Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival 2017

Written by Alex Jones on 18 Sep 2017

Wales' very own Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival will return to Cardiff's Chapter Arts Centre between Friday 29th September 2017 and Sunday 1st October 2017, with an additional date at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre following on Saturday 28th October 2017.

Now in it's seventh year, the festival was launched by Eiko Ishii Meredith and aims to bring the best in Japanese animation and culture to a wider audience. In the past screenings have included the likes of Psycho Pass: The Movie, A Letter to Momo, Evangelion 3.0, Arietty and more. The full programme for 2017 has been released, including screenings, workshops, and more. The schedule is as follows:

Friday 29th September

18:00 - The Night is Short, Walk on Girl

Saturday 30th September

11:00 - Napping Princess
13:30 - Manga Drawing Workshop with manga designer Asuka Bochanska Tanaka
13:30 - Neo Craft Animation - A Certain Japanese Stop Motion Animation
16:15 - Your Name
18:30 - Genocidal Organ
21:00 - Belladonna of Sadness

Sunday 1st October

11:00 - A Silent Voice
13:00 - Manga Drawing Workshop with manga designer Asuka Bochanska Tanaka
14:00 - Pigtails, and other short films from Production I.G.
15:00 - Japanese Caligraphy Workshop
17:00 - Mind Game

Both days will also host a marketplace filled with everything from manga and DVDs to toys, food and so on. Additionally the Kotatsu Festival Stand will offer a range of second-hand goods with the money raised there going towards funding future events. While at the Kotatsu Display (Saturday only) attendees will have the opportunity to try out a genuine kotatsu table. There will also be stalls from Cardiff-based store Super Tomato, kawaii merchants Keep It Secret (Saturday only), handmade items seller The WeaponShop and geek tattoo specialists Iconic Toos.

The programme for the Aberystwyth leg of the festival is as follows:

Saturday 27th October

11:00 - Napping Princess
13:15 - Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale
15:35 - Genocidal Organ
18:15 - Mind Game

Tickets are now available for each individual screening via the Chapter and Aberystwyth Arts Centre websites, as well as places for the manga and calligraphy workshops via the Kotatsu website.