A transportation manager has blamed anime for cultivating a negative public perception of trucks.
As reported by Weekly Logistics News and translated by Automaton, a transportation manager in Shizuoka, Japan said the logistics industry's reputation is being ruined by anime that uses the common trope of main characters being killed by trucks.
An anime genre called isekai is particularly to blame, they said. These shows see the main character killed in the real world early and transported to a magical location where they embark on a new adventure.
So they gave an in-universe explanation for Truck-kun. I’m sold on this show just from that lol pic.twitter.com/8wnQuGDuLl
— RinSS (@RinSS_HI) July 9, 2024
It's very common for that initial cause of death to come via a truck, so much so that a meme known as Truck-kun has emerged which mocks the trope. Anime including Wise Man's Grandchild, Knight's & Magic, Zombie Land Saga, and many more all use it, and No Longer Allowed in Another World even explains the truck as an entity which chooses and brings people to a new world (as seen in the X/Twitter post above).
The transportation manager said these anime have subliminal messaging which leads to an intrinsic dislike of trucks and transportation companies. Despite their understanding that freedom of expression in storytelling is important, they'd rather trucks weren't to blame so often.
Plenty of anime don't use such a trope, of course, including many of the most popular ones such as One Piece and Demon Slayer.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
