The Japanese news website “Logistics Weekly,” which focuses on the logistics, transportation, and related industries, reported on a transportation manager in Shizuoka, Japan, who voiced concerns about the portrayal of trucks as the main cause of fatal accidents in Japanese media such as manga, light novels, and their subsequent animated adaptations.
While the manager acknowledges the importance of freedom of expression and storytelling, they suggest that the predominant use of trucks in depicting tragic accidents leads to misconceptions and misplaced fears about trucks, damaging the logistics industry’s reputation.
According to the transportation manager, this issue stems from subliminal messaging. They believe that since media like anime and manga are consumed by various age groups, including children, such stories can create fear and aversion toward real-life trucks and their drivers.
This results in discrimination against transportation organizations. As an example, they mention the phenomenon of wives and parents discouraging young men from seeking employment in the industry.
Personally, I feel that this misconception is entirely misguided. There seems to be a global shortage of truck drivers and hardworking individuals, largely because younger generations are less inclined toward hard work and manual labor.
Additionally, given that Japan remains one of the world’s last high-trust societies with relatively low crime, it’s uncertain whether there is an irrational sense of fear among younger Japanese citizens due to the prevalence of such media portrayals or just a global trend of younger workers seemingly abstaining from doing a real mans job instead.
Truck driving is often seen as a tough job with poor hours and conditions, despite being the backbone of nearly every country’s economy. While Japan may have higher standards for such employment compared to other nations, nothing is set in stone.
Regardless of the direct cause of Japan’s apprehension about working in the trucking industry, the blame is being shifted towards the isekai genre. This genre, beloved in Japan, features stories where characters die unexpectedly and reincarnate in a distant fantasy world filled with magic, elves, swords, and other fantastical elements.
It’s so commonplace for an innocent truck to cause the protagonist’s death that it has spawned the “truck-kun” meme.
This meme even inspired the parody manga “Isekai Transporter,” which humorously explores the daily life of truck-kun’s driver, who seemingly has the job of sending heroes to another world by running them over.
Japanese netizens understand the transportation manager’s concerns but also recognize why the isekai genre uses trucks for these plot devices. By using simple logic, accidents involving motorcycles and cars are fairly commonplace and generally don’t result in fatalities.
Another trope involves characters being sent to another world after being struck by a train, but this often implies themes of suicide. In “Youjo Senki,” for instance, the main protagonist is deliberately pushed into the path of an oncoming train.
Using trucks is more plausible because being hit by a car is less likely to result in death compared to being hit by a truck, which has a much larger gross mass and is not designed to be safe for pedestrians in a crash. Trucks make the fatal accident scenario more believable, whereas trains run on set routes and aren’t as prone to accidents.
This is why so many Japanese creations, such as “Zombieland Saga,” which technically isn’t an isekai alongside “The Eminence in Shadow,” “Wise Man’s Grandchild,” “Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!” and the globally beloved “Mushoku Tensei,” feature the trope of being struck by a truck and being transported to another world, or at the very least reincarnating or reawakening in some way.
The latest season of anime introduces “Isekai Shikkaku” (No Longer Allowed In Another World), which takes the trope a step further by legitimizing the Isekai transporter.
The whole ordeal can be quite shocking, suddenly, out of nowhere, a massive truck hurls into unsuspecting individuals, taking them on a life-changing journey. It’s far more dramatic than simply closing one’s eyes and waking up in another world or dying in one’s sleep.
This concept is humorously exemplified in “Konosuba,” where the protagonist Kazuma Sato dies from the shock of believing he was hit by a truck while attempting to save a girl from being “hit” by a slow-moving tractor.
Many Japanese people are taught to avoid large trucks due to their substantial weight and general instability. Since trucks can be found on almost any road, it seems natural for them to be used as a plot device, making them a “believable” means for ordinary people to be spontaneously killed while going about their business.
To counteract these negative views on trucks, the Shizuoka-based transportation manager hopes that media creators will consider portraying the transportation industry in a better light. Unfortunately, despite multiple transportation companies’ attempts to spread positive information about drivers and logistics, discrimination against truck drivers remains a legitimate issue in Japan.
