Reiwa Era: Mr. Marick Remakes 80% of His Magic

The magic trick is always vulnerable to angles.

“When it’s coming, it’s really coming. It’s here!”

Mr. Marick (75) raises his voice, and the tip of a spoon, untouched by him, bends with a grunt. In an instant, the tip snaps with a crack and falls to the floor with a light clink. It’s a trick seen countless times on TV, yet even witnessing it firsthand, the mechanism behind it remains a complete mystery. As a FRIDAY reporter skeptically touches the twisted spoon, Marick gives a sly smile, but he confesses to facing challenges in recent years.

“I was asked by BS Asahi to perform magic on a 4K program. When I did my usual magic tricks, saying, ‘It’s coming! It’s coming!’ the staff rushed over, alarmed, shouting, ‘We can see it! We can see it!’ (laughs). Magic is incredibly sensitive to angles. With 4K, textures and depth that couldn’t be perceived with traditional resolutions become visible. Basic tricks like hiding something with black-on-black or creating a false bottom that looks empty are exposed. Honestly, the latest technology is astonishing—it surprised me more than my supermagic!”

Marick popularized close-up magic in Japan 36 years ago. Originally, about 5,000 magic tricks were designed for stage performances, but he adapted them for television, creating 2,000 additional tricks specifically for TV.

“To perform on 4K, over 80% of those tricks had to be remade. For example, I switched to fabrics or paints that absorb light to obscure depth or, in some cases, used sparkling backgrounds to distract the viewer.”

When hand power magic first gained popularity, half the audience at his shows would clasp their hands together in tears like believers, while the other half enthusiastically tried to uncover the tricks with exposé books in hand. While the audience focused intently on his hands, Marick observed something interesting from the magician’s side.

“When appearing on exposé programs, I deliberately showcased tricks that could be figured out, so during recordings, some celebrities seemed to understand the tricks. However, they pretended not to know and watched attentively. The joy of such programs lies in finding it fun whether you understand the trick or not. Occasionally, someone would try to reveal the tricks by reaching for my hands or props without permission. Strangely, none of those people are still in the entertainment industry today. Actions like that spoil the atmosphere and show poor character—it’s something they probably didn’t consider. This industry reveals a lot about a person’s nature when they watch magic.”

When he first debuted on TV, many mistook his magic and hand power for actual psychic abilities. Requests poured in, such as “Find a gold vein,” “Become a temple’s head priest,” or even bizarre ones like presenting a large sum of money in a cloth bundle, demanding, “Instantly teleport cyanide into a certain person’s stomach.” In recent years, work has included quirky projects like overcoming spicy dishes with supermagic, and Marick has embraced them warmly.

“Honestly, I don’t fully understand variety shows anymore (laughs). Back when some still believed I was a psychic, I faced off against Takashi Okamura (54) from ‘Ninety-Nine,’ who played a psychic character, on ‘Guruguru Ninety-Nine’ (NTV). I even dressed as a cheerleader on ‘Asakusabashi Young Supplies’ (TV Tokyo) when I was over 50. I’ve done enka singer outfits too—pretty much anything. But responding to such demands stripped away the mysterious aura, breaking viewers’ dreams. I realized I needed to choose my work more carefully.”

In 1990, his former manager revealed to FRIDAY that his supermagic was just magic tricks, sparking backlash as he was labeled a “fraud” and “fake.” Despite feeling relieved at the time, the stress caused facial paralysis. During his hiatus, he struggled to figure out how to return to the public eye.

“In 1997, Kazuo Gomi (68), a former NTV producer, created a character called Tasumi Kurima, a mysterious postman with ‘hand power,’ and invited me back to perform magic. It was a fresh start. However, Gomi later produced ‘The God of Entertainment’ (NTV), and that was incredibly tough. Every week, Gomi would hand me sketches with ideas like, ‘Next week, put a needle and thread in a bottle, shake it, and show the thread going through the needle’s eye,’ or ‘Hold a stick over a river, and fish will jump over it.’ I had to devise tricks to make those scenes possible. Even after creating the tricks, I had to film in freezing rivers, only for the footage to sometimes be cut entirely (laughs). But deadlines push people to their limits. It’s no exaggeration to say the ultimate secret to supermagic is deadlines.”

 

There are real psychics!

The title of super magician is an act to enhance the allure of magic, but according to Mr. Maric, “There are real psychics in this world.”

“Having mastered over 7,000 types of magic tricks, I believe I can distinguish between what is possible and what is not through magic. Over the past 30 years, I’ve traveled to places like China, Germany, and India whenever I heard of extraordinary psychic phenomena. Most of them turned out to be either magic tricks or hypnosis. In China, there were government-certified psychics, and I was shown their abilities at a state guesthouse, but it was clearly a setup (laughs). However, if they were exposed as frauds, they would likely face the death penalty, so I clapped and said, ‘What an incredible ability you have.'”

From those who bent spoons with brute force to others who produced pre-prepared candies from behind a painting and called it teleportation, most self-proclaimed psychics had obvious tricks or gimmicks. However, a few years ago, he encountered someone who seemed genuine.

“A woman originally from China who now lives in Japan. On my recommendation, she appeared on television once in 2008. She could look through folded paper pressed against glass and read the writing on it. We prepared the paper and controlled where she sat, but she simply stared at the paper and waited. We waited for four hours, and she nailed it perfectly. It was so simple that there was no room for trickery.”

Now a key figure in the Japanese magic scene, Maric still strives to create something entirely new whenever he receives an offer to appear on a show.

“If people believe they can do it, they can make something extraordinary happen. I want to convey that message, so I hand out spoons to everyone at my magic shows and teach them how to bend spoons. It’s my ‘One Billion Magicians Project.'”

Even though his sunglasses obscure his eyes, Maric’s passion for magic surely made them sparkle like a child’s as he spoke fervently about his craft.

Exclusive Unpublished Photos: Mr. Marick, evolving in the Reiwa era, revealed, “I’ve actually reworked 80% of my magic.”