AniManGaki 2015
Ani . Man . Gaki . (Ah-nii-mah-nhh-gahh-key)
1.
A mash up of the words ‘Anime’, ‘Manga’ and ‘Gaki’
(a Japanese slang meaning ‘brat’).
2.
An awesome annual themed anime convention held in
Sunway Lagoon, Malaysia.
3.
Into its 7th year, it is a
convention that holds true to the creator’s original intentions: organised by
fans, for fans of anime.
Kicking off my shoes, I bring to you my exciting experience
at AniManGaki 2015. Though I could only stay for one day, I would like to
extend my thanks to Jo Lynn and Gerry for the opportunity to cover the event.
Hailing from Singapore, I’ll admit I’m not very familiar with
anime conventions outside of our sunny island (I know, I know…I’m expanding
though and promise to check out more stuff overseas!). AniManGaki, though has a
special meaning to Milkcananime, as we have been supporting their event as
sponsors for several years now.
Taking a three hour drive to the capital of Malaysia, I just
had to check out AniManGaki this year! It is sporting a sports theme after all,
a genre which yours truly is a huge fan of. Not to mention the special guests,
YAKI and Zwei!
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| An empty space that will soon be full! |
I was in the main hall about fifteen minutes before the
convention started, and was surprised and impressed by the sheer amount of
doujin booths! Taking up half the hall were, fourteen rows of doujin booths,
amounting to about a hundred or so different creators and their works, now that’s
what I call a convention that is centered around fans of anime and manga.
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| Still setting up the booths! |
Interesting to note was the large number of art commissions
at the booths, really fun to be able to interact with your favourite local
doujin artists personally. And for artists that weren’t there personally you
could always ask their helpers to hand you a name card so that you can find
them on social media!
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| Here's something I had commissioned for myself! Thanks to #theartofjoannepoon! |
Other things at the booths included badges, magnets,
handcrafted hats and bags, stickers and posters. Since this year’s AniManGaki
was sports themed, it did feature plenty of current popular sports anime as
well such as Haikyuu and Free!
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| "Hmm....which to buy~" |
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| More booth stuff! |
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| Badges! Stickers! Keychains! |
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| Who can forget the dakis>< |
Toward the back of the hall were more merchandise booths
from enterprises like Hobby Legend and Hobility which catered to the sales of
goods such as dakimakuras (body hugging pillows) and fukubukuros (lucky bags).
Needless to say, within the first few hours the hall was
filled with people and… cosplayers!
Moving on from the amazing cosplayers that graced the event,
let’s talk stage activities.
The stage was constantly a lively place, with special band
performances interspersed with appearances of YAKI, Zwei and the contestants of
the AniManGaki Idol.
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| Fazz! They play some cool stuff~ |
I managed to catch the appearances of the first two local bands
Fazz and Crestfall, both were brilliant and had me tapping my boots and nodding
my head to the beats as I went around the booths in the hall. Looking around, I
wasn’t the only one jamming along to their tunes, with cheers whenever a song that
we all knew came up, it was a great atmosphere. And left me with much delight
that Malaysia supports their local talent with such enthusiasm!
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| YAKI...looking very pretty, together with the event MC and translator~ |
The lovely YAKI appeared afterward, she was cosplaying as Lin Yueru from the Chinese RPG ‘The Legend of Sword and
Fairy’ though most of you probably know it from the television series ‘Chinese
Paladin’ instead. Needless to say she looked gorgeous as the character, and
when asked how she would judge the cosplay competition later, she shyly said
that due to the nature of the competition being small and simpler compared to
China, she would be looking for participants who are having fun on stage.
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| Zwei's AYUMU! |
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| Rocking the house! |
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| Saying hi~! |
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| Ahh....kinda cute how they had the same pose just for those few seconds! |
The stage then heated up with an appearance by Zwei (which
also means ‘two’ in German). The band consists of two members, Ayumu and Megu,
hence the apt band name. They greeted the enthusiastic crowd in Malay, and then
played their hit song, the opening song to Robotics; Notes!, Junjou Spectra~
Both Ayumu and Megu revealed that they play all the visual
novels that they sing theme songs for and are fans of the anime Chibi
Maruko-Chan and Doremon. Their inspirations for their music come from Marilyn
Manson and Aerosmith. When asked what other genres of music they would dabble
in, they said that they were trying out digimetal and maybe some slower more
ballad pieces in the future, I’ll certainly be looking out for that.
They were also asked who they would most like to collaborate
with, Ayumu playfully answered Idolmaster knowing that there were many
Idolmaster fans in the audience.
Ayumu was eventually asked why she always wore a pair of
sunglasses, and she coolly replied it was because most female artist do not wear
sunglasses so she thought she’d create a unique image for herself.
Megu on the other hand was asked what the wildest hair style
she had was, and she let us in on the secret that she had actually worn her fiery
red hair to school, and even tried dreadlocks once! Imagine that!
Rounding off the interview was a rapid-fire question round.
Cats or Dogs? Turned out is was Megu for cats and Ayumu for
dogs.
Coffee or Tea? Both liked white coffee the best.
Batman or Superman? … Turned out a third option was created
and Supergirl was the winner!
It was fun getting to know more about Zwei, and they were even
kind enough to take a wefie with the crowd at the end!
My last stop for the convention would have to be large
collection of toy and collectables, I'm told that the entire room costs
quite a fortune.
Well, I did take a quick look at the anime screening room
before I left the convention, boy was it cosy with beanbags and a large
projector screen, my only regret was that I wished the room was bigger! They
were many that wanted to enter the room but didn’t have a chance to.
AniManGaki! With a turn out this big and a following that increases every year,
you might have to consider getting an even bigger venue!
With that I conclude this article~ Thanks again AniManGaki for organising the event. I’ll
definitely be there next year! And for all you otakus out there~ especially if
you love doujins, this is the event to be at!
Till next time!
Written by Neko~
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