How 2 Friends Turned AniManGaki From a University Gathering to a 35,000 Strong Fan Event
AniManGaki is an annual ACG (anime, cosplay, and games) event that’s in its 15th year running. Its founder and director is Yvonne Sing who works on the event with Lim JoLynn who is a co-director, both anime fans, who are not—as many assume—cosplayers.
They are however, the individuals who have turned their Sun-U Anime Club student event at Sunway University in 2009, into a sprawling two-hall convention at the Mines International Exhibition and Convention Centre that, just last year, hosted 35,000 anime, cosplay, and games fans over two days.
This is the story of how a couple of anime enthusiasts turned their interest into a yearly calendar event for ACG fans.
How did the first AniManGaki come about?
To hear Yvonne tell it, the event was a foregone conclusion instead of a huge undertaking. Finding something to do outside of her studies in Sunway University’s American Degree Transfer Program, Yvonne wanted to form an extracurricular club for like-minded fans of anime to meet.
She approached the school with a request to form her club and after getting their approval, the Sun-U Anime Club was born in 2009. This was where Yvonne met JoLynn who would go on to become co-directors with her at the company they founded, Rakugaki Events that organises all AniManGaki events.
Not content to just have a club, Yvonne decided she wanted to hold an event for fans, because as you know, the dream of every overworked student is more work that won’t even contribute to their grades, right?
Not only did she organise the event a good portion of the event budget came through a loan from "angel investors", her parents. There was even an IOU contract signed between them, to which Yvonne said it came with “A serious discussion on contingency plans on how to repay the loan if things don't pan out."
Again, as if the time and money wasn’t hard enough already, Yvonne and her fellow crew members made the event a two-day event and packed the day with continuous programmes—a tradition which lives on today. Just look at the AniManGaki event booklet and you’ll see not a single hour is wasted.
The first AniManGaki was held at Sunway Uni’s Multi-purpose hall, at RM8 per ticket and with 1,000 people attending over two days, the event managed to cover their initial investment and still have a little extra to throw the team a pizza party.
"The beauty about the ACG community is its ever so giving and accepting of one another. It would not have been possible for us to pull this off without their kindness and willingness to help."
There were in total about 30 members who helped organise the first AniManGaki event. Amazingly, their website for AniManGaki 2009 still works and we found this poster for their first event placed side by side with the 2023 booklet illustration by Kozaki Yusuke:
The growth of AniManGaki from 2009 to 2023
Even after Yvonne went to America to pursue her studies, the pair continued to organise yearly AniManGaki events which saw attendance double year on year.
“Over the years the numbers doubled, and in the fourth year, we had to make a decision to move because it was packing the (Sunway Uni) hall too much,” Yvonne said.
They approached Dr. Elizabeth Lee, the CEO of Sunway Education Group, took the AniManGaki brand out of Sunway and into a new location and with her blessing, AniManGaki moved to the Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre.
Mind you, this event was still done in their free time in 2012. After moving to SPCC, they kept doubling attendance in the halls there every year and in 2018, nearly 10 years since their first event, they decided to move to MIECC, the gargantuan space that nearly doubled their capacity.
Just a year prior, in 2017, the pair decided to finally quit their full time jobs to focus on the event.
AniManGaki 2009 vs 2022
More square metres equals more space for vendors, artists to meet their fans, programmes, exhibits, and more. Commercially, this also allowed for more partners to join, as their loyal event partners returned each year so a new location was required if they wanted to add in more partners.
This was a turning point for the pair and their journey as business partners officially began here.
What does it take to run AniManGaki now?
Evolution of cosplay from 2009 to 2022
“AniManGaki is more of a community-based convention with everyone pulling their resources to make this yearly event happen. It’s different from a tradeshow where you're just selling land to vendors.”
The event takes about 8 months to put together every year which involves corralling cosplayers (there are 88 this year), artists (over 260), stage performers, VTubers as well as special guests.
This year they’ve got the likes of JKT48, a popular Japanese-Indonesian idol group, ComixWave films the makers of hit movies like Your Name, and Yusuke Kozaki, the man who is responsible for the designs of Pokemons.
Not so fun fact: due to the 1975 shenanigans JoLynn has faced greater resistance in bringing foreign acts to their events by authorities and has had to provide justification and assurances for every guest that they bring in when applying for their visas. Thanks again, Ratty Healy.
“I’ll say [the satisfaction of running this event] is something money can’t buy,” says JoLynn. She adds, “Many people got their start at AniManGaki. In fact, cosplay celebrities such as Baobao and Yingtze had their share of firsts with AniManGaki. For Baobao, AniManGaki was her first ACG event and for Yingtze, her first cosplay boothing experience.
Baobao now has 205,000 followers on Instagram while Yingtze has 351,000 followers.
They also shared that there were many proposals on stage during their events and some regulars have grown together with them from single anime fans to parents with tiny anime fans in the making.
Learning to run a business and run events from scratch
The pair had to learn about running a business and how to run events from scratch in 2017 when they took on the task of running Rakugaki Events full time. They admit that they had many disagreements at the time and had a lot to learn.
That said, they were uniquely positioned to run anime events as they’ve already got 10 years of experience under their belt at that point running events part time, they just needed to break into the events space.
They confessed that the pandemic helped their cause because after lockdowns, there was a greater appreciation for geek culture and corporate clients who wanted to run anime events had few to turn to in Malaysia.
One of their most successful events that caught our eyes and entered the mainstream was the hugely successful fan meet of Hakken at Pavilion KL in 2022. Our coverage on Hakken blew up our site and brought many new readers, so thanks guys.
FYI, they’re bringing Hakken back to AniManGaki as well. They’ve even got a hall dedicated for fans to line up at AniManGaki to manage the crowds, so, if you’re a fan, get your tickets now.
In this way, AniManGaki has become a showcase for the talents of the pair as event organisers, so the pair get to kill two birds with one stone: throw a yearly party for the community they love and attract new partners based on that event.
AniManGaki 2023 is the pair’s 15th convention and it’s their longest, running three days. It’s the first time that the convention has added a third day and they’re excited about the potential.
Visit their website, AniManGaki to purchase tickets or to find out more.