The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and Comic Con Africa have announced the continuation of their partnership to further grow the interest between Southern Africa and Japanese companies and strengthen trade relations through pop culture and intellectual properties (IPs) licensing. This will be done through hosting the third instalment of online business matchmaking meetings that will commence during the month of September and give Japanese pop culture fans an opportunity to taste, see, hear, and touch Japanese pop culture, through gaming, food, daily use items, and music.
For this year’s Comic Con Africa, focus slightly shifts to the anime fan as an important part of the business ecosystem, as the tastemaker. This brings us to the most exciting feature of our 2025 collaboration. The “Made in Japan Collection” gaming station termed “Comic Con Africa 2025 – Made in Japan Collection” which is set to be a chance for fans to experience Japanese-developed games. The gaming station will be a physical representation of a project launched by JETRO on Steam to showcase and promote Japanese titles. Comic Con Africa attendees will experience games from 19 Japanese companies with over 30 titles to choose from.
The popular dedicated area on the show floor called Otaku Town (“Otaku” being a term for fans of anime and Japanese pop culture, literally translating to “geek”) is back with a new name. Otaku Town has been renamed to Poptaku Town, combining pop culture and otaku, which highlights an all-encompassing offering for pop culture fans.
Post-Comic Con Africa, an online/offline seminar will be held for South African and Japanese industry leaders to discuss how African businesses can obtain rights for Japanese characters, and anime shows, to merchandise licensed goods, including food and daily use items. The seminar will explore the business possibilities in IP licensing, share success stories, and how this can be profitable and grow local businesses.
To date, the partnership between JETRO and Comic Con Africa has been a success – resulting in 75 meetings being facilitated, and an outcome of 32 success cases across various sectors including content licensing, consumer product licensing, as well as licensed product imports.
We believe this year will grow on the previous years’ successes, by continuing to optimise the process of speaking to license holders in Japan and understanding what the local consumer wants.
Further information regarding the online/offline seminar will be released at Comic Con Africa.
