Truck-kun
So, you've created a new world for your hero to be trapped or reincarnated in. You've spent ages developing your RPG Mechanics Verse, fleshed out the characters, created the Big Bad Demon Lord. You have a world ready for your character to get transported to! The only question now to ask yourself is, how on Earth do you get your character there?
Why, with Truck-kun, of course! Day by day, night by night, Truck-kun works restlessly to connect heroes with the fantasy world they rightfully belong to. All it takes is a quick, single hit, and our hero will magically be reincarnated instantly! Sure, there are other ways to get to this world, but Truck-kun is the most reliable and proven. Car-chan? Nah. That's so 1891. All the cool heroes these days are getting transported by trucks (Truck-kun looks a lot scarier)! You think that every country will start passing stricter driving regulations with the amount of teenagers getting hit by trucks each day, but that would mean fewer heroes are getting transported! Think of all the different worlds that will be lost without a hero!
A closely related trope to Look Both Ways, this occurs when a character is hit by a truck and is reincarnated, transported to another world, or the events leading to either or both options start with a truck. It can get a bit confusing, but there are two vital distinguishing features between the two tropes:
- Merely getting hit with a truck (and dying) does not count for Truck-kun; the truck must lead to a Reincarnation Fantasy.
- The character, after getting hit, must remain in the story. In Look Both Ways, getting hit by a truck means you are Killed Off for Real, but getting hit by Truck-kun means you are getting another chance at life.
Watch a compilation of Truck-kun here. See all of truck-kun's anime roles here. Also see Truck-kun's criminal record, in both manga and anime. This is a common trope in Japanese media. If you have time, feel free to watch the first episode of the shows listed to determine which are examples of Truck-kun and which ones are not (these lists contain people getting hit by trucks, but true examples of Truck-kun also requires the person being hit to be reincarnated).
Truck-kun's presence is not limited to just All The Tropes. Also see Truck-kun's article on Wikipedia and knowyourmeme.com. Keep in mind that, in other places on the internet, Truck-kun hits everyone, not just heroes about to be reincarnated. [1]. This is already starting to become a Discredited Trope. You'll have an easier time finding parodies and discussions of Truck-kun than actual examples of Truck-kun.
No real life examples, please; We do not know if Truck-kun can cause a Reincarnation Fantasy in Real Life, and honestly, we don't want to find out.
Anime and Manga
- Parodied in KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, where Kazuma thought he died because of truck-kun. In reality, it's "tractor-kun", not "truck-kun", and his cause of death was not getting ran over, but rather shock from the thought of getting run over.
- In The Cat Returns, truck-kun helps transport The Hero Haru to another world. Truck-kun never hits Haru, of course. Instead, Haru gets transported after the Cat Kingdom decide to repay her a favour by sending some gifts of cattails, an offer to get married to a cat, and the means of getting to the Cat Kingdom via a procession of cats. There, the Trapped in Another World trope plays out.
- In the anime adaptation of the Ni no Kuni games, Truck-kun is so powerful they don't even need to hit the main characters for a transport! Instead, Truck-kun transports people by simply being in their vicinity. Yuu and Haru, while carrying an injured Kotona, jump to the side to dodge Truck-kun, a bus joins Truck-kun's efforts in transporting our heroes, and voila! A bright flash of light suddenly moves the two characters to the world of the games! Kotona suddenly disappears, while the two male leads remark that their clothes have changed and they aren't in the same world any more. A Leitmotif from Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch plays in the background, signaling that Truck-kun has done a very good job. If you watch further, you'll know that there are many ways for the heroes to travel between worlds. As long as it puts them in danger, it gets the job done. It doesn't just have to be a truck; a car crashing into a river also works.
- In A Reincarnated Witch Spells Doom (Tensei Majo wa Horobi wo Tsugeru), the eighteen year old shut-in Sena Shirai was hit by a truck on one of the rare occasions she stepped outside, and reincarnated into another world as a baby who can use exactly two spells: "explode" and "destroy". This, as you might imagine, does not make her a very popular person in town, and her magic is not the most useful. Therefore, she's back as her old self in the new world (for the first chapter): a shut-in who rarely goes outside.
- Minky Momo hangs a lampshade on the trope. The original Magical Princess Minky Momo series ends with Momo being hit by a truck. The Alternate Continuity Magical Princess Minky Momo: Embracing the Dream a decade later has the alternate Momo being saved from being hit by a truck... by the original continuity's Momo.
- Downplayed in The Saga of Tanya the Evil; the man who would become Tanya is clearly murdered, and the vehicle he is shoved in front of is a train, but same result, he is reincarnated - as a girl - and must deal with a very different life.
Comic Books
- In the Manhwa Another World Dump Truck, Truck-kun kills the wrong person. Yul, the driver of Truck-kun, meant to hit client Lee Yeonwoo to reincarnate her into the web novel Surviving as the Villainess. Unfortunately, Truck-kun hits the wrong person, so the worker Kwon Yoo-jun gets trapped as Lady Leyla in another world. This is the first time Yul has killed the wrong person in ninety eight years.
Fan Works
- Hybrid Theory (the 2004 story by C&A Productions) starts with the hero and the villain being hit by a truck and their identities being sent to another world.
- Mocked in The Rules of the Gamer: Dudley Dursley by Dogbertcarroll: some poor schlub gets isekai'ed into the Harry Potter world when he opens his bathroom door and the front grill of a Mitsubishi Fuso explodes through it to hit him.
- Played with in My Apartment Manager is not an Isekai Character: During the events of The Displaced Mrs. Pollifax, Emily Pollifax and her husband are transported to a new timeline in a truck. When they inquire about it, the driver says,
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"The truck, I have been given to understand, is a newly-traditional means of accomplishing the transition, although for your comfort it was decided that it was better that you were both inside it rather than in the street in front of it, as is the usual arrangement." |
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Live-Action TV
- It's a car, not a truck, but the trope might still apply depending on how you interpret the first episode of Life on Mars.
Video Games
- In Palworld, at a location along a shoreline on the lower right edge of the Palpagos Islands, there is an NPC called "Reincarnated Guy". A level 50 character dressed like a motorcycle cop, he will, if you speak to him, say:
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I'm not even supposed to be here. I nearly died after getting hit by a truck while on the job. When I came to, I was on this island. |
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Web Comics
- Parodied in the comic Isekai Transporter, by Bottle Comics. The entire series is about the various people who get paid to summon heroes to another world. They run over heroes with trucks. The physical body remains in place, but the spirits goes through the interior of the truck. There, they become Trapped in Another World after the spirits pass through a device with a weird shape and the Kadokawa logo.
Web Original
- Discussed in Terrible Writing Advice's video on isekai (link to the start of the discussion on Truck-kun). Everything discussed about truck-kun there is pretty much here as well. This video is one of the sources of inspiration for the trope page you're reading right now! Given the many ideas creator JP Beaubien gives instead of Truck-kun to help a hero get to the other world (e.g. finding a door in your parents' basement, making a deal with a mystical being that turned out to be a curse), it's clear he doesn't like the trope very much.
- Parodied in the Web Serial Novel That Time I Got Isekai’d To Another World With My Truck!! (see it here, keeping in mind parental guidance is advised). Here, the Genre Savvy Truck-kun swerves away to avoid hitting an Otaku who wants to exploit Truck-kun to get "Isekai'd right then and there". Truck-kun's driver, Birito Hondakawasuzuyota, moved to the right onto the lane used for oncoming traffic. Here, a different eighteen wheeler Truck-kun out-Truck-kuns our Truck-kun, sending Truck-kun flying off to another world. As you probably guessed from the title, Birito is stuck inside this other world with his truck, thanks to this Truck-kun.
- Referenced in Mother's Basement's Too Many Isekai video. The thumbnail contains Truck-kun with an "Isekai" brand logo. Speed lines are drawn, implying Truck-kun is about to Isekai someone off screen.
- Parodied in Gigguk's Isekai is GREAT, Actually, video, where the idea of "the same bland overpowered protagonist being transported or reincarnated or summoned to that same RPG world with the same harem living the same self-insert power fantasy" gets old real quick.
- Mocked and inverted in this short video, entitled "My Life as an Isekai Truck".
- What happens when Truck-kun meets Chuck Norris? This.
- ↑ We have to add the requirement that Truck-kun must reincarnate (or at least dimensionally displace) someone, otherwise this trope will be the same as Look Both Ways.