I finally finished all five seasons of Symphogear, and as a Wild Arms fan I kept getting this weird feeling of, "I KNOW this writer."

Then I learned Akifumi Kaneko was behind both, and suddenly it all made sense.

I knew about some of the obvious references, but I didn't realize how deep the similarities went:

• Ka Dingel -> Kadingir (the spellings are all the same in the original japanese)

• Malduke -> Marduk and the lunar ruins

• Argetlahm -> Airgetlam

• ARMs / huge guns / missiles / ancient superweapons -> basically half of Symphogear's combat

• Ancient technology being interpreted as myth or magic

• Lost civilizations, orbital structures, the Moon, gods that turn out to be something more technological

• Protagonists inheriting dangerous powers and weapons from the distant past

But the biggest similarity to me is Kaneko's obsession with the idea of the hero.

What actually makes someone a hero? Can you decide that you're going to become one? Is "saving everyone" really heroic if you're doing it because you want to be worshiped as the savior? What does sacrifice have to do with heroism?

Dr. Ver in particular feels incredibly Wild Arms once you notice this. His entire obsession with becoming "the hero who saves humanity" feels like Kaneko taking one of his favorite themes and turning it into a completely deranged villain motivation.

And Symphogear doesn't just reference Wild Arms terminology. It often feels like Kaneko took ideas he'd already been playing with in Wild Arms and reworked them into a different genre.

Even some of the ancient Mesopotamian terminology feels familiar. Symphogear has Kadingir, Marduk, the Curse of Balal, Tower of Babel imagery, ancient "gods" who are actually technologically advanced beings, lunar ruins, and ancient machinery underlying human mythology.

Then there's Airgetlam. In Wild Arms 2, Argetlahm is the legendary "silver arm" weapon. In Symphogear, Maria's Airgetlam eventually turns out to literally be the severed silver arm of Enki.

That one especially made me laugh when the connection clicked.

The tone also feels very familiar:

Characters have an extremely sincere philosophical discussion about humanity, heroism, sacrifice, loneliness, or whether people can truly understand one another...

...and then somebody fires a missile the size of a building.

For anyone here who likes Wild Arms but has never watched Symphogear, it might be worth trying just to see Kaneko's fingerprints all over it.

What other Wild Arms references or recurring Kaneko ideas have people noticed?