By the year 20XX, Japanese teenagers managed to get reincarnated into fantasy worlds so often that scientists actually figured out how to inflict Truck-kun on them deliberately. And the isekai'd people who managed to return brought their cheat skills back with them, which they figured out how to download into memory cards that could be traded and loaded into decks. And then they figured out how to broadcast their adventures back to Earth.
Naturally this led to the transformation of isekai into a professional sport: Exo-Drive, where teens compete for points by saving other worlds in suitably dramatic fashion.
Now at the semifinals of the WRA All-Japan Isekai Battle Tournament, junior high Exo-Drive star Sumioka Shito faces off against newcomer Tsurugi Tatsuya to save the latest world from Holy God Ruhma and earn a shot at a rematch against defending champion Tonoe Hajiki.
The series ran for 17 chapters in MAGCOMI from 30 March, 2020 to 30 September, 2021. It was licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment for English-language publication and was released in three tankoubon volumes from 9 November 2021 to 28 April 2023.
Examples:
- Affectionate Parody: The series takes basically every imaginable trope and silly leap of logic of RPG Mechanics 'Verse isekai fantasy fiction and turns it into an element of the Exo-Drive sport.
- All-Loving Hero: Tsurugi Tatsuya forms genuine love and affection with the family he reincarnates in, and is more concerned with saving the world, than actual victory in the Exo-Drive.
- Bait-and-Switch: Shito wins his semifinal match hoping for a remaatch against Hajiki, only to find out that she lost her semifinal match to a dark horse, Onizuka Tenma.
- Car Fu: Justified. There's an isekai fandom joke about "Truck-kun", referring to how bizarrely common it is for isekai protagonists to have reincarnated into fantasy worlds after being hit by a truck. It gets taken to the logical conclusion here in Exo-Drive: matches are started by deliberately running the contestants over with trucks.
- Genre Savvy: Understanding how best to exploit the tropes of isekai is the core of Exo-Drive strategy. Tatsuya gets one over on Shito during their match by selecting a cheat skill that lets him attract a Battle Harem.
- Mugging the Monster: Invoked. One of the common ways to earn IP in Exo-Drive is to get into fights with people who don't know how strong the Driver in question actually is. Picking a fight with the toughest guy at the local Adventure Guild is de rigueur, and Shito baits a lot of points by using the cheat skill "E-Ranker" which makes his Skill Scores and Perks look significantly weaker than they actually are.
- New Life in Another World Bonus: Cheat Memory, AKA C-Memory: The reality bending "Skills" one gets for reincarnating to save the world, itemized & weaponized. Exo-Drive players each chose four C-Memories before being hit by a truck; three visible, and one hidden. They come in a variety of functions, shapes, and powers.
- Allmighty: The Driver knows and/or can learn just about anything, without restrictions on WHAT can be learned, however they are not able to "master" the knowledge without working towards it.
- Basic: Secretly installed in each Driver as a fifth C-Memory, this is what allows the Drivers to "die" without serious injury, and "return" just fine once the Drive is over.
- Butterfly: Allows to Driver to take credit for other people's major achievements, so long as they do not LOOK like they could have done it. Oba uses this with his own "Tool Assist" C-Memory, which does not let the in-world people see HE was responsible for doing, in order to actually get credit for what he did.
- Chosen Armada: All of the Driver's companions are much more powerful than other beings in the world, even those who had just joined up.
- Darkness Drive: Tenma Onizuka's signature "Dark" C-Memory, nicknamed "D-Memory", which allows him to be reborn as the ENEMY faction in the Drive, and earn Initiative Points by killing off all the people, thereby saving the "world" from ecological disaster.
- E-Ranker: It makes the native people of the world and the other Drivers see your stats as being much lower than they actually are.
- Economic-R: Lets the Driver make changes to existing economic revenues in-world, to improve production, introduce new products, and in general make LOTS of money.
- Evergreen: Prevents the Driver and their companions from being killed if at all possible.
- Flag Search: Lets the Driver know where events, key-people, enemies, and the like are at any given moment.
- Flying Start: The Driver starts out as "The Best" at a particular skill, although just that skill.
- Harem Master: Lets you have an unlimited amount of "significant others" to fight along side you during the Drive.
Shito exploits this, the C-Memory "Evergreen" which gives Plot Armor to all of the Driver's loved-ones, and help from Rei's Political-R C-Memory, to litterally Marry Them All in order to protect the world's population from certain sudden death.- Hyper Coms: The Driver can speak with, and negotiate with anyone in the Drive-world.
- Hyper Growth: Gives the Driver a physical strength boost when leveling up, and remove the limits on how strong they can get.
- Hyper Knowledge: The limits on skills the Driver can learn are removed, allowing them to achieve academic feats Beyond Theimpossible.
- Industrial-R: Lets the Driver bring/force technological advancement at a rapid pace.
- Mother Lode: The Driver starts with access to near-unlimited funds & resources to use, usually from the "family" they reincarnate in.
- Overdrive: A red-colored C-Memory that Sumioka Shinichi left to his son Shito, before dissappearing in an Exo-Drive. Almost nothing is known about it, except that it is impled to gain power FROM a Drive-world, rather than simply being given to the Driver going there.
- Parasite: The Driver gains experience & growth just from being in a party with others getting stronger. The amount gained is not much, but if said companion gains strength in leaps & bounds...
- Pirate: A C-Memory that lets the Driver re-create any technology from their own original world, into the Drive-world, even if they do not know how it works. One of the founders of the Exo-Drive, Elle Delexe, the president of the World Reincarnation Association, brought over the Drivers and C-Memory technology from HER world, using this C-Memory.
So far, it is the only C-Memory ofically listed as "Banned". Even Onizuka's "Darkness Drive" was still allowed in the Exo-Drive tournament.- Political-R: Allows the Driver to negotiate the adoption and changes for in-world laws.
Unlike the "World Authority" C-Memory, this requires the Driver to work WITH the in-world people, not force it against their will.- Save & Reset: A Driver is able to set a point in time where they can go back to, by spending a certain amount of their Initiative Points as a cost. You know in case something happened...
- Surprise: All of the Driver's skills are suddenly transformed into equivalent ones for defeating ONE major final enemy, which can be thwarted by an opponent that has someone equally powerful backing them up.
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Tool Assist: Oba Rudou's own custom made C-Memory. It lets him "glitch" the Drive world to erase high-level threats, but as a side-effect, nobody knows it was him that did it, and think it just happened out of nowhere. Oba gets around this by using the C-Memory "Butterfly", which lets him take credit for achievements that nobody knows he did not do, but nobody could tell he DID do.
Awesome, but Impractical: Not discussed, but it requires some odd behaviours to work, and it is generally terrifying to the in-world people when they see it being set-up.- Villainess: Kurokida Rei's implied personal C-Memory, which is supposed to reincarnate the Driver as a key Although NOT the actual final-boss member of an opposing "enemy" faction in the Drive-world.
It is implied in the novel though, that unlike Onizuka's "Darkness Drive", the Driver is not forced to be a VillainProtagonist can still save the world "normally" if they choose to.- World Appraisal (Code 0003): One of the "Irregular" C-Memories used by the pair of bad Drivers that Shito & Rei face in a side-match. It lets the Driver know everyone's current status, no matter where they are.
- World Army (Code 0832): One of the "Irregular" C-Memories used by the Drivers that Shito & Rei face against, during a side-match at an arcade. Lets the Driver command & control all of the Drive-world's military and paramilitary forces, without question.
- World Authority (Code 0032): One of the "Irregular" C-Memories used against Shito & Rei during a side Exo-Drive match. Basically, everything the Driver tells the in-world people is law, no matter how horrible it is.
- World Body/Vigor (Code 0010): One of the "Irregular" C-Memories used by the Jerkass Drivers that Shito & Rei face against in a side-match. It maxes out the Driver's strength in combat, and makes them impervious to physical harm.
- World Collapse (Code 5133): One of the "Irregular" C-Memories used by Nyarzowigg and Ygohnomaeczka, when facing off against Shito and Rei. It lets the Driver call down natural disasters whenever, and wherever they want.
- World Wealth (Code 1020): One of the "Irregular" C-Memories used by Shito & Rei's opponents in a side match. It lets the Driver not only have an infinite supply of money, it also directly controls how much money is WORTH in the Drive-world, making it so that someone else including nations only has an "economy" if the Driver says so.
- Nominal Hero: Unlike Sumioka, Oba Rudou is as crude & rude in the Drive, as he is out of it. He WILL save the world, but he does not care who he scares or insults doing it.
- Pragmatic Hero: Sumioka Shito is only focused on victory; he will only pretend to make allies in the Drive worlds, and while he intends to save the people of the world, he intends to do only that, and nothing more.
- Speedrun: Essentially the Exo-Drive is speed running an isekai plot, as a competitive sport.
- Utility Party Member: Shito rescues the princess of a fallen kingdom from slavery on the notion that she'd become part of his Battle Harem for the match. However, her skillset turns out to be much more administrative than combat, so he assigns her to manage the ready-to-eat curry factory he started when he was eleven.
- The Watson: Tatsuya's childhood friend Hoshihara Saki conveniently knows next-to-nothing about Exo-Drive, so for the first story arc she serves as somebody that more knowledgeable characters can explain things about the sport to.
