We feel terribly sorry for all our fans and readers who have been waiting most patiently. You have shown us such understanding and support throughout the project we have only been able to dream about.

Working with Kick Off has been one of the most fantastic experience we have had. Our editor at B. Wahlströms has been lovely to work with and we have learned a lot. If someone told us two years ago that Kick Off would be adapted as a puppet show on Stockholm City Theater we wouldn’t have believed them! Or if they told us that it would be voted two years in a row as “Best comic” in national Bokjuryn!

During the time we worked with this series we were sometimes surprised how our attachment to our characters have we have grown. From the start they were only was some figures on paper and tools for telling a story, but gradually grew and they became characters with a place in our hearts. We feel like proud parents every time our readers tell us which character they like the best, or how annoyed they get whenever Juan successes making fun of Krille. We are so happy that Kick Off has given us the chance to get to know you!

Even though this news arrives as a small dark thundercloud, we still hope that this is not the end of Kick Off. We’ll try to find other ways to make the series live on. In the meantime, we will keep challenging ourselves and try to bring you new interesting projects.

We hope this is not a final farewell, but a break before a hearty return of Krille, Andreas, Jenny, Meja and Chiko.

So please keep surfing to our website and support us! If you want to be sure to not miss out any of our news you can join our Facebook page.

Many

- Yosh, Kajfa, Soya & DoraJen

P.S.

Many of you have asked how you could get a hold of the Kick Off theme song. We don’t want to make it downloadable due to our respect of its’ fantastic creator Jonas. But you can listen to it as much as you want here. Enjoy. :)

Yokaj Podcast has decided to take a break after nine episodes. We would like to thank you for following and listening to us. We hope you have enjoyed it and appreciated our guest interviews with Åsa Ekström, Fredrik Strömberg och Daniel Gustavsson. We still have a couple of prerecorded interviews waiting, and we hope we will be able to run them for you in the future.

Later then!

Yokaj Podcast
Listen to episodes from season 1 (Swedish only)

HURRAY! HURRAY! HURRAY! For the second consecutive year in a row Yokaj Studio’s manga series Kick Off has been awarded “Best comic” in national book voting Bokjuryn 2009. We would like to thank all our fans and readers for your support and for voting us all the way to the top!

This time the award ceremony was held in Umeå, in northern Sweden. We were of course there to receive our award! The photo above shows the award ceremony hall getting filled up with kids and teens. 

The spirit was really high! The kids were rooting for their favourite books to win. The kids and teens invited are a hundreth of all the kids and teens who have participated and voted in Bokjuryn. This time the jury had 29 000 participant.

Aw! We found this cute note on our seats saying “Reserved for winner”.

Yay! Host Tobias Morin called us to the stage as winners of the “Best comic” category. Click here to see the  complete list of Bokjury winners.

This is how happy we looked like when we received our flowers, diploma and applaus from the audience!

After the award ceremony the kids and teens got a chance to meet the winning authors and illustrators to get autographs. We were signing to thousands of kids (at least if felt like that) during an hectic hour. It was the most hysterical signing we have ever done!

After signing we did more signing at the Umeå Library.

Some happy girls who got their cards signed with a doodle of them.

We were interviewed by the library for their website.

Happy Yokaj girls leaving the library! Just as last time we wanted to do some sight seeing before taking our flight home. 

We literally found the heart of Umeå! 

We would like to thank all our wonderful readers and fans, everyone who voted for us, Bokjuryn and Umeå for this wonderful day! We would also like to thank our publisher B. Wahlströms who made our work with Kick Off possible. We hope that you will keep supporting us for a long time! Hungs and kisses to you all!

See more photos from the award ceremony at our Facebook page!

Watch Yokaj on national television SVT’s reportage of Bokjuryn

Right now the final in Sweden’s biggest quiz show for grade fivers called Vi i femman is being broadcasted in national television and radio station. About 15 minuties and 45 seconds into the show the host Jakob pulls out this picture and asked the contestants if they knew the name of this manga. Isn’t this awsome?! Go Kick Off! ^__^

Watch the show on SVT Play
Vi i femman final on SVT Play

Alright! We have reached the final day of UppCon:10. The sun had finally come out, shining with all its power, as if to compensate for the previous two rainy and cloudy days. The square was even more lively and packed and the spirit was high. We even got to witness some spontanous dancing in the sunshine! The happiness was channeled to us, which made it easier for us to handle the last day even though we were very tired and battling with a cold we caught from the previous days.

Wait! What’s happening here? A conflict in the studio? Did we go nuts of all the sun? Of course not! It’s only Jen and Soya playing around in front of the camera. It’s alright folks! There’s nothing to see, carry on

People stormed into the dealers’ tent as soon as it opened up at 10 in the morning ! And here we thought that the last day should be a calm day. Luckily we were wrong!

We knew from earlier conventions that our cute Chinese zodiac pins are  popular items, but we really hit a selling record this year! Many of the animals were sold out on Saturday already. Incredible! Thanks to everyone who bought one!

Speaking of pins - on this picture a whole family is picking their own zodiac pins. Isn’t it adorable?

And from nowhere, the awesome gingerbread ninja troop showed up! Just the night before, Soya and Jen were talking about how disappointed they were that the mysterious ninjas from previous UppCons  didn’t show up this year. But luckily we were wrong! For those of you who don’t know about them, the gingerbread ninjas are a mysterious group of people who hand out gingerbread to selected convention guests and dealers. We were honered to have been paid a visit again! Hope to see you again next year ninjas! ÒwÓ

Jen proudly posing with her giant shuriken shaped gingerbread. But what’s this? The ninjas left a message with the cake this time.

“You are no cop. You are a highly honored person”

Hm… What’s the meaning behind this philosophic message? Only the ninjas know.

Before managing to crack the secret message, we had to leave the marketplace to hold our next seminar in the convention venue. This time we were going to talk about our collaboration with Stockholm City Theater, how the manga puppet show Meja i spökjägarnas sal, which is based on our comic Kick Off, came to life. Above you can see Soya busy explaining to a guy from the UppCon crew how he should announce the seminar in the speakers. He seemed to have gotten nervous listening to Soyas overwhelming directions…

From left we see Jen, Traggey (a frequent writer at our Guestbook/BBS) and the two guys from IT gymnasiet who took care of the technical aspects of our seminar. Thanks for the help guys!

Soya and Jen doing their talk. Even though the crowd wasn’t as impressive as yesterday (our seminar was unfortunately scheduled at the same time as UppCon’s closing ceremony, and we were also competing against a mysterious force called the Sun) the audience listened with great attention! We were happy for everyone who came to listened to us, hope you guys liked the seminar!

We also received some wonderful Kick Off fanart during our stay. From left we have a beautifully colored piece featuring Meja and Jenny made by Lisa Harald. In the middle we have a cool Andreas drawn by Sabrina Oja, and to the right a comic page we couldn’t stop smiling at, made by Nelly Karlsson. Thank you everyone for the fantastic pictures!

Summary
We would like to finish our UppCon report by letting everyone know how happy and thankful we are for all the love and appreciation you have shown us these past days. UppCon has grown bigger than ever, but you can still find the same happiness and energy surrounding UppCon and everyone in the bubble. Even though we are totally worked out (and down with colds) we are very happy to have been a part of it. See you again next year!

Thanks
We would like to give many thanks for this amazing convention! First of all, we would like to thank UppCon for yet another successful collaboration, and for letting us take part of this event. We would especially like to thank Daniel and Hampus. We would also like to thank Jakob and his students from IT Gymnasiet in Uppsala, who helped us with the technical parts and arrangements for our seminars. Next, we would like to thank our special reinforcement force consisting of Koro, Waya and Winnie, who helped us with our table - we couldn’t have done it without you guys! We would also like to give a big thanks to all people who made UppCon:10 such a lovely experience, especially all of you who came by our table and seminars to talk to us and show us your support. At last but not in any way the least, we would like to thank our wonderful fans! You guys made our day!  Thanks everyone. This was Yokaj Studio’s report about UppCon:10. Over and out!

At 9:30 am on the second day of UppCon Yokaj Studio was in the dealers’ tent getting ready for a new day and meeting lots of happy convention guests. Since the dealers are gathered at the square (which was open for public) there were opening and closing times for us to follow. The convention house itself though was opened 24 hours a day - which was perfect for those who just couldn’t get enough! Shown on the photo above is a rather peaceful and quiet morning in the house. Guess conventions goers need to sleep too!

One of the greatest surprises that day was of course this lovely Andreas cosplayer! It’s amazing to see people put effort into looking like a character we have created in our manga Kick Off. We are flattered and very happy! On the right of Andreas is Delliecat, a frequent writer in our Guestbook/BBS. We love meeting people who write to us, and to be able to chat with them face to face! Also, there was another lovely, but very shy, Meja cosplayer who came by a couple of times. Thank you both for making our day! 

Later Soya and Jen paid a visit to the convention house to hold a seminar. They were met by this huge sea of people!

Since the seminars were quite popular last year, a bigger room with more seats was prepared for the talks this year. We talked about our work with Kick Off, which seemed to interest the crowd. And though we had some minor technical problems, everyone was very patient and understanding!

 Some people from the audience asked us interesting questions both during and after the talk. We would like to thank everyone who showed interest and attended our seminar!

Since we were in the house we took the opportunity to explore the activities and rooms (the truth is, it was so cold outside we’d take every opportunity to build up heat before moving out again). As you can see, the TV game hall was  crowded with enthusiastic gamers, as always.

Lots of cute egg bunnies were hanging from the ceiling. We don’t know what they actually are (perhaps a mascot for something), but aren’t they just too cute?!

A new feature this year was the introduction of Artist Alley. It’s common for American conventions to have an Artist Alley, and it’s indeed great to see that it has found its way to Sweden! Here, artists can get a table for a reasonable price and sell their artwork. Pictured above are Jesper Nordqvist (author of the Swedish manga Tanks) and his friend Johan.

Nosebleed Studio was also present! From left we have Catarina, Natalia (artist of the recently published manga Mjao) and Alice with boyfriend. It was nice to be able to meet so many colleagues at one and the same place. We hope that Artist Alley will be back and grow in future UppCons!

As mentioned in the previous blog entry UppCon offered a couple of outdoor activities. Bands were playing at the outdoor stage, and Swedish Seremedy was one of them.

When we got back to the dealers’ tent we were greeted by David, in a beautiful princess outfit no less! David works at the Science Fiction Bookstore and is in charge of the manga department. It is thanks to him that Yokaj has been able to form a great relation with the bookstore. Hope David didn’t freeze too much in this cold tent. 

Here are a bunch of happy people who spontanously formed a human train going around at Uppcon. Another proof showing that convention people must be the happiest and kindest convention people there are!

Next entry
After a long day, our second day at UppCon was reaching to an end. We were tired, but happy when we returned home to recharge our energy for the last day. Read our next blog entry to find out who our mysterious, yet longed after table guests are!

So another UppCon has come and gone, and it’s time for Yokaj Studio to summarize the event yet again! UppCon remains the most popular gathering in Sweden for anime, manga, game and japanese pop culture fans. We naturally had a lot of fun this year as well, and as always it’s been very exciting seeing both familiar and new faces. Without further ado, here’s the report!

This year’s installment marked the introduction of the use of the square outside the convention venue UKK, called Torget (”The Square”). Getting into the square was free for everyone. Here you could find the Orange Pop Café, an outdoors stage and also the marketplace. This is where Yokaj Studio would be based at!

Inside the marketplace tent. By this time they still hadn’t started letting people in, so the dealers’ are doing their best hurrying to set up their products. DoraJen had to keep an eye on the tables alone while Soya was waiting for her class to end.

Our friends (and also our table neighbours) Staffars Serier and Science Fiction Bokhandeln are waiting for the first guests to come. To the right of our table we had Aya, specializing in Japanese toys. They all turned out to be lovely company throughout these three days!

The queue was incredibly long as usual. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side this year, as it was both cloudy and cold. We had heard that some of the people in the queue had been waiting for 5+ hours in this nasty weather. Kudos to you who had the patience!

And it’s open! The tent was soon filled with curious convention goers, taking a first look of the grounds. As you can see, there were plenty of cosplayers this year too.

Soya signing one of the day’s first copies of Kick Off for two nice girls. See that paper bracelet thing on Soya’s wrist? That’s dealer exclusive! And it’s adorned with smiley faces too, must be a good sign.

Yokaj Studio’s table this year. We were selling books and pins as usual, and also took the opportunity to spread the word about Meja i spökjägarnas sal, the puppet show collaboration we had with the Stockholm City Theatre. Jen is packing up and Soya’s brother (our backup!) can be seen in the background.

Soon after came Sissel, who won first place in our latest doll design contest! Here Soya’s handing over an envelope containing the prize - two tickets to Meja in spökjägarnas sal. Again, congratulations Sissel!

Standing around on one spot makes your legs stiff, so we took a walk and snapped some pictures outdoors. The square was almost always filled with people, busy engaging in different activites despite the cold and the rain.

The entrance to the square. With something this eye-catching it’s hard to miss out on the fun! Pictured is Yokaj Studio’s second backup for the day, namely a friend of Soya’s. Both her and Soya’s brother have been of great help in these busy times!

Time for a food break! Apparently Jen thinks she can hide behind a sandwich. But oh was she wrong.

Jen had to leave for her evening part time job after a while, so things got a bit more stressful. Unfortunately we didn’t take a lot of pictures on all the pretty cosplays, but this is one we managed to snap! These two adorable princesses (Peach and Daisy from the Mario games) really stuck out from the crowd! Wonder what Luigi would think about Daisy flashing her panties? Hm…

All in all we had a pretty good start without any major problems. The heating in the tent wasn’t always working, but everyone showed the best side of themselves despite this, warming up fellow convention goers and dealers with their happy thoughts.

Next entry
After a successful first day, it wasn’t without reason that we were looking forward to the next. We were going to hold a talk about our work with Kick Off, and also making a visit to some of our colleagues in Artist Alley!

The time had finally come for the premiere of Meja i spökjägarnas sal (”Meja in the ghosthunters’ hall”), the manga puppet show which we’ve been working on together with the Stockholm City Theatre. After roughly seven months of hectic work, it was time to go see the premiere, our hearts filled with pride. The lovely audience was there. The press was there. And as the guests of honor, representatives from the Japanese embassy and the ambassador, Mr. Nakajima Akira himself, were there as well! Our own Yosh was to be awarded with a prize for her achievement in The International Manga Award by the Japanese ambassador, on behalf of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After the show, we had dinner with the cast and crew to commemorate the premiere. In other words, we had quite a lot of fun waiting for us, so read on to find more about it!

Photo: Anja Olofgörs.

Photography was unfortunately prohibited during the play, but here are a couple of lovely pictures that Stockholm City Theatre has released for the press to use.

The show was met with huge applauses at the end. The puppeteers, the art director, Yokaj Studio and the composer were called up to the stage to receive flowers.

Then followed the prize awarding ceremony. Mr. Nakajima Akira, the ambassador, held a speech about The International Manga Award and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ efforts to encourage professional as well as aspiring manga artists all over the world.

Yosh’s entry, “Beneath the Surface”, was appreciated by the jury and was awarded with a bronze prize in the competition.

The ambassador handed out a certificate and a small gift to Yosh.

And then it was Yosh’s turn to hold her thank-you speech.

The incredibly skilled puppeteers in their ninja outfits! Left: Kay, Magnus, Andreas and Annika.

After that, we took the opportunity to shoot away. Here, Yosh is pictured with Helena, the art director.

Mingling awaited some of us, while others started heading home. In the middle of the picture, we see the ambassador, a most respectable man (whose name and title unfortunately escaped us (we’re very ashamed)), and even Roger Klein and Kurihara Noriko from the culture department at the Japanese embassy.

DoraJen was taking care of some of the family members and relatives who were invited on the studio’s behalf.

Here we see Yosh speaking to a couple of Kick Off fans, and together with Kajfa discussing manga with Roger Klein and Ueda Shoichi, second secretary at the embassy.

The children could even try their hands at being puppeteers! Magnus, for example, was showing how Krille could be moved (who, by the way, just as in the manga, was the character who managed to make people burst out in laughter).

At the end, we drank to a successful premiere! Helena Nilsson expressed her thanks to everyone who had contributed to the play with their specialist skills.

Then followed the highly anticipated dinner that we mentioned in our podcast! We celebrated at a restaurant called Nam Kang, which serves Korean and Japanese food. To Soya’s delight, Magnus, the puppeteer, showed her some of his magic tricks! He also kindly enough taught Soya a couple of them. Who knows, in a few years time Soya might’ve taken the magician route?

Of course, a couple of speeches were held during the dinner! Here, we see Annika the puppeteer holding a speech for Appel, who was ill during the show, but went through with it despite everything and oing his best. Go Appel!

Unfortunately, we were so occupied with eating and chatting that we forgot to take pictures of the whole event! But we had fun and had good food, leaving empty plates after us. Bellies filled, the studio left the restaurant happily.

This was our “haul” for the day. We received a gift from Andreas (one of the puppeteers), a CD with extra, unfeatured material from the composer Torbjörn Svedberg, a brochure with lovely pictures from the show, Meja’s ghost stickies (they’re real stickies!!!), a pin formed like a speech bubble with the word “Manga” printed on it as a symbol of the The International Manga Award, and the certificate.

This is a really cool certificate in more ways than one. Firstly, even the Foreign Minister of Japan himself, Mr. Okada Katsuya, has signed and stamped the diploma! Secondly, Yosh is addressed with the suffix “dono”, which is very humble and respectful. Wow… Quite cool, huh!

It was not without sadness in our hearts when we said goodbye to the theatre crew. It has been a very creative and inspiring encounter, which started out as an unpredictable meeting, blooming out into a marriage between manga and puppet theatre. We are incredibly proud over this collaboration, and honored to have been able to work with such amazing people. Now, when the premiere is over, our work is done. But for the puppet show crew, this is only the beginning. It is now that the play will start living its own life, continuously developing as each show is performed.

We hope that you’ve had fun reading about our work with the theatre. Please continute to support Swedish manga and puppet theatre. “Meja i spökjägarnas sal” is something that must be experienced!

Buy tickets and find out more about the play (applicable to Swedish residents only for now)
Stockholm City Theatre’s website for Meja i spökjägarnas sal (the last show runs May 23rd).

Related blog entries
Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall trailer!
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 5
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 4
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 3
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 2
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 1

Links
Kick Off’s official website

Yokaj Studio on Facebook

Please join and support us!

As you may have noticed, we are a little bit behind schedule in blogging as the premiere of Meja in ghost hunders’ hall has already been taken place. But we’d still like to turn back time and give you a behind the scenes glimce of what happened the week before the premiere.

It was a very hectic time for the puppet theater, who was busy with the rehearsal. We were also busy creating the last projections needed for the show, participating as test audiences, doing interviews with press and so on. It was a great week with other words!

A couple of days before the premiere two groups of test audiences of different ages were invited to watch the rehearsals. By doing so we were able to have an initial idea of what in the play was working and what needed to be improved. Having a test aduience is really great!

We also participated as a test audience in order to sit among the audience and understand them better. On this photo you can see Soya and DoraJen being excited about their task.

And so it was finally time to be let in! Art director Helena Nilsson welcomed the curious audience.

Photo: Andreas Braula who plays Meja the ghost hunter and Kay Tinbäck Du Rées who plays Chiko.
It was a great experience to get response from the audience for the first time. We were relieved when we heard their delightful comments, giggles and some times even showed fear (!) at the right sections. The smaller kids were specially alert when the great ghost showed up! The teen audience thought it was “cool”, which we think is the best appreciation you could get from the target group. And the adults were the one with the loudest laughs.

Puppeteer Annika Arnell waves after a successful
show with test audience. Even though the aduience had left a while ago you can still see the smokes used in the play.

One of the parts of the show that got most laughters were the Pacman labyrinth section. On this photo Annika shows us one of the smart solutions they had made for Pacman.

Small and simple solutions indeed, but so incredibly smart and fun! Puppet Theater in Stockholm City Theater has a couple of aces in their sleeves.

Photo: Helena Nilsson in discussion with the lightning and sound technicians. In the bakground is Kay.
After the audience left part of the ensemble gathered to discuss the audiences’ reactions, how we experienced the play ourselves and discussed what parts we thought would need improvements.

Technician Appel and composer Torbjörn Svedborg discussing the timing of the music. Torbjörn was a part of the test audience together with us.

Puppet costume maker Anna-Lisa Persson was also a part of the audience. She immidiately gave her assisstence when the puppets needed something repeared.

Stockholm City Theater has been successful in getting the press to write about the play.

On this photo local paper Mitt I was visiting to interview Yokaj Studio and Helena Nilsson about our joint project. Yosh and Helena Nilsson in the middle of an interview.

Jenny, patiently waiting since there was no more rehearsal that day until the next day.

We left the ensemble after the interview. But before returning home we wanted to take some photos since the theater had been decorating with big signs to make sure noone misses the puppet show.

Look! There’s a big banderole in the entrance hall.

And so we left the theater. We find it a little bit exciting to be able to cross roadblocks like these while working with them.

Where to read and purchase tickets to the play
Stockholm City Theater’s website: Meja i spökjägarnas sal (Swedish)

More related blog entries
Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall trailer!
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 5
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 4
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 3
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 2
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 1

Links
Visit Kick Off’s official website
Read our entry about Kick Off receiving the award for “Best comic 2008″ in Sweden.

Did you know we have a Facebook group?

Please join and keep supporting us!

Wow! We received an e-mail from librarian Rose-Marie Törnqvist who had arranged a “Book jury” at Lärbro school in Gotland in Sweden. During last year, the kids from Lärbro school got to read all the new books released in 2009. And now they had selected their five favourite books from year 2009. Of ALL children and teen books released last year, Lärbro school voted our manga Kick Off 2 as the second best book of 2009!!! This was really unexpected. We are so happy and proud and a little bit shocked. Actually, we look a bit like this right now –> O()O; Thank you Lärbro School for this wonderful award! And thank you Rose-Marie for arranging it and telling us the results. We will work hard on the next book Kick Off 3!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our fans and readers who voted Kick Off 1 as “Best comic 2008″ at last years national “Book jury”. It was the best present to the studio ever! It really warmed our hearts.

THEATER!
Did you know that “Kick Off” is being made into a puppet show at Stockholm City Theater, the most popular stage in Sweden? It’s a spin-off play called “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ Hall” with premiere scheduled 19 February. Read more about it and how to book tickets at Stockholm City Theater’s website!

LINKS
Visit Kick Off’s official website
Read our entry about Kick Off receiving the award for “Best comic 2008″ in Sweden.
“Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ Hall” at the Stockholm City Theatre’s website (Swedish)

Did you know we have a Facebook group?

Please join and keep supporting us!