The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. contains many references to other works of fiction.
- Kusuo's father constantly refers to him as "Kusu-emon" (usually when he begs for Kusuo's psychic powers to solve his problem) a reference to the titular character of Doraemon, who would often help his master, Nobita by giving him many futuristic gadgets to deal with his daily problems.
- Chapter 5: Nendou prefers that the protagonists of Nisekoi and Pajama Na Kanojo end up with Onodera and Makura, respectively.
- Chapter 6: The physical education teacher has the students play dodgeball because basketball, kendo and volleyball are already being played somewhere.
- Chapter 12: Kaidou is unable to swim despite wearing a bunch of life preservers, to which Kusuo retorts, "What are you, did you eat the Devil's Fruit?"
- Chapter 17: When Kusuo explains his psychometry powers, he sees a vision of a customer reading an issue of Shonen Jump. The issue contains the chapter of Naruto that reveals Tobi's true identity.
- Chapter 23: The moon that young Kusuo flies past has a huge chunk of it carved out, making it look like a permanent crescent. It looks exactly like the blown up moon from the first chapter of Assassination Classroom.
- Chapter 27: Kusuo shudders at the thought of having to share his 48 cups of coffee jello with every member of AKB48.
- Chapter 47: The café that Kusuo goes at times (and it's the place where his classmate, Mera, works) is called "Café Mami", a reference to Esper Mami.
- Chapter 56: The flight Saiki and his classmates take to Okinawa is Flight 815. Fittingly, had Saiki not interfered, the plane would have crashed.
- Chapter 90: The song Takahashi is singing in the beginning is "Konayuki" by Remioromen, an insert song for the TV drama One Liter Of Tears. The boy that takes Saiki's parfait also sings it in Saiki's fantasy, as identified by "Konaaaaaa" and "Futaaaaaa".
- Chapter 96: Makino Arisu, the girl that joins Toritsuka's occult club, is called part of the "occult Generation of Miracles" because of her large amount of knowledge and intensity. At the end of the chapter, the bonus drawing
features the rest of them. - Chapter 141:
- One of Kaidou's lies to his classmates is that there are going to be sequels to Shenmue and the 1998 Saturn visual novel Cross Tantei Monogatari. 63 days after the cover date of the issue of Shonen Jump that chapter 141 was in, the Kickstarter for Shenmue III was announced at E3.
- The omake after the chapter in Volume 14, released the month after the Kickstarter ended, pokes fun at how the lie somehow became reality.
- Nendou later mentions that he heard about the announcement of Shenmue III in Chapter 156.
- When Saiki prepares to get rid of Nendou's father, he first tried to destroy him with a Spirit Bomb, and then later asks the reader to recall a certain monster based fighting game when about to use a physical attack (Fighting) on a Ghost.
- Then he pulls his own spirit out of his body and fights Nendou's father, referencing the fact that Ghost is weak to itself in a certain franchise.
- And he is weak to ghost (if not a ghost himself) and bug. While dark isn't there for the full set, that describes the weaknesses of psychic in the aforesaid franchise. Also, anyone trying to fight Saiki or his (for want of a better word) friends generally tends to be very soundly trounced, referencing the fact Fighting is weak to Psychic.
- Kusuo's dad specifically asks for a mangaka he's editing for to bring him a manga "something like Naruto" when critiquing his work.
- During one of the school festival in the dub, Toritsuka refers to one of his classmates' experience with drumming being limited to "that one rhythm game nobody plays anymore".
- When Kaidou gets Saiki and Nendou lost on the way to the post-festival dinner, he assumes that it must be the work of an enemy Stand (complete with a pose and "Menacing" kanji).
- The salesman that convinces Saiki to get a coffee maker mentions a person he bargained with. He doesn't name names, but it's obviously Ryotsu.
- In the first episode of season 2, the Gintama anime is shown onscreen and pointed out. Saiki is annoyed that Gintama's characters have the audacity to plug their show during his airtime.
- In the last episode of season 2, the first visual of Dr. STONE was parodied and then pointed out.
- In the 100th installment, Kaido and Nendou give a shout out to Strawberry 100%, befitting the theme of the episode.
- The fifteenth episode of season 2 helpfully informs the audience that Kochikame is ending.
- When questioning people about whether or not Saiki has psychic powers, Akechi asks, if people die of heart attacks after Saiki writes their names in notebooks.
- Kusuo's father accuses an aspiring mangaka of ripping off One Piece and Assassination Classroom.
- When Saiki's friends confront him about his doubles in the last episode, Toritsuka tries to pass them off as sextuplets even saying the right one is Jyuushio and the middle one is Choroo- before Kuboyasu cuts him off. He even lampshades that it's a ripoff.
- In the episode where Saiki's limiter goes missing and he discovers a bunch of Useless Superpowers, one of them is creating a bunch of matryoshka dolls, which Saiki outright admits is plagiarized from My Hero Academia (specifically the scene where Yaoyorozu creates a bunch of them out of anxiety during her final exam).
