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I understand these character similarities might be arbitrary, like M and W
being flipped. But it's tripping me up enough times that I thought if I knew a
reason, perhaps it would help me memorize these characters.

ち (chi), き (ki), and さ (sa) are also similar, but they are actually different.
Though I think I would have preferred ち (*sa), き (ki), and さ (*chi) so the
direction of the 5 would characterize the "i" sound. Sadly, it isn't
consistent. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, is ま (ma) related to ほ (ho) or よ(yo) related to は (ha)? It seems the bar
means the "h" consonant but the musical note does not vocalize consistently
(it either means ("a" or "o") or ("m" or "y") by itself).
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etymology hiragana
Is ま (ma) related to ほ (ho) or は (ha) related to よ (yo)? What does adding a bar to the left mean?
Apart from the [diacritic-
derived](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakuten_and_handakuten) characters,
_hiragana_ (and _kana_ in general) should be seen as non-reduceable graphical
units. They are **not derived from simpler functional units**. Their formation
is based on the principle of _graphical abbreviation from more complex
characters_ , and in _hiragana_ 's case, the inspiration behind the shapes is
[cursive script](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_\(East_Asia\)).

In a similar manner, Latin alphabet letters are not made from structurally
simpler functional elements; "t" is not derived from "l" with the addition of
a horizontal line, "d" is not the merger between "c" and "l", "n" is not an
upside-down "u", etc.

This means that you shouldn't try to break _hiragana_ into components or
strokes and try to deduce if there is some sort of logic across _hiragana_
characters which relates to the spoken language. There simply isn't.

  * Why does き appear to be さ with a line added? Because the cursive abbreviation of [機]{き}, with most of the left hand side cut out, turns out to appear similar to the cursive abbreviation of [左]{さ} but with an extra line. 機 is not related to 左 in any sense, apart from the fact that they may look similar if someone writes in a quick scrawl.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9OwV8.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9OwV8.png)

  * ほ is the cursive abbreviation of 保, and は is the cursive abbreviation of 波. Notice how 亻 and 氵 are both reduced to an identical vertical stroke in ほ and は.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/upI38.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/upI38.png)

* * *

_Images taken from the[Wikipedia hiragana
chart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana#/media/File:Hiragana_origin.svg)_.
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The mighty dROOOze's answer covers the bases. I just wanted to counter with a
similar question -- is `b` related to `d` related to `p`? :)

Ultimately, the shapes come from unrelated glyphs (character shapes). The
ancient origins of both the Latin alphabet letters and the Japanese kana
characters were glyphs with meaning to them (hieroglyphs underlie Latin letter
shapes, and kanji underlie Japanese kana shapes), but the current letters and
kana are just abstract symbols, representing sound and nothing more.
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