Young Zimbabweans embrace Japanese pop culture at festival

HARARE: Cheers grew louder as Gabriel Ota, clad like a popular Japanese action game character, strutted his costume on stage inside a garden of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare.

To look like Jin Sakai, the sword-wielding protagonist of “Ghost of Tsushima”, 28-year-old Ota spent a month creating a chalky Samurai outfit out of cardboard and recycled paper.

Thanks to the loudest cheers from the 100-strong audience at this year’s “Otakukon” festival, he won for best anime. The festival celebrating Japanese pop culture claims to be the only one of its kind in Zimbabwe, bringing together local “Otaku” or fans of animation, comics and video games.

“This is my first time winning,” said Ota, an art dealer and musician for a local rock band, after his outfit, known as a cosplay, wowed Sunday’s event. “I don’t do it to win, I just love cosplaying.” While anime culture is growing, the community remains small, making it difficult for local cosplayers to be picked for international competitions, said festival director Archie Moyo.

“If we are able to reach more people, we can make a major impact with our event,” said Moyo, who has been selling anime merchandise for a decade.

With unemployment and the soaring cost of living weighing heavily on young Zimbabweans, a space for storytelling and imagining other realities appeared a welcome distraction.

Comic book artist Bill Masuku said it was important to tell African stories too and plans to write comic books in local Shona dialect.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2024