Media Transmigration

Transmigration is the movement of a soul into another body after death. It's not limited to simply life or death.

The protagonist is a person who is reading, watching, or playing a novel, television show or game. They love or hate the characters and have an understanding of the story whether they finished or not. Then they die, fall asleep, travel dimensions, sucked into a portal or pulled into a TV, whatever to end up waking up as a character in that series.

The protagonist could end up in various positions, such being in the body of the story's hero, the story's villain or a minor background character. As the protagonist is forced into the body of a pre-existing character in a previously fictional-to-them narrative, the character is frequently forced to deal with the original's problems and narrative baggage.

Whether they choose to stick with the original narrative can vary. They could choose to follow the narrative to keep their foreknowledge of their own will or be railroaded into by a higher power. With their foreknowledge of the story, they can change the story's outcome for better or worse.

The fate of the original body's host can be handwaved or never discussed, but there are exceptions.

The use of the term transmigration originates in Chinese and Korean webnovels, when it could mean the definition given here or used interchangeably with Reincarnate in Another World, where a the character is killed and reincarnates in another world which is usually completely separate from their original world or "Freaky Friday" Flip, when its an existing person from the same dimension. The character is usually referred as a transmigrator within text.

Contrast with Trapped in Another World, which doesn't involve death, allows the character to keep their original body and retains the possibility that the character in question could return home (though most anime fans use the Japanese term isekai for both.) Also contrast Refugee from TV Land, which goes in the other direction, with a fictional character emerging into the "real" world.

A Subtrope of Body Snatcher, as the person takes over the body and life of a pre-existing character from the Show Within a Show. When it is a major named character the person found themselves as, it is the Next Life as a Fictional Character subtrope. When it's the writer inserting an Author Avatar to act as the protagonist within a fanwork, it's a Self-Insert Fic as the Self as Existing Character subtype. A subtrope of transmigration is the "Reborn as Villainess" Story, where transmigrators are specifically put into villainess characters.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• In A Wild Last Boss Appeared! a Japanese teenager finds himself sent into his in game avatar, Ruphas Mafahl, the supreme ruler who once conquered the whole game world before being defeated and presumed dead 200 years prior. Eventually it is revealed that the fantasy world was real all along. The Japanese teenager held a part of Ruphas' soul and the whole game was created to familiarize it with the world before returning the soul to the original body.
• In Aku no Joou no Kiseki, university student Mari finds herself in another world, in the body of a queen. Upon learning that she is unable to return to her original body, and that the queen's bad government has led to war, Mari decides to reorganize the ruined country.
• This is the main plot of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, where an unnamed tomboyish otaku reincarnates into the role of a Spoiled Brat rival from an otome game she was playing before she died. Since the character dies or ends up exiled in every route she plays a role in, she takes precautions to try and avoid her fate. Of course, she's also an idiot, so none of her plans ever go anywhere and she instead ends up stealing the heroine role, along with winning the affection of all four of the love interests, the other two rivals, and the heroine herself by complete accident. Her best friend Atsuko also reincarnated into the game as one of the other rivals, but they both remain unaware of this.
• In the Isekai parody with Dragon Ball: That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha! where a Dragon Ball superfan wakes up as Yamcha. Turns out Chiaotzu is also a fan from Earth whose been reincarnated several times before.
• In How Not to Summon a Demon Lord, Takuma Sakamoto is a shut in Godlike Gamer who dominates the MMORPG called Cross Reverie as a character known as Diablo the Demon Lord. But then one day he gets sucked into a world resembling Cross Reverie, where he becomes his own overpowered player avatar Diablo. Turns out two girls, Shera (an elf) and Rem (a cat girl) summoned him due to wanting a familiar, but failed to realize just how powerful their summon was who ended up reflecting their enslavement magic upon them and became his slaves instead.
• In Overlord, Satoru is a Godlike Gamer who played the once-popular virtual reality MMORPG, YGGDRASIL, until one day he remains logged in when the game servers were supposedly getting shut down for good. But instead of being logged out automatically, he finds himself stuck in the body of his video game avatar, a max-level skeletal lich. Also, the powerful NPCs his PVP guild designed (to defend their base from rival guilds) come to life, developing human-level intelligence and personalities, and worshiping Satoru as a god. Satoru enlists their help to safely learn everything they can about the world they're trapped in, but an offhand comment he makes leads his NPCs to believe their true goal is to Take Over the World.
• Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody: Video game developer Ichiro Suzuki falls asleep in his cubicle after working major overtime, and wakes up inside the MMO he had been working on. He immediately comes under attack by Draconic Humanoids and activates the cheat code he had just programmed in a blind panic, wiping out the entire civilization and maxing out his character level immediately (explaining the Game-Breaker abilities that isekai protagonists typically get). He later encounters Arisa Tachibana, another case of this who reincarnated in the parallel world from an Alternate Universe version of Japan.

Comic Books

• The Unfunnies: The plot of the comic is that the murderous cartoonist of a children's comic series, Troy Hicks, magically swaps himself with one of his innocent characters; so while he takes on the life of the in-universe mail penguin Frosty Pete, Frosty Pete takes on his life in the real world just in time to be arrested. As Frosty Pete, Troy makes life hell for the other characters.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW): In the "Ponies in Book Land" arc, Twilight, Pinkie, Dash and Rarity go into the books to stop a magical bookworm from eating the stories. When they do, they sometime end up in stories where they take on the roles of characters which Twilight insists they stick to how the story goes. Thing is though that the others either don't know how the stories play out or aren't in the roles to have it go as intended as the main characters isn't there due to being transported into Equestria, forcing them to improvise much to Twilight's chagrin.

Fan Works

• Origin Story: In the aftermath of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Halloween", Xander Harris finds himself trapped not only in the body of Power Girl, but in the Marvel Universe as well during a time in which being an unregistered metahuman is a bad, bad thing.
• SV Wishes: Shen Yuan falls asleep before he could finish the harem drama he was reading and wakes up in the body of the villainous rival, Shen Qingqiu of the protagonist, Liu Qingge. As Liu Qingge marries their shared husband.
• Sean Bean Saves Westeros: Right after wrapping up filming on the first season of Game of Thrones, Sean Bean wakes up in White Harbor the day Ned Stark, the character he played, is killed. Note however that the Westeros he finds himself in is that of the books, not the show, so some characters are different from how he remembers them.

Film — Live Action

• In Pleasantville, 90's teenagers David and Jennifer end up trapped as characters Bud and Mary Sue in David's favorite show, a Leave It to Beaver-esque sitcom. Their presence winds up throwing the heavily-idealized world into chaos. As things become less idealized and more like the real world, they begin to show up in color instead of black and white people cease to be monochrome whenever they stop staying nice and snug within their boundaries and break out, displaying some inner truth about their character.

Literature

• Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter: Iris Lana Armelia regains memories of her past life as a Japanese accountant who played otome games to escape her empty life. She was the villainous rival in said game and awaken during the game's denouncement.
• After being stabbed to death, the protagonist of Deathbound Duke's Daughter wakes up as the villainess of an Otome game she was playing. Unfortunately, while she knows she’ll die in seven routes, she only finished the first two routes, so she doesn’t know the whole story.
• The Distinguished Cute Master has protagonist Yuan Chu on her third life after she dies at the hands of the male lead. Originally a normal girl before she transmigrated into a xianxia novel, she sought to be Distaff Counterpart of the male lead only to be killed as a boss character. Now on her third try, she seeks to kill or exploit the male lead to reach the protagonist-only upgrades.
• Falling in Love With the Villainess: In a Darker and Edgier tale, Rion, from Japan, dies and finds himself in the body of a child in the slums, whose life is miserable until he encounters the Villainess Ariel Windhill and her brother, being hired as their valet (Battle Butler). Unaware that he's in a world based on a game, Rion is teased by her and forms a Lady and Knight relationship, using subterfuge to protect the siblings and their reputations, and encountering the world's Designated Hero Maria. Maria, from earth but having played the game, and seeing the actually innocent Ariel as her greatest enemy, spreads rumors and conspires to bring the two siblings down, earning Rion's wrath, only for Rion to find that she has In-Universe Plot Armor, and You Can't Fight Fate.
• I'm In Love With the Villainess: A regular Japanese office lady who overworked herself to death ends up reincarnating as Rae Taylor, the protagonist of "Revolution", an Otome Game she played. In her new life, she doesn't target the three male potential love interests, but rather Claire, the villainess.
• Mistakenly Saving the Villain: Song Qingshi transmigrates into a novel. Unfortunately he's never read the novel and has no idea how its plot is supposed to go.
• An Observation Log of My Fiancée Who Calls Herself a Villainess: a young woman who gets reincarnated into Bertia Ibil Noches, the villainess role in her favorite otome game as seen from the perspective of her fiance, Prince Cecil. Bertia purposesly tries to become the villainess despite her very presence changing things...and that this Bertia is really, really bad at being evil.
• Reborn as a Space Mercenary: I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship!: Japanese corporate IT guy Takahiro Satou goes to bed after playing his favorite MMORPG, an Elite Dangerous clone called Stella Online, and wakes up as his Player Character on the bridge of his ship in the game.
• Release That Witch: After three straight days working non-stop to meet a work deadline, Cheng Yan, a mechanical engineer and long-time Bookworm, has finally collapsed. However, when he awakes, Cheng Yan finds he's no longer himself, but stuck in the body of Roland Wimbledon, the 4th prince of a Kingdom called Graycastle.
• The Saintess and the Villainess: An office worker is hit by a truck and ends up becoming the Saintess, the main character of a novel she was reading just before her death. Her goal is to change the plot of the original story to save the life of her favorite character, Lady Corvina, who was originally the villainess of the novel.
• The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong:
  • Anti-fan Shen Yuan dies from food poisoning after intensely ranting about the terrible end of the web novel he loved and hate-read. He then wakes as a character in said "Proud Immortal Demon Way"....as its Starter Villain Peak Lord Shen Qingqiu who dies as a human stick at the hands of Wish-Fulfillment Villain Protagonist Luo Binghe. The plot revolves around Shen Yuan's attempts to avoid this fate by endearing himself to young and innocent Luo Binghe and the resulting consequences.
  • Later it's revealed that the author of "Proud Immortal Demon Way" also reincarnated into the same world as minor character Shang Qinghua after accidentally electrocuting himself.
• Ta Shi Zhujiao: Due to having the same name as the character, Yu Ru Bing is pulled from the real world to the world of a novel by a system, so she can fix the bugged antagonist Tang Han Qiu. Yu Ru Bing is very resistant to this and tries to go back to the real world, but the system won't even let death bring her back. This is until Yu Ru Bing realizes she has fallen in love with Tang Han Qiu, and is content to never go back to her original world.
• In Trash of the Count's Family Kim Rok Soo has just started reading The Birth of a Hero, a fantasy series about a Korean teenager named Choi Han who gets transported to a fantasy world and gets five volumes in the series before falling asleep. He then awakes up in the body of a minor antagonist from the first novel, Cale, who is known as the trash of the count's family because of his tendency to get drunk and hurl bottles at anyone nearby, as well as treating those of lower status like they aren't people. And he's just days away from when this character is beaten to a bloody pulp by Choi Han. This meeting starts Choi Han's journey to heroism, but Kim Rok Soo-as-Cale understandably doesn't want to get hurt.
• Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs: The protagonist is a salaryman who dies of exhaustion after being blackmailed into a 48-hour straight gaming session to clear an otome game for his selfish younger sister. He is then reincarnated into the game's world as a background extra or "mob character." Recovering his memory of his past life after some ten odd years, he goes about trying to eke out a peaceful life for himself in a matriarchal society where men are mostly only seen as good for either being trophy husbands or fodder to die in wars. Later on he runs into Marie, who happens to be the reincarnation of his younger sister, but doesn't discover that until after she attempts to manipulate the events of the game in her favor.
• Villains Are Destined to Die has Cha Siyeon who was an illegitimate child who escaped her abusive fraternal family by going to university. Through her classmates she heard of the viral Otome phone game "The Lady's Love Project" and got hooked. After beating all the routes in normal mode, Siyeon had the option to buy the very expensive true ending or to earn it through playing hard mode. A thifty young woman, she decides to play hard mode where instead of playing as the protagonist Yvonne, she has to play as the villainess Penolope Eckhart. Whom Siyeon wakes up as she is being belittled and mocked by her abusive family.
• Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion has the protagonist pushed off a building and reincarnated into the world of a murder mystery she read as Raeliana, the dead centerpiece of said mystery.

Live-Action TV

• Lost in Austen: Modern Jane Austen fan Amanda Price trades places with Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, with the cover story that Amanda is a good friend of Elizabeth's. While she tries to keep the story on track, Charles Bingley becoming attracted to Amanda instead of Jane Bennet throws a wrench in that plan. It only gets more chaotic from there.
• Unexpected has He Jie get trapped in the manga he wrote. He's only allowed to go back to his world if he can redeem the villainess, Lu Zi Xing. Naturally he falls in love with her along the way.

Webcomics

• Web manhua Cheating Men Must Die features Su Lüxia, an elite Supporting Character System agent whose job is to enter different worlds based on various media and take over the bodies of mistreated female characters, helping them take revenge on their enemies.
• Forever After: Robin, a girl who never grew out of her Princess Phase, wishes on her eighteenth birthday to "live a real live fairytale." When she wakes up after, she finds herself in a storybook land, where she will live out all the stories she loves… as Prince Charming. Her job is to help resolve the conflicts in fairytales, bringing them to their Happily Ever After.
• Who Made Me a Princess:The heroine, a normal orphaned woman becomes tragic princess Athanasia of the story The Lovely Princess and work herself to change the story and prevent the unfortunate fate the princess suffered from in the original.

Western Animation

• The Fairly OddParents!: Downplayed in "Channel Chasers", where Timmy ends up hopping into different Shows Within A Show. While most of the time he's just inserted into the world as a new character, he sometimes takes an existing (in-universe) character's identity, such as becoming "The Sparrow" in a Batman: The Animated Series parody, a parody of Jerry from a Tom and Jerry parody, and as an Elmer Fudd parody in a Looney Tunes parody. However, he doesn't get to stick around in any show long enough to live the life of the character he'd become for longer than a few minutes.

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