Cheers echoed through a garden in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, as Gabriel Ota, dressed as Jin Sakai, the sword-wielding hero of the video game “Ghost of Tsushima,” took to the stage at the Otakukon festival. The 28-year-old spent a month crafting his Samurai-inspired costume from cardboard and recycled paper, winning over the 100-strong crowd and taking home the prize for best anime cosplay.
Otakukon, Zimbabwe’s only festival dedicated to Japanese pop culture, gathers local “Otaku”—fans of anime, comics, and video games. Despite winning for the first time, Ota, an art dealer and rock band musician, emphasized his passion over competition: “I don’t do it to win, I just love cosplaying.”
While anime culture is slowly growing in Zimbabwe, the community remains small, making it challenging for local cosplayers to gain international recognition. Festival director Archie Moyo, who has sold anime merchandise for over a decade, hopes to expand the event’s reach: “If we are able to reach more people, we can make a major impact with our event.”
In a country grappling with unemployment and a rising cost of living, Otakukon offers young Zimbabweans a creative escape into worlds of storytelling and fantasy. Comic book artist Bill Masuku emphasized the importance of African representation in storytelling and plans to write comics in Zimbabwe’s Shona dialect: “For us to tell stories ourselves gives it an authenticity that no one else can tell.”
