Pre:Omega

Pre:Omega (pre:오메가) is a Sandian hwaman series written and illustrated by Kengo Weba. The series revolves around Senji Kei, an 18-year-old who is transported to a fantasy world and uses his martial arts skills to save it from the forces of evil. The series is published by Cheboku via Cheboku Z Comics. It began publication in October 2011, and has since run for 141 chapters as of June 2023. Ten volumes been collected into ten sudoseo books, with an eleventh book scheduled to be published in 2023 and a twelfth overall volume starting in October 2022. The hwaman has been licensed by Starseven in North America.

The first season of an aenimo television series adaptation by Magenta E&M Animation, retroactively titled Pre:Omega — Arc I, was broadcast on YXN from July 7 to September 29, 2018. The second season, Pre:Omega — Arc II, aired from January 3 to March 27, 2020. The series was licensed for international distribution by Novavideo. Pre:Omega — The Final Arc, an aenimo film serving as a sequel to the television series, was released on June 16, 2023.

As of 2022, over 23.7 million copies of the hwaman have been sold, making it one of the best-selling hwaman of all time. The aenimo television series has sold over 65,000 copies on home video. Pre:Omega has been praised for its unique visual style, the chemistry between its main characters, and original take on the "parallel world" genre. It won the NewJump Hwaman of the Year award in 2015 and 2017, and was also nominated in 2019.

Plot
Senji Kei, a young man from suburban Kyoban, goes to bed after a long day of job searching. He wakes up in a fantasy world called Remnant, where he befriends a 17-year-old half-wolf girl named Anastasia, who he aids in escaping an attempted kidnapping. After surviving several disasters that would kill most people, Kei realizes he is invincible in this universe, and uses his newfound ability to protect Anastasia from danger while the two the world around them from vastly differing viewpoints.

Hwaman
The hwaman series Omega Warrior was extremely popular in Sandia during the 2000s. In the middle of the decade, it spawned numerous Sandian-language stories on Syncpad. Amongst them was the Omega and Wolf Saga fan hwaman series written by Kengo Weba, which followed young adult character Koben Yama and his adventures with Anastasia, a fan-made character who is the teenage daughter of Michelangelo, one of the series' antagonists. Due to copyright-related issues and fan fiction takedowns making fan fiction writing increasingly burdensome for the aenimo and hwaman fandom, Weba eventually built upon the series' "parallel world" concept and the "brother/sister" dynamic in his series to rewrite the series as an original hwaman, Pre:Omega, and renamed the main characters Senji Kei and Anastasia. He published two chapters of in 2009, respectively titled "Part 1" and "Part 2".

Cheboku Z Comics editor Handa Mengo came across the fan fiction and was impressed by Weba's creativity, and thought the chemistry between characters was "sometimes saddening but refreshing overall". He offered to publish an official hwaman based on the series. Weba originally wanted to focus on Senji and Anastasia thenselves, as he did with the web hwaman. Mengo, on the other hand, wanted the beginning of the series to focus on Senji and Anastasia's interactions with the world and characters around them, and events ended up playing out that way. Weba also ended up making significant changes to Anastasia's design to make her look more wolf-like, such as the additions of claws and fur on her hands and feet.

Season 1
The possibility of an aenimo adaptation of Pre:Omega came up in the mid-2010s. Manji Hano, a producer at Magenta E&M Animation, met Mengo several years earlier at a conference. In most cases, a hwaman editor or an executive at the publisher contacts an aenimo studio in regards to an adaptation. However, because Cheboku was so big of a publisher, Hano contacted Mengo about producing an aenimo series based on one of Cheboku's properties. Given the series' sudden uptick in popularity and the moneymaking opportunity being presented, Mengo gave Magenta E&M Animation the go-ahead to produce an aenimo based on "a series called Pre:Omega", which Hano had never heard of. Mengo suggested Hano read the hwaman, and after doing so, Hano was "very impressed with the material".

In 2015, the series was pitched YXN, which airs most of Magenta's aenimo. The network ordered a 13-episode season. Choega Sendo, who previously did work at Magenta E&M Animation, was chosen to direct the series. Hano brought Chenko Kaera on board as the writer because he was impressed with his work on Master of Death, and thought he was good at writing "really heartbreaking and painful scenes", while Kenso Deku wrote the lighthearted scenes. Deku was invited at the request of director Sendo; the two worked together on StoryLine and Dying Light, and Sendo and Deku formed a strong bond together. Deku was initially nervous, as this was his first time writing a "reborn in a parallel world" series.

Season 2
In 2018, YXN specially commissioned a 13-episode second season. The network's president, Kongja Mumu, was reportedly amazed by the first season's high ratings, and knew the writers wanted to continue the story regardless.

The second season, titled Pre:Omega — Arc II, entered production in early 2019. Deku and Kaera did not return as writers for the second season; Deku left the series because of discrepancies between himself and Hano, and Kaera died before Arc II's production. Choba Chiro, who was a story editor for season 1, took over their writing duties. Hano left Magenta E&M altogether in 2019.

Sendo called Arc II "harder to produce than the first season" due to the "demand for a second season clashing with the team's speed", as well as the proven difficulty of continuing the story. Much of the 2014 to 2016 story was being adapted, and at that point the story takes a grim turn. However, Chiro wanted to "tone it down a bit" and only include melancholy scenes when they "actually suited the episode's story". Arc II producer Kenga Juno said Sendo became "increasingly stressed" during production and started to become difficult to work with during the last few episodes, and the stress was probably induced by episodes' strict deadlines, but "calmed down" during the final episode's post-production.

Music
The series' music was composed by Ai Jay Kay, an experimental band consisting of Mari Ai, Korin Jei, and Kana Kei. Choega selected the group after seeing a video his brother recorded when he attended one of their concerts, and greatly enjoyed the paucity of lyrics and unique sound in their music. The band performed the opening theme, "DREAMLESS", and a -style remix titled "DREAMLESS pt. 2" was selected for the ending theme. The band chose a "LIFTOFF", a song rhythmically similar to "DREAMLESS", was used for the season 2 opening, and the -esque remix "LIFTOFF pt. 2" was produced as the ending theme.