CAWMAN is not just stories that have webtoons and video games. CAWMAN is a genre. A newly created genre of all the digital platforms blended together in one content that originated from one of SMCU's storyline (how the people we are on the internet are forms of our alter egos which gave birth to avatars characters scattered around the world).
Many people are confusing aespa’s CAWMAN genre with just the idea of just having Webtoons and video games merchandise. Many stories and artists around the world have that and recently what brought the discussion in AKP a new group from Hybe having a webtoon made people compare them to aespa somehow when it's very different from SM's and something hybe done repeatedly (some say it's because their story of having the world "Refugya" resembles having the world "Kwangya" but you're comparing a webtoon story of an unknown gg to a genre of a gg so despite it being coincidental, it's not even comparable).
Having different remakes of a story through Webtoons or other types of art is VERY common and it is not to be confused with CAWMAN (CAWMAN might also have its webtoon series, videos games merchandise but that's a bonus, not its whole purpose). Bighit and Hybe groups lores having Webtoons are not different from the former. It's very common. CAWMAN on the other hand is something different. CAWMAN is the mixture of all of those things existing in one world because they’re touching going to the digital world subjects. Basically, it’s the combination of both worlds where you can see them in the same content besides getting merchandise webtoon series and video games.
SMCU episode is the best example of having these different entities in one world. The avatars are born of people’s digital data and coming together with the real-life people. They're part of a story with real-life people acting not just a drawn representation of a storyline through a webtoon but an actual blend between the digital and real-world where both come and go or blend together.
The avatars in the story are not exclusive to aespa but it's supposed to be a world phenomenon where all people who go online have them. SM also announced plans of fans being able to create their own avatars to communicate/meet their artists (who also have avatars) online (probably VR, online platform, or something like a Video game). They created terms and rules like SYNK because they're creating a new type of digital universe not just a story universe.
To sum up, aespa and SMCU have lore and a storyline that can be milked through different platforms like any form of entertainment (and what others think new groups resembles aespa by) but what set the concept different is they go beyond that by making a genre and an actual universe where real-life people (mostly fans) can be part of. A storyline is just part of the universe they're creating and a way to to introduce it and tell the story. Aespa part in it is acting the storyline like in the SMCU episode and singing about the events in their title songs. As they officially called aespa "The Poets of The Universe".
Besides that, what other SM groups' connections to Kwangya in general?
Other SM groups have their own unique concepts or lores that don't relate to aespa. Kwangya and Cosmo are just the worlds that combine all of the things together because as they introduced Kwangya as an out-of-order place waste for basically everything. They also showed different ways how some groups go to Kwangya. For aespa it's through their alter ego digital shit ie their concept while for NCT through their dreams, also their concept (and can argue that the people they're in their dreams are also another form of their alter ego).
