The Forgotten Casualties of Truck-kun: When Reincarnation Comes at a Price

The unseen aftermath: While the isekai hero begins a new life, the driver is left behind—haunted, broken, and forever changed.

By the time Truck-kun's tires screech and the screen fades to white, the protagonist is already halfway to cheat skill heaven, chatting with a divine middle manager about their job class and starting gear. The viewer smiles, anticipating slime farms, waifu politics, and kingdom spreadsheets.

But no one ever stops to ask:
What happened to the driver?

Anime fans revere Truck-kun as the patron saint of reincarnation—a cosmic courier delivering MCs from the drudgery of Earth to worlds where magic is real, politics are easily solved by punching things, and nobody ever questions your age if you’re saving the kingdom. But beneath the shiny trope lies something uncomfortably human: the real-world cost of vehicular homicide. Because Truck-kun doesn’t operate in a vacuum. He operates on roads. With pedestrians. And drivers. And grieving families.

The Unseen Tragedy

Let’s get this out of the way: most Truck-kun incidents aren’t malicious. The truck isn’t possessed. The driver isn’t evil. They’re just... unlucky. A poor delivery guy two hours into overtime who didn’t see the kid dart into the road. A woman in her twenties running a grocery route in winter. A retiree filling in for a co-worker. Ordinary people.

In real-life Japan—one of the safest countries on Earth in terms of traffic fatalities—the average number of deaths per year hovers around 2,600. That’s among the lowest in the developed world. And yet, in anime, you’d think it was open season on awkward loners and disaffected office drones. The math doesn’t add up—unless there’s a supernatural HR department outsourcing reincarnation contracts with full indemnity clauses.

Now, consider what happens next for the driver. There’s trauma. Guilt. A police investigation. Maybe even jail time. In Japan, negligent driving resulting in death can carry a sentence of up to seven years. And even if the courts are lenient, society usually isn’t.

While the MC levels up in a new world, the driver’s world collapses.

Meanwhile, Back on Earth...

The MC’s family gets a funeral. A closed casket. Maybe a few murmurs of “He died a hero—saving a child from the street.” But that’s it. No divine memo arrives saying, “Don’t worry, he’s now the Duke of Dragonbone Valley.” No fantasy postcard with a slime sticker. Just emptiness. A life erased in a flash of tires and glowing light.

And what if the MC had unfinished business? A sibling they supported? A dog that still waits at the door? In most stories, the past is treated like excess baggage—discarded the moment the new world boots up.

Imagine dying and the gods just... not telling anyone. Not even a “Thank you for your service. Your son is now dual-wielding.”

The Narrative Cheat Code

Of course, none of this is meant to be taken too seriously—except that it kind of should be. Truck-kun is the perfect example of a trope that became so normalized it stopped making sense. It’s a shortcut. A narrative blunt instrument. One hit, and the story resets. You don’t need backstory or character development if the protagonist gets reborn in a world where nobody cares about who he was before.

But maybe they should.

Maybe the most radical isekai twist isn’t a new magic system, or a villainous noble, or a reverse-harem dungeon-crawler. Maybe it’s an MC who remembers what he left behind—and who feels the weight of the death that made his rebirth possible. Or better yet, a driver who survives the accident and has their life changed, haunted by dreams of the person they killed… only to one day hear their voice again—from across worlds.

Now that’s a story worth telling.

Final Destination?

Truck-kun isn’t going anywhere. He’s too entrenched in the DNA of the genre. But maybe—just maybe—it’s time we start acknowledging the absurdity of it all. That behind every light novel setup is a darkly comedic tragedy no one wants to talk about.

So the next time you watch someone get isekai’d via reckless delivery vehicle, spare a thought for the guy behind the wheel.
He didn’t ask to be a grim reaper.
He just had a route to finish.