Comic Fiesta 2022 at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) returned and saw the biggest crowd of fans who came to enjoy being together again after a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The organizer estimated the total attendance at over 65,000 throughout the two days Dec 17-18, 2022.
Comic Fiesta is Malaysia’s largest and longest-running animation, comics and games (ACG) convention.
Tickets were already sold out prior to the event.
It was reported that the long queue to enter the convention centre stretched to over 1 km long, and many had to wait for three to four hours just to enter the convention centre. Many had already started queueing outside the KLCC venue from as early as 3am to avoid queue waiting time.
“After two years of the pandemic, we’ve noticed a huge spike in interest in ACG-related events. With Comic Fiesta’s scale and reach, we’ve looked to give our visitors the best way to end the year as ACG fans by introducing a slew of local and international acts, including song artistes, comic artists, cosplayers and even VTubers,” said Comic Fiesta vice president Lim Chin Hwa.
“Comic Fiesta has been held in KLCC for over six years now, but this time around, we have more space than ever before, and is host to over 65,000 visitors throughout two days,” added Lim.
This year, there were over 500 creative booth spaces in the convention centre’s new halls, selling various self-made and fan merchandises, making it the largest local creative market to date as well.
One of the highlights at the Comic Fiesta 2022 is the live performance by one of Japan’s top anime pop stars Konomi Suzuki who wowed 2,000 fans who attended her one-night concert on Dec 17. She has sung popular numerous theme songs for other anime such as “No Game No Life”, “Re:Zero”, “Sakurasou Pet no Kanojo” and “So I’m a Spider, So What?”.
The concert is a collaboration between Embassy of Japan in Malaysia, Japan Foundation Kuala Lumpur and Comic Fiesta to mark the 40th anniversary of Malaysia’s Look East Policy
As always, the event brought out a lot of eye-catching cosplays with good photo opportunities. Cosplay is without doubt the main event during the two-day affair.
Cosplayers turned up in full force at the gathering by donning their unique costumes, bringing to life their favourite anime, comics and game characters.
For cosplayer Jia Cheng or JC as he is known, travelling from Penang to KLCC to attend Comic Fiesta was worth it as he got the opportunity to finally show off his art and enjoy mingling with cosplay communities.
“I really enjoy being in costume because it’s really fun and I get to know many people.
“I spent about RM200 to buy the costume pieces,” said the 19-year-old college student who cosplayed as Kaedehara Kazuha from online role-playing game (RPG) Genshin Impact.
He bought all the costume pieces, including accessories and parts, and customized some of them and it turned out better than he expected.
“I alter it so that it looks as what I have imagined it should. It’s not a very perfect-looking cosplay but I try to make it as realistic-looking as possible.”
When asked what made him choose the character to cosplay, JC said, “Kaedehara Kazuha is such a cool character in the game and fun to play. I feel empowered because portraying this character makes me feel confident, strong and heroic.”
In the game, Kaedehara Kazuha is a fighter and hero, and uses his special abilities to destroy his enemies and buffing his allies.
Scroll down to take a look at some of the cosplayers with their character outfits at this year’s Comic Fiesta 2022.
