A special treat has been released this season, being the first of its kind to get a full anime adaptation. Tadaima Okaeri is here and many, like myself, are excited for it.
Tadaima Okaeri, also known as Welcome Home, is a slice of life BL, or Boys Love, anime that follows Masaki and Hiromu Fujiyoshi and their children as they navigate life after moving to a new neighborhood. But there is something unique about this BL that sets it apart from the rest. It is an Omegaverse story where even men can get pregnant, something that a lot of us thought would never make it to the animated status.
What is the Omegaverse?
The Omegaverse, also known as Alpha/Beta/Omega or A/B/O, is an alternate universe in which every person has two genders, the stereotypical male and female, and either Alpha, Beta, or Omega. Alphas, despite their first gender, can impregnate, and Omegas, despite their first gender, can become pregnant. Anyone who is a Beta is essentially a regular person. There are usually heat and mating cycles involved. This is the basics of the Omegaverse. Depending on the writer, different tropes and varying characteristics can come into play.
The idea of heat cycles is not a new concept. The first time it appeared in mainstream media was the 1967 episode “Amok Time” of the Star Trek series, where the Volcan males must mate or they will die. This led to many fans taking the idea and running with it within the Kirk/Spock pairing back in the 1960s. An example of someone other than a woman becoming pregnant is Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness, which shows an androgynous humanoid species called the Kemmer that has hermaphroditic characteristics.
These influences made a huge impact on the world of Fanfiction where the birth of the Omegaverse is attributed to. The Omegaverse took the world of Fanfiction by storm in the 2010s, becoming a staple subgenre of the medium. This popularity eventually influenced indie authors to write books pertaining to the Omegaverse. A popular A/B/O Sherlock fanfic was translated into Chinese around October 2011 which brought the concept to different Chinese fan circles and made its way to Chinese Danmei. Eventually, in 2014, the Omegaverse made it to Japan where several BL manga were written in the subgenre.
Tadaima Okaeri’s Impact on the Anime Community
The Omegaverse subgenre, to know no one’s surprise, is not well known unless you are ready for a lot of gay Fanfiction and many of the readers thought it would stay that way despite getting officially published books and manga. I certainly thought that way, especially when a lot of my own friends had no idea what I was talking about when I threw the term at them. Now that Tadaima Okaeri has brought the Omegaverse to the forefront, all veterans have to explain exactly what is happening, a conversation none of us imagined we would have.
Thankfully, the first Omegaverse to be animated is Tadaima Okaeri. It’s the most tame of the bunch, making it a great person’s-first-omegeverse anime. Of course, once more people in the anime community started discovering this anime, more controversial opinions started to arise. While some have heated negative opinions on same-sex relationships, especially those couples having children, many in the community have decided that Tadaima Okaeri is a great addition to the wholesome anime lists even if they don’t quite understand the logistics of a man being pregnant.
What This Means to Me as a Trans Person
In true queer fashion, I have struggled a lot with who I am, especially with my gender. I realized pretty quickly that no woman or girl actually feels like a gay man in a woman’s body, something I had often told friends growing up. In my journey of self-discovery, I realized that I was not a woman, despite what parts I was born with. I am a Transmasculine Non-Binary individual, or as I told my doctor, “I’m man-ish.” A huge reason for the “man-ish” label is the fact that I am very much ok with the idea of getting pregnant and having a child. Growing up hearing how only women can give birth, and feeling like I was certainly not a woman, but still ok with giving birth definitely made things confusing.
I did learn that within the trans community, there is a name for trans men and transmasculine individuals who do end up pregnant. We call them Seahorses because between male and female seahorses it’s the male seahorse who gets pregnant. It is a more common occurrence within the trans community than people would expect.
So what does this have to do with Tadaima Okaeri and the Omegaverse? While no one is trans in this anime, the concept of a man having the capabilities of being pregnant feels representative of my life as a male person who also can have his own children. A huge part of the queer experience is getting excited about representation in media and this anime, in a way, is the representation I needed to see. Those who are labeled as Omega oftentimes have similar social experiences to those in the female-to-masculine or female-to-male community. Omega’s will deal with the world’s version of misogynistic attitudes just like a woman or trans person would. Tadaima Okaeri does touch on the prejudice issues that are similar to the real world.
I certainly don’t speak for every trans person. But what I can say is that seeing the idea of pregnant men being normalized instead of being made into a cruel joke brings me more comfort, especially when it’s in the form of a normal family just living life.
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Published: Apr 14, 2024 09:00 am