Omegaverse, also known as ABO, firstly was known as subgenre of speculative erotic fiction and originally a subgenre of erotic slash fan fiction. The genre describes a dominant hierarchy where Alpha=dominant, Beta=neutral and Omega=submissive, focusing on wolf or canid-like behaviors of humans, such as rutting, heat cycles and pheromonal attraction between A and O, breeding etc. Omegaverse is a world of 6 sexes: female and male A, female and male B and, of course, female and male O. The gland of O and A is located on their neck and emits pheromones that for A can be used to supporess and for O are used to attrackt.
With time, since Omegaverse is proven to be a free to explore genre for anyone, it was established as a separate genre and grew rapidly on the market within last 7 years (my own judgement from the number of released during this time commercial and non-commercial works). Of course the genre itself existed for far-far longer and it's hard to pinpoint who was the first one to introduce it into fiction.
Since we're mostly BL blog here, I will be taking note on mostly slash fiction/comics. With time slash fiction and comics started to take place in different eras, such as modern, ancient, interstellar or primal. Initially due to the genre itself being based on canid-like hierarchy the characters described in it had werewolfe attributes, so what we see today might describe worlds of humans, human/human-like animal world or pure animal world.
While I personally concentrate on three Asian markets - Chinese, Japanese and Korean - I was introduced to this genre for the first time around 2013 in Japanese manga and witnessed how this genre due to high demand grew rapidly from several series in magazines to publishers starting a separate ABO magazines, specifically for this genre (e.g. B-Boy Omegaverse, from 2016). Japanese market mostly explores Moderm World Omegaverse, quite often concentrating on the aspect of slash/erotica rather than storyline or ABO world exploration. It's hard for me to pick up some remarkable works, since they all mainly explore and portray only one thing - porn. There's an abundant number of works with dominance and submission of A/O pairings, with rare exceptions of uneven pairs like A/B or B/O and even less works that point out Omega oppression in such hierarchy. But this is the only thing that this market usually explores - relationships. Later Japanese market slowly introduced Omegaverse with human/animal relationships. But, actually, it would be wrong to say plain animals, but they're human-like animals to be precise, walking and speaking like himans, partially having human bodies, but also bearing animal attributes, such as fur, ears, heads, tails, claws etc.
My personal opinion on Japanese Omegaverse manga market: It's shallow. The strucutre of Omegaverse they use is the classic structure of hierarchy, mating, bonding, marking, pheromone attraction and also due to it being a modern world the use of inhibitors (in pill/shot form). It often times glorifies very toxic relationships and, although ABO should be about characters who are driven by their animalistic characteristic, I see it as another excuse to write slash/eroitca without substantial storyline. Many works just explore relationships between people, the only extra is that Omega can give birth to children, but actually it doesn't explore any other aspects of Omegaverse world itself, giving the stories of Japanese mangas I've seen a very shallow meaning. They could be same just modern world BL works without the ABO and it'd be the same. Japanese market also suffers from the limited-space phenomen that directly affects the quility of Omegaverse and other BL works. Due to fixed numbers of pages per chapter and high risk of failure to step outside of troupes or not wanting to take a riskier route, many of the works in Japanese manga are pretty simple and hardly bound to overused cliche troupes. Thus, unfortunately, the works on Japanese market are destined to be repetitive, reminding basic yaoi, but with ABO features. Amen.
As for Korean market..tbh I haven't seen a single story of ABO genre produced by a Korean author (I'm sure there are, but the question is that I haven't read any), not that I truly follow the market now.. because let's be honest, they already produce enough SM-type, toxic relationships and abuse type of works. I personally find it the worst stories I've read in my life.
On the other continent Chinese BL market uses ABO as to refer to this genre and often time binds it with Interstellar World, combining two - Omegaverse and Zergs - where ABO human six sexes are actually evolved people in a far future due to scarce population after Zergs' universal dominance over other species and human annihilation. There are also many modern or ancient stories, but they're second in number. Modern stories usually use simply mpreg, without ABO settings, where only certain males can get pregnant and society isn't divided into six sexes. The greatness of interstellar stories opens the path to many universe explorations, power struggles and sci-fi galore that is very interesting from the reader's point of view. And the open door to imagination keeps this genre self-refreshing.
*Zergs are bug-like aggressive species, maybe they appeared earlier than that, but I believe they start their path from Star Troopers (by that I mean the book written back in 1959, which was used as a base for same-title movie).
Due to censorship that exists on Chinese market, which I personally find a great thing, ABO worlds of Chinese BL thus are concentrating on storylines and relationships over explicit content.
ABO world of Chinese works also mostly are based on the classical hierarchy structure, but due to unlimited space of digital writing the worlds described in novels are more detailed and complex. Despite the often usedtroupes where Alphas are scarce in numbers, but they occupy the top positions and Omegas are at the bottom as the weakest existances due to their physique being frail. This start introduced a path for many works to take on topics exploring unequal human rights, power struggles etc.
Along with six sexes, ABO interstellar worlds introduce different physical and mental powers (from F grade to S grade, as the highest, above that is only 2S, 3S or even 4S, depending on the story), both these factors also influence the future development, physical problems and deviations for characters. Thus introducing variaty of possibilies that the story can take and making it more interesting. For example, the physically frail Omega can have strong spiritual powers that may be used as a body condition or on the contrary use the spiritually strong Omegas as mecha workers, which can be handled only by people with strong spiritual powers. Omegas can be kind and stay at home or they can lead an army to fight etc. This is just one of a hundred possibilites how these attributes could be used in a story.
As I mentioned the ABO interstelar worlds take the human six sexes route with widely used physical attributes, such as that the gland of Omegas is located on their neck, but this is a gland among others, its' destruction won't lead to death, but infertility. Omega's death is always linked to Alpha, either marked Omega can die because their Alpha left them and doesn't mark them during estrus or their Alpha is dead etc. One of very few works that took ABO to another level was an Arc in 学神在手，天下我有, where the gland of Omega and Alpha isn't only the source of their pheromone, but also source of their life and having problems with the gland or having it completely removed is the same as slow death. Which I found a good twist on already established genre.
But Chinese authors didn't stop there, they actually expanded the mpreg subgenre and ABO became only a part of it. Expansion covered novels about Gers, babies conceived after dual cultivation in xianxia (or cultivation genre) as well as pregnancy with spirits (often ghosts). I don't know where the word 'Ger' originated from, I met it in Chinese BL novels for the first time. Unlike ABO, Gers are feminine and beautiful males that can give birth to children, usually Gers are set into ancient China settings where Gers are more like daughters that can be married off. The attributes of Gers are: feminine and beautiful complexion, sindoor or a circular mark from pale pink to blood-red color that represent Ger's fertility, from low to high respectively. Such settings also often explore the unequalness between Gers and men, but unlike Omegas they don't enter estrus, they're just compitable for male x male. These topics are only a part of the stories that may expand to many other subgenres and locating in basic cities, imperial palaces etc. Gers can be the center of the stories, as well as just a part of it.
My personal opinion on Chinese ABO BL novels: They are the most interesting works I've read throughout the years, unlike many comics that simply use ABO to draw slash stories, novels expand the worlds to something bigger and actually become true great stories by themselves where ABO is only an aspect of it. Surprisingly the limitations because of censorship, that simply don't allow pornographic content, served as a stepping stone to exploration of vaster universes and more complex worlds and characters.
As a conclusion I can only say that this genre (including mpreg in general) can actually be pretty interesting and continue to be such, if you're not repulsive to this subject. I personally am not and what I find interesting is how although this type of world has a rigid structure, but it actually makes it interesting to witness how characters will exist in this frame or they will instead break it. The difference is in approach and the vastness of possibilities that digital writing holds. The only pity is that with such as Japanese market, ABO serves only as a slash story ground, that is narrow-minded and many works don't differ from others and if there's no change in approach these works will continue to resemble each other and will never grow. Although novels can suffer from it too, but they managed to introduce a more vast world and much more interesting settings.
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