little friend" before blowing up the Enforcers and Frost with a bazooka.
- In "The Star of Threbe", when Ratso is sent flying by a punch from Tohru, Jade comments that it looks like he's "blasting off".
- Cornelia references Raiders of the Lost Ark when calling the Dark Hand out for being Genre Blind with the Golden Elephant's defenses.
- Yan Lin refers to the Jedi Mind Trick by name. The Enforcers do the same when Elyon (unknowingly) mentally dominates Aldarn.
- Jade quotes Qui-Gon Jinn when she says that there's Always a Bigger Fish.
- While facing the Scuttlers, Cornelia suggests defeating them the same way Luke Skywalker defeats the rancor.
- When the Enforcers return to Meridian after making a Heel–Face Turn, Hay Lin wishes them "may the Force be with you".
- During the Oni arc, Hay Lin starts naming each of the Shadow Khan tribes they encounter just like a certain turtle who names his team's mutant allies and enemies.
- When the Razor Khan begin forcing their way into the train, Irma nervously quips "Here's Khanny".
- When Phobos learns of Cedric and Wong turning against each other in the entire Trance-Marcher debacle, he warns them that they have to cooperate or both will be sent to the Abyss of Shadows as the heroes are taking advantage of their divided nature. In Code Prime, Megatron does the same to Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Airachnid after their failure to get the Polarity Gauntlet.
- When Elyon first practices creating illusions of her self en masse, the Enforcers recreate the counting scene from Robots.
- The entire Oni arc in the second half of the season pretty much involves J-WITCH's allies, whether they be bystanders or really close ones, be afflicted with some sort of mask that unleashes some sort of darkness within them. They are then approached by Tarakudo who only amplifies the darkness in them. Replace mask with akuma and Tarakudo with Hawk Moth and you have the basic premise of Miraculous Ladybug.
- When wearing the Bat Khan mask, Blunk is described as being a cross between Gollum and King Kong.
- When in Phobos's arena, Irma quotes Gladiator.
- Alchemy states that helping in preparing chi spells makes her understand how hard concocting spells is for Harry Potter.
- Irma compares the Oni Masks to Alien facehuggers.
- Uncle asks if they think that he's Aquaman when they consider swimming to the underwater portal, saying that he's too old to swim.
- Aside from the existing Sixth Ranger parallels, Jade's conversion into a Guardian, stemming from her darker side brings to mind Tsukumaro Oogami/Merrick and Daiji Igarashi.
- In the Halloween Episode, Taranee dresses up as Harry Potter, Cornelia as Zero Suit Samus, Irma as Chun-Li, Hay Lin as Jack Skellington, Will as Black Widow, Caleb as Legolas, Alchemy as Batgirl, and Yan Lin as the Wicked Witch of the West.
- In the same chapter, the Enforcers do the Three Stooges' "Niagara Falls" skit to cheer up Elyon.
- When the heroes learn of Wong's plans, Jade references Game of Thrones.
- When Valmont gets half of the Crabkhan mask, the Enforcers and several of the girls compare him to Two-Face.
- When talking about Phobos, Elyon notes that people act like he's Darth Sidious, while the Enforcers also suggest that he looks like Dracula or Loki.
- Upon hearing about the terms of the Rebellion's leadership challenge, Jade compares it to The Hunger Games.
- The scene of Wong and Cedric shaking hands whilst planning to betray each other is similar to a scene from the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Employee of the Month".
- When Irma asks Miss Kimber what the answer to the universe is, she tells her that she better not just say 42.
- Hay Lin describes the Oni-Mask empowered Dark Chi Warrior Hak Foo as comparable to Superman becoming gamma-irradiated like The Incredible Hulk.
- While they're stuck with trying to find the ingredients for the missing ingredient, the team decks out like the Ghostbusters, complete with goggles and vacuums attached to backpacks.
- Hay Lin uses an attack she calls the Kame-Rasengan.
- When Uncle proclaims that Hay Lin's dreams mean that something worse is coming, Jade sarcastically wonders if, compared to all the other stuff they've had to worry about, they now have to worry about Darth Vader or Voldemort.
- Jade wonders if they can get Black to hook them up with some headsets like in Mission: Impossible.
- Santa (oh, sorry, Saint Nicholas) having a Russian accent.
Season 2
- After being lured into what seems like an ambush, Drago laments that he wish he'd thought of that. "Oh wait. He did."
- Cornelia and Calebs fight against the Moon Demon empowered Raythor has the latter use gravity magic to condense massive chunks of rock into massive swords to wield with his four arms.
- Drago dismisses Nerissa's theory of the identical dreams of Will and Jade being linked to the "magic of friendship" as nothing more than kid-cartoon garbage.
- Jade compares Drago's dream attacks, and how Your Mind Makes It Real, to "Freddy Krueger pulling a Matrix."
- While not directly named, references are made to The Sixth Sense and ParaNorman in "A Demon's Wings in the Witches' Town" when the "Nephorcers" realize they need to communicate with the ghosts..
- When Miranda comes up with the plan to rule Martin out by pretending to be a Damsel in Distress, Drago tells her that he loves the way her "foul little mind" works.
- When Irma fights the trance marcher Jade, Will, and Cornelia in One Person's Trash, she says
- The dilemma that broke the previous team of Guardians is over the use of excessive power to control the spread of evil. Simply put, it's akin to the dilemma seen in Injustice: Gods Among Us.
- The Predecessor Villain that the previous Guardians are shown fighting in "Shadows of the Past" is trying to summon the Army of Anubis to take over the world with.
- Jade's beatdown of Nerissa is highly reminiscent of to the one Yuji delivered to Mahito during their first encounter, right down to the villain internally remarking the hero is "my natural enemy".
