Mr. Malick “has actually reworked 80% of his magic”!

The magic trick is always vulnerable to angles.

It’s so cool, it’s so cool…… cool!

When Mr. Malick (75) raised his voice, the tip of the spoon, which he had not even touched, distorted. A moment later, the tip of the spoon snapped off and fell to the floor with a crackling sound! and it fell to the floor with a resounding “kara–kara! I had seen this technique many times on TV, but when I saw it in person, I could not understand the mechanism at all. When a reporter from FRIDAY wondered about the broken spoon, Malick smiled wryly at the reporter and said, “I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out.

He says, “I’ve been asked by BS Asahi to perform magic on their 4K program. I’m still going to do the same thing I’ve always done, but I’m going to do it in a different way. I’m ready! I was doing magic, and a staff member came running toward me with a bloodthirsty look on his face. I can see you!　I can see you! I can see you! (Laughs.) Magic tricks are sensitive to angles. With 4K, you can see texture and depth that you can’t with conventional image quality. This is why you can see basic tricks such as hiding a black object on a black background or double-bottomed objects that look like they are empty. The latest technology is amazing. I was more surprised than super magic.

Malick popularized up-close magic in Japan 36 years ago. He has developed about 5,000 kinds of magic originally intended to be performed on stage and improved for television, and from there he has created another 2,000 kinds of material for television.

He said, “To broadcast in 4K, more than 80% of the material had to be reworked. We had to change the same black cloth or paint to one that absorbs light, making it difficult to see the depth of the scene. At other times, we change the background to something shiny and glittery. ……”

When hand power first became popular, a magic show would have half the audience clasping their hands and weeping like believers, while the other half would be eager to find out the trick with an exposition book in their hands. The audience stared at Malick’s hand, but in fact, the magician would look at the audience from his side and notice something.

He said, “I was performing something that could be seen through on the show, so when we recorded the show, some of the entertainers seemed to know the trick. But they would pretend they didn’t know and watch. The good thing about a trick-revealing program is that you can enjoy it twice: once when you don’t know and once when you do. Sometimes people would reach for my hands or tools without permission in an attempt to uncover the trick. Strangely enough, none of those people are left in the entertainment industry now. I guess they don’t even think about the fact that the atmosphere at the scene would be bad and that such behavior would make them look bad in character. In this industry, I think you can tell a lot about a person’s character when he or she performs magic.

When he first debuted on TV, many customers mistook his magic tricks, such as “super magic” and “hand power,” for real supernatural powers. In recent years, he has been working with a super magician to make extremely hot and spicy food. In recent years, he has been asked to perform unusual projects, such as seeing if he can overcome extremely spicy food with super magic, and he has readily responded.

He says, “Well, I don’t really know what variety is anymore (laughs). When there were still a certain number of people who believed that I was a psychic rather than a magician, I even had a showdown with a psychic played by Takashi Okamura (54) of “Ninety-Nine” on “Guru Ninety-Nine” (Nippon Television). I also dressed up as a cheerleader in “Asakusabashi Young Supplies Store” (TV Tokyo), even though I was over 50 years old at the time. I also dressed up as an enka singer, and I really did everything. But by responding to those requests, I lost my mysterious air and destroyed the dreams of the viewers. I realized I had to choose my work.”

There was a time in ’90 when he was bashed as a “crook” and a “phony” after his former manager revealed to FRIDAY that his “super magic” was a magic trick. For his part, he said he felt a weight had been lifted off his shoulders at the time, but his face became paralyzed due to mental and physical exhaustion. His character was on the verge of collapse, and during the rest period, he was unsure how to appear in public again.

In 1997, former NTV producer Kazuo Gomi (68) created a character named “Kurima Tasumi,” a mysterious post office worker who used “Tejikara” (hand power), and invited him to appear on the program. However, the “God of Entertainment” (Nippon Television Network) that Mr. Gomi worked on after that was very hard. Every week, Gomi would give me sketches of what he wanted me to do, saying, “Next week, I’ll put a needle and thread in a bottle, and when I shake it, I’ll film the needle going through the hole,” or “If you hold a stick over a river, a fish will fly over it. Even if I had a good idea, I had to shoot in a cold river, and sometimes the film was easily cut (laughs). But when you have a deadline, people can manage. It is no exaggeration to say that the best secret of super magic is a deadline.

There are real psychics!

The ″super magician″ is a performance to make the magic more exciting, but according to Malick, “There are real psychics in this world.

I’ve mastered more than 7,000 different kinds of magic, so I think I can tell if something is possible or impossible with magic. In the past 30 years, I have been to China, Germany, India, and other countries when I heard that amazing psychic abilities could be seen, but most of them were either magic tricks or hypnosis. In China, there is a state-certified psychic, and I was shown his techniques at a guest house, but no matter how you look at it, it’s a trick (laughs). But if it was found out to be a lie, the person would have been executed, so I applauded, saying, ‘That’s an amazing ability.'”

The only people who appear are self-proclaimed psychics who have both a trick and a trick, such as one who bends spoons by force and another who pulls candy out from behind a painting on the wall that may have been planted there beforehand and claims it is instantaneous movement. A few years ago, however, I met someone who seemed to be the real thing.

She is a woman from China who now lives in Japan. She was recommended by me and appeared on TV once in 2008. She folded a piece of paper with letters written on it and stuck it to the glass to see through to see what was written on it. We provide the paper and other materials, and we also show them where they are to sit. We just looked at the paper and waited. The simplicity of the method makes it impossible to cheat.

Malick is now a major figure in the Japanese magic world, but even now, when he receives an offer to perform on a TV show, he thinks of something completely new he can do before the show is recorded.

Whenever he gets an offer to do a show, he still thinks of something completely new to do before the show is recorded. I want to convey that, so I give a spoon to all the guests at my magic shows and make sure to teach them how to bend a spoon. It’s the “100 Million Magicians Project.

Even though we couldn’t see him through his sunglasses, Malick’s eyes must have sparkled like a child’s as he spoke enthusiastically about his magic tricks.

From the December 13 and 20, 2024 issue of FRIDAY