Culture Shock
is a fantasy/comedy webcomic written and drawn by Reed Hawker.
It follows the event's of a knight from 700 years ago named Alec who was sent to the present to search for an evil witch. He is taken in by Lane, the runner of a hacking ring, and forced to live with a ninja named Tadashi who apparently only came to America to save random women from muggers. In exchange for the shelter, Alec and Tadashi are sent on frequent missions to fight... some kind of rival company or something. About midseries, the officer in charge of that area, Officer Foxx, moves into Lane's apartment building, deciding to oversee Lane's illegal actions for some reason or another. A few comics later Alec's elf "girlfriend" from the past, Brooke, moves in with Foxx.
As the title may suggest, the series focuses mostly on the Time Traveling Couple and resident ninja's adjustment to modern America.
Tropes appearing in Culture Shock:
- Cassandra Truth: Foxx has trouble believing the whole "time travel", "witch", and "elf" thing.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The strip is about people from the past in the present, and a ninja in America. There's also this bit of dialogue:Foxx: So what's with the elf ears?
Brooke: I'm an elf. - Fictional Counterpart: "Corporate-Mart" Notably after the "McDonalds" Product Placement.
- Highly-Visible Ninja: Tadashi, who seems to only be aware of the popular culture version of the ninja and woefully uninformed about stealth.
- Non-Combat EXP: Spoofed in this strip — you can get EXP for quite literally anything: kicking trash cans, beating up nerds, popping bubble wrap, opening bags of chips, and using the restroom, among others.
- Rescue Romance: Tadashi's motivation. Also, despite Alec's advice to Tadashi that it's not necessary to rescue a woman in order to strike up a romantic relationship, he admits that this is exactly how he and Brooke got together.
- Trope Trigger: Meinji's appearances usually involve a Shout-Out to a game.
