Last year I joined Merkaba at the first ever Cape Town Otaku Magazine Roadshow, held in conjunction with the Genshiken Anime Appreciation Society here at the University of Cape Town.
Much to my surprise the get together was quite the success with a far larger turnout than what I thought they would ever have mustered. The fans were all there in their droves, some of them even turning up in cosplay which was a fairly strange sight to see considering that you don’t usually get that sort of thing here.
All the usual things like anime screenings, console gaming, fan art competitions and giveaways were present and the two day long event showed the Otaku group just how much support there is for what they are doing down here in Cape Town.
So much so that Otaku have just announced that they will be packing their bags for Cape Town once again this year, promising to make this year’s outing bigger and better than the last! So far, the following information has been confirmed on the Otaku forums:
Logistics:
Date: May 17-18th 2008
Time: Saturday, at 9:00am till late
Time: Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 9:00am till 17:00pm
Location: University of Cape Town with UCT Genshiken
Activities:
Screening – Indoor screening and Anime quiz
AMV workshop and competition
Cosplay workshop and competition (Cosplay and Masquerade)
Fan Art workshop and competition (Live and submission)
Model Building workshop and competition (Live and submission)
Anime console + Karaoke activities (PS3, PS2, Xbox 360, Wii and DS Lite)
So far it is not a bad list at all and considering that the anime society here at UCT appears to be going from strength to strength, come May the 17th I may very well find myself standing in the queue (yes, a queue believe it or not) to get into the doors for this one! :)