Comic Con Africa covers a lot of fandoms. There are comics, gaming, film and television guests, cosplay, tabletop gaming, collectibles and enough shopping to do serious damage to your bank account. But if anime, manga and Japanese pop culture are the main reasons you are going, there is one area you are definitely going to want to find: Otaku Town.
Comic Con Africa describes Otaku Town as its dedicated space for anime fans, bringing together Japanese retailers, anime-focused activities, Japanese food, merchandise and collectables. For 2026, it is also home to the new JETRO Super Japan Pavilion and the Street Fighter Free-to-Play Zone presented by Toshiba.
If you are planning the rest of your convention weekend as well, you can head back to my Anime Fan’s Complete Guide to Comic Con Africa 2026 for the anime guests, workshops, cosplay, Pokémon, Japanese culture and other things I think anime fans should have on their radar.
Want to experience Otaku Town for yourself? I am currently giving away 6 Friday tickets to Comic Con Africa 2026. Head over to my Comic Con Africa 2026 Friday Ticket Giveaway to see how to enter.
Table of Contents
What is Otaku Town?
Otaku Town is essentially Comic Con Africa’s dedicated home for anime, manga and Japanese pop culture. Rather than having everything anime-related scattered randomly across the convention floor, Otaku Town gives fans an area where the focus shifts specifically towards the Japanese side of fandom.
Comic Con Africa’s own 2026 material highlights Japanese retailers, first-to-country merchandise and collectibles, Japanese food, anime activities and otaku culture as part of the area.
That immediately makes it one of the areas I do prioritise and you should to if anime is your main fandom. You can obviously find anime fans and merchandise elsewhere at Comic Con Africa, especially in Artist Alley and among the wider vendors, but Otaku Town is the space specifically built around us.
Anime merchandise and collectibles
Let’s get to the dangerous part first. The shopping.
Otaku Town will feature licensed Japanese merchandise, including merchandise and collectibles making their first appearance in South Africa. For South African anime collectors, that is particularly interesting.
We do not always get the same merchandise selection locally that fans have access to in Japan, North America or parts of Europe. Certain figures, collectibles and licensed products can be difficult to find here or arrive much later.
Comic Con Africa’s wider shopping offering includes manga, figurines, clothing, posters, artwork, Funko Pops and other collectibles, so Otaku Town should not necessarily be treated as the only place to shop for anime merchandise. It is, however, where I would start if Japanese products are high on your shopping list.
And I would strongly suggest looking around before buying the first thing you see. Convention logic is dangerous. You buy something at 09:30 because you are convinced you will never see it again, only to find another version three stalls later. Give yourself time to browse.
JETRO Super Japan Pavilion
One of the biggest additions to Otaku Town for is the JETRO Super Japan Pavilion.
JETRO, the Japan External Trade Organisation, and Comic Con Africa have been working together since 2023 to build stronger links between Japan and South Africa, particularly around anime, manga, gaming and intellectual property. Which can be seen and felt in stores and at the con. In 2026, that partnership expands through Super Japan, a showcase featuring 15 Japanese exhibitors.
What I find interesting is that Super Japan is not being limited to anime. The participating sectors span:
- anime and manga
- gaming
- music
- food and beverages
- art
- entertainment
- technology
- mobility
- lifestyle
- traditional Japanese culture
CCA is being included as part of a wider initiative using Japanese pop culture, including anime, manga, games, music and food, to create stronger connections with younger African audiences and explore opportunities for Japanese businesses on the continent.
For us as fans, though, the interesting part is much simpler.
There will be actual Japanese exhibitors at Comic Con Africa showing products and ideas directly to South African visitors. You may walk into Super Japan because you are interested in manga and end up discovering Japanese food, technology, music or a company you had never heard of before.
And I like that.
Anime can be the doorway into an interest in Japan without having to be the only thing on the other side of it. Not every Super Japan exhibitor will necessarily be anime-related. This is worth pointing out because of the name and the fact that it sits within the broader Otaku Town experience.
The 15 exhibitors cover multiple industries, so do not go in expecting 15 anime merchandise stalls. Some may be connected directly to anime, manga, gaming, character goods or entertainment. Others may focus on Japanese food, consumer products, technology, lifestyle or traditional culture.
Personally, I think that makes it more interesting. Super Japan gives us an opportunity to see a slightly broader cross-section of what Japanese companies want to introduce to South African audiences.
Street Fighter Free-to-Play Zone
Gaming gets its own place inside Otaku Town through the Street Fighter Free-to-Play Zone, presented in partnership with Toshiba.
The concept is straightforward: sit down, pick a fighter and play.
You can challenge friends or other Comic Con attendees, and daily prizes are available throughout the convention. Comic Con Africa specifically says the zone caters for both experienced players and people simply looking for some friendly competition.
I like this addition because anime and gaming fandoms overlap so heavily. Plus we get a lot of anime adapting gaming or at least featuring prominent games like Street Fighter. It sits comfortably inside Japanese pop culture, with decades of games, manga, animation, films and character merchandise behind it.
And sometimes you need an activity that does not involve sitting through another panel.
Japanese food
The last few years of Comic Con Africa have been bringing in more and more ‘anime food’ which let’s be real, is Japanese food and snacks. It has become a big part of the appeal of the convention for me. Poki, Ramune, Onigiri, Ramen, yes please! These are examples of what I have had and purchased myself from previous years.
Exactly what will be available will depend on the participating exhibitors and vendors, so I would not go in promising yourself a very specific meal, but you can be sure you will find something.
But food is another reason I would give myself time to actually wander around Otaku Town instead of treating it as a five-minute merchandise stop.
There is also quite a bit of Japanese food throughout the con and even in the programme this year, including the anime cooking sessions on the Pop-Taku Stage, so food has quietly become one of the stronger threads running through the anime and Japanese culture programme.
Otaku Town is not the whole anime programme.
This is important to remember when planning your day. A lot of the anime and Japanese programming happens outside Otaku Town.
- The Pop-Taku Stage has Japanese lessons, calligraphy, manga-making, anime cooking, DUB IT OUT, Anime After Hours and other sessions.
- The Main Stage has the One Piece live-action cast and Pokémon’s 30th anniversary celebration.
- The Outdoor Stage has Japanese idol Marina Kojima and the large-scale Shodo calligraphy performance.
- Artist Alley has manga, comics, illustrators and creators.
So I would think of Otaku Town as your anime shopping and exploration hub, rather than assuming that every anime-related activity at Comic Con Africa happens there.
The Otaku Town voting panel
One of the smaller things I always look forward to in Otaku Town is the community voting panel near the stage. It is wonderfully simple. Comic Con Africa puts up a question for anime fans and attendees add their vote to the board throughout the convention. The questions have changed from year to year, which is half the fun.
One year, for example, the panel asked “Where do you watch anime?”, with options including Crunchyroll, Netflix, traditional outlets such as DVD, cinema and television, and other streaming services.
It is not a competition or a big scheduled activity. It is just a quick snapshot of the anime fans actually standing in Otaku Town that weekend. And I genuinely enjoy seeing how the board develops.
You can vote when you walk past early in the day and then come back later to see which answer is pulling ahead, or what the wider South African anime community seems to think about whatever question they have chosen that year.
I do not know what the 2026 questions will be yet, and I actually prefer it that way. It has become one of those little things I look forward to discovering when I get there.
Why anime fans should make time for Otaku Town
For me, the biggest reason is simply that Comic Con Africa is enormous. You are surrounded by dozens of different fandoms all competing for your attention. Otaku Town gives anime fans somewhere that feels deliberately aimed at us and put together with us in mind.
You can browse Japanese merchandise, find collectibles, see what the Super Japan exhibitors have brought to South Africa, eat something Japanese, play Street Fighter and spend time around people who probably understand exactly why you just stopped mid-sentence because you spotted a figure from your favourite anime.
There is also no fixed way to “do” Otaku Town. It is not a 30-minute panel that starts at 13:00 and disappears if you miss it. That makes it useful for filling those awkward spaces in your convention schedule.
- Have 45 minutes between two panels? Go browse Otaku Town.
- Your next workshop is full? Go play Street Fighter.
- Need to recover after walking across several halls? Go investigate what the Japanese exhibitors are showing.
Just be careful with the “I’ll quickly look at the merchandise” plan. There is no such thing as quickly looking at anime merchandise.
How I would fit Otaku Town into my Comic Con day
I would give it a proper block of time rather than squeezing it into a 15-minute gap. If shopping matters to you, I would also visit fairly early in the day. That gives you a chance to see what is available before spending your budget elsewhere, particularly with Comic Con Africa advertising first-to-country merchandise and convention specials.
Then I would probably come back later.
Different parts of Otaku Town appeal to different moods. Morning-you may want to inspect figures and manga. Afternoon-you may want to sit down and play Street Fighter. Hungry-you may suddenly become very interested in whatever Japanese food you walked past three hours earlier.
And because the Super Japan Pavilion is running throughout the four convention days, there should be time to explore it without sacrificing every other anime activity on your schedule. JETRO’s published Johannesburg schedule has the public Super Japan demonstration booths operating from Thursday 24 September through Sunday 27 September.
One last warning: set a merchandise budget. I am including this because I know myself.
An anime convention is exactly the sort of place where “I am just browsing” becomes:
“I’ve never seen this in South Africa before.” Followed shortly by: “Well, I am already holding it.” Set yourself a budget before you arrive. Maybe even leave a portion of it specifically for something unexpected.
Otaku Town is one of the parts of Comic Con Africa where you are most likely to encounter merchandise you did not plan for, especially with Japanese exhibitors and first-to-country products in the mix this year.
Future-you will appreciate the restraint.
Probably.
Is Otaku Town worth visiting?
For an anime fan? Absolutely.
Even if you are not particularly interested in shopping, Super Japan, Japanese food and the Street Fighter area give Otaku Town more to offer than rows of merchandise stalls.
And if you are a collector, it is probably going to be one of the more dangerous areas of Comic Con Africa for your wallet. Either way, I would not attend Comic Con Africa 2026 as an anime fan without making time for it.
Otaku Town is only one part of this year’s anime offering. For the One Piece cast, anime and manga workshops, Pokémon’s 30th anniversary, cosplay, Japanese cultural activities and my day-by-day recommendations, head back to my Anime Fan’s Complete Guide to Comic Con Africa 2026.
Please note: Comic Con Africa’s exhibitors, activations and programme details may change. Double-check the latest information through Comic Con Africa’s official channels and app during the convention.
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