Comic Fiesta returns after two long years of hiatus with its comeback of Comic Fiesta 2022, marking the biggest anime convention filled with events in Malaysia this year.

While Comic Fiesta (CF) isn’t the first large scale event to return to physical format, it’s definitely one of the most anticipated one. As big of an event CF is, there are some precautions that needed to be adhered to ensure the event round run smoothly.

One of which is that there unlike previous CF events, no on-site tickets being sold throughout the event to prevent the venue from being too overcrowded. Needless to say, for those who attended CF would’ve said otherwise.

Lines and more lines

As someone who went to Comic Fiesta as an attendee, I had reached KLCC for the first day at around 9:00 AM thinking that the line to the conventional hall wouldn’t be too bad since I’ve been to previous CFs before. The line to get into the halls started (presumably) all the way inside of KLCC, wrapping around the water display area, to the walkway area leading up to the convention hall.

I started queuing up at around 11:00 AM under the hot sun and finally got into the halls after approximately 4 hours, at around 2:00 PM. Despite the hectic and painstaking hours of standing and lining up, the feeling of being able to see a sea of people fill up the convention halls, all sharing the love of a medium is still a magical feeling to me.

The Fiesta Flair

Pushing my through the crowd and taking in the sight of people just enjoying themselves and having fun never gets old to me. As someone who spends most of their time being cooped up indoors, Comic Fiesta has always been my one reason to actually go outside to touch metaphoric grass and interact with people.

One of my personal favourite things I look forward to the most is just the overall feel and vibe that Comic Fiesta gives off. From the abundance of cosplayers from various popular anime franchise such as Spy X Family, Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man, to even video games such as Genshin Impact and the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV Online.

The event is also packed with tons of merchandise stores selling impressive quality of figurines, model kits or even plushies and grandiose booths promoting games and media. Taking in everything is enough to fill my childish heart with glee as if I was a wee kid going to a Bionicle store for the first time in my life.

Comic Fiesta decided to amp it up a notch this year by inviting some incredibly stacked guests such as Suzuki Konomi (whose tickets to the stage performance ran out after an hour) to popoular vtubers from Hololive and MyHoloTV, to having the manga artist for Made in Abyss – Akihito Tsukushi, and even having local Voice Acting Talents running a panel.

One of the changes that CF made this year was having all the art and cosplay booths be located on the third floor instead of having them be located at the far end of the main hall. And while this made the trek to the art market much longer, it’s certainly for the best since the sheer amount of art booths this year is staggering, totaling over 500 booths.

Most of the art booth took over the Grand Ballroom and the Banquet Hall while the conference hall was taken over by the cosplay booths. Looking over the rows and rows of amazing artwork by all the talented creators out there made my wallet quiver at the thought of purchasing a mountain of merchandise of my favourite franchises.

Closing Thoughts

Looking past the egregious amount of time spent lining up to get into the convention, I’m just glad that Comic Fiesta is back. Comic Fiesta has been one of the yearly events that I would go for ever since my first time back in 2016, and 2022 makes it the biggest convention in Malaysia and it certainly shows.

While there are some aspects where the event can be improved upon for an overall better experience, it’s still an enjoyable event where you can just let loose and enjoy yourself.