The Winter 2021 Manga Guide

I've Become an Omega Today

What's It About? 

It all starts with your typical childhood friend love story—average Kanade pining after his dandy best friend, Munechika. There's just one big problem with their high school romance—Kanade's a Beta and Munechika's an Alpha! And everyone knows that Alpha/Beta pairing just aren't compatible…on a physical level. But when Kanade goes into heat as an Omega for the first time, will Munechika be there to give him a helping hand?

I've Become an Omega Today is drawn and scripted by Sachi Maiki and Yen Press has released its first volume both digitally and physically for $6.99 and $15.00 respectively

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

It was the manga guide before this one that introduced me to the omegaverse (yes, I do live under a rock), so in the grand tradition of things like “there's always a Junji Ito anthology,” it seems only fair that there'd be an omegaverse title this time as well. Unlike the last guide's Bite Maker, I've Become an Omega Today is much more traditional – so much so that I've read a much less adorable Korean light novel with the identical premise of a beta suddenly manifesting as an omega. (Kiss Me, Liar by Zig, if you're curious.) The story could be about any two childhood friends in either BL or heteronormative romance: Munechika is the alpha (or perfect super hot one) and Kanade has been his best friend since they were little. Both of them are in love with each other and totally unaware that it's mutual.

That's when this becomes omegaverse fare. Because Kanade was assumed to be a beta, he and Munechika couldn't become “mates,” which seems to be the only homoerotic marriage option in the story's world. Nothing says that they can't be together romantically or sexually, but it doesn't appear that they could have any sort of officially acknowledged permanent (or semi-permanent) partnership. That does have a bearing on why neither has confessed his love, and when Kanade suddenly goes into heat as a late-manifesting omega, Munechika sees that his moment has come. But because he's not a jerk, he doesn't just bite Kanade on the back of the neck and make them mates – he just, you know, has sex with him to relieve his symptoms. Because that would never have come back to bite him if their feelings didn't turn out to be mutual.

The crux of the story is that both guys manage to not tell each other that they're in love for most of the book. Kanade just thinks that Munechika's being a nice guy (especially when he says that they ought to wait a bit on the whole mates thing despite rabid parental approval). Munechika's afraid of taking advantage of Kanade during a confusing and unforeseen time in his life. Both are insanely jealous of other people approaching the other (but trying to hide it), and it's really a very basic case of what Mark Twain called “a violent case of mutual love…but neither party was aware of the fact.” The whole omegaverse thing is really just window dressing.

But that means that even if you're not into that subgenre of romance, this is still a very readable book. The relationship is sweet, the people are likeable, and the art, if unremarkable, is still attractive. It's just an inoffensively charming story about two people who don't realize that they're in mutual love. It's also not terribly sexually explicit – there are sex scenes, but they aren't at all detailed with no genitals and only one glimpse of fluids. It's kind of omegaverse lite, and since it does it well, I have no real complaints.

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Christopher Farris

Rating:

That title of I've Become an Omega Today is an eye-catcher, isn't it? I at first was wondering if it was a reference to yet another splintered dude-definition, like your Alpha Males and Sigma Males and other such nonsense. So that question lingered until I got eight pages in and was like "Wait, is this some Omegaverse shit?!"

Yes, the fertile breeding ground of everyone's favorite far-flung fantasy fanfiction setting has been broken, giving us the opportunity to enjoy a volume of these two hot dudes plowing each other while figuring out their roles within this particular universe. And for as unbelievable as it might come off to hear a professional critic say regarding something like Omegaverse: I think I kinda get it? At the end of the day, what you're getting here is a codification of the ol' uke and seme roles as prescribed by the biological law of the universe, but that effectively leads to some uniquely spicy energy between the two leads as they navigate the distinct push and pull (and other repeated motions) of the bizarre biological boxes they've been thrust into.

How compelling a narrative that makes depends on your priorities, really. At its heart, the conflict between Kanade and Munichika is just a permutation on the communication issues that are fraught in any fresh fictional relationship. And author Sachi Maiki definitely understands how to spin that into appeal, ensuring that the contentiousness of the boys' relationship is mostly defined by whatever tension is sexiest at the time. The Omegaverse setup certainly allows the structure of the story to weave the emotional components of the pair's connection in well along with all the base horny appeal. But it's a very mechanical kind of romantic deployment, one where you are aware that it's there just to drive up the overall intensity of that core spicy sexual component.

So the best compliment I can pay I've Become an Omega Today is that it works even with that blatant caveat. It knows why we're here, and we know that it knows why we're here. And as a self-contained volume, it's not like it overstays its welcome. The setting choice might weird out some people who don't already have at least a pop-culture-osmosis awareness of Omegaverse as a genre, and there are certainly some aspects of roles, boundaries, and consent as connected to this universe's portrayal of relationships that I absolutely don't feel qualified to assess. But as some gay smut that sets out with the aim of tingling a very specific emotional charge? It do be hittin'.

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Caitlin Moore

Rating:

Few fandom-related terms strike terror in my heart the same way that “omegaverse” does. Once a term exclusive to fanfiction, “omegaverse” refers to a fantasy social order inspired by the now-disproven wolf pack ranking system, with alphas at the top of the social order and omegas at the bottom. Omegaverse dispenses with the need for women, with omega males going into heat and getting impregnated by alpha males. Through their butt. It's extremely popular in slash fandom and, while I won't go into them, it's always made me uncomfortable for a number of reasons. Knowing its history, it's extremely weird to me that fluffy original romance stories are now using omegaverse mechanics, especially ones as inoffensive as I've Become an Omega Today.

As far as romances go, I've Become an Omega Today is about as inoffensive as it gets. Munechika and Kanade are childhood friends. Kanade thought he was a beta, but goes into his first heat as an omega in college. Munechika is an alpha, and he has sex with Kanade to offer him relief during his heats. They have a lot of anal sex, and both want to become the other's lifelong mate but are convinced the other doesn't feel the same way.

It's basically the first arc of Kimi ni Todoke, but with same-sex alpha/omega dynamics pasted on top of it, less personality overall, and, to its detriment, no Yano or Chizu. For an entire volume, the two talk in circles around each other, never coming out and actually saying what they mean. If you're a person who gets frustrated when a story conflict comes from the characters failing to communicate, I've Become an Omega Today will make you scream with rage. Munechika and Kanade are very nice and kind and respectful to each other, which I'll take over the rapaciousness that a lot of omegaverse wallows in, but there's not really any source of conflict other than each one convincing himself the other one only sees him as a friend.

The sex is… weird, in a way that I'm not entirely sure is intentional. For much of the book, Munechika has sex with Kanade because that's the only way to resolve his discomfort when he's in heat, like Kanade is a cat and Munechika's dick is a Q-tip. On the page, it's rather clinically drawn, without any heat or passion. Is it meant to illustrate the functional nature of their arrangement, rather than two people in love? It's certainly not what I'd expect from a smutty manga volume.

In the end, I've Become an Omega Today is… fine. It's omegaverse dynamics hung up on a standard romance framework, without enough substance to hide the stock framework underneath. It offered me no emotional highs or lows, and I didn't actively enjoy it or dislike it either.

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MrAJCosplay

Rating:

The concept of Alphas, Betas and Omegas in everyday conversation has always been absurd to me. So suffice to say I wasn't initially sold on the premise of this romance story that seemed to almost sell itself on the name. Thankfully it seems like the author has just personified these concepts for the sake of worldbuilding and establishing a specific hurdle that separates physical and emotional desire. The whole premise is meant to create a situation where two characters who were clearly in love with each other are forced to wonder whether or not their closeness is the result of obligated, biological care or genuine emotional attachment. Speaking from personal experience, I acknowledge that it is very hard sometimes to separate the two, but like with most relationships, open and honest communication goes a long way in getting past that. I think that's what the overall message of the story is trying to communicate, but it does get a little bit muddled, and while I appreciate the fact that this is a complete romance that only encapsulates this one volume, there were moments where it felt like the story was unnecessarily padding itself out for the sake of reaching its page quota.

This is very much a young adult series that doesn't shy away from the more sexually intimate moments between our two male leads. In many ways it is equal parts cute and wholesome as much as it is hot and sexy. However, regarding the story's pacing and how the author chooses to implement certain story beats, I couldn't help but feel as though the overall package lacks a lot of intrigue outside of the premise. While the main characters have good chemistry and their central plight is understandable, there are moments where it does feel like something needed to give regarding story progression and up until the very end, it felt like the author very much took the path of characters acting in frustrating ways rather than organically trying to work through a certain situation. None of this is helped by the fact that the overall resolution basically boils down to an incredibly lazy bit of memory slippage and unfortunately I do think that did sort of put a nail in the coffin for me. Overall a solidly interesting premise that I did think had a lot of potential but one that was ultimately marred by questionable story decisions and an apparent lack of vision.