Visiting Magic Bar Issey in Tokyo

The huge fish tank of magic bar Issei

During my Tokyo trip I also had time to stop by the magic bar Issey in Roppongi. They do a stage show three times per night, and they show you close up magic at your table or at the counter too. There are not that many places with stage shows, so I like visiting Issey for this reason.

東京の出張の夜にマジックバーイッセイにも行けた。毎晩ステージショー3回もやる店なので、テーブルマジック以外のマジックも観れて、結構好きな店だ。

I had to work much later than I had expected and I had to run from the subway station to the bar (which is a very short run, but still) to make it in time for the 21:00 stage show. As it turned out, I did not actually need to run. When I entered, I was the only customer there. The weather was really bad, which may be why the place was empty (the previous times I have been there it was packed).

仕事が思ったより遅くまで続いていたから、21時のステージショーに間に合う為に地下鉄から店まで走ることになった。大した距離ではないけど。店に着いたら、結局走らなくても大丈夫って感じだった。他にお客さんがいなかったから貸切状態になった。他の人がいないから、ステージショーは今やらないと言われた。その代わりに、カウンターで普段より長くやって貰ったし、普段やらないクローズアップも見せて貰ったし。行った日は大雨だったせいで人がいなかったかな？前に行った時に毎回混んでいた。

Since it was only me, they explained that they would not do the stage show. Instead, they did a "counter show", where they did more close up magic than they normally do, and different magic than the standard close up things.

There were two magicians there, Shun and K-suke. There was also two non-magicians working, and one of them remembered me from my last visit. The first time I visited magic bar Issey, Shun performed both stage magic and table magic for me and my friend. I had never met K-suke before.

マジシャン2人がいた、シュンとケイスケ。初めてマジックバーイッセイに行った時にもシュンのマジックを観た（ステージもクローズアップも）。ケイスケは初めてだった。

First K-suke showed me some magic. He did some nice card tricks and quite a bit of coin magic. He also made a crushed can of CocaCola return to its unopened and uncrushed state full of soda, and he made a signed card appear inside an unopened PET-bottle. The things I liked the best was when his booklet thingy that had a cover text saying "K-Suke" changed into a booklet saying "magic show" instead, and a trick where a cocktail shaker (that had a signed card appear out of it before) suddenly stopped being empty and instead contained a cocktail of the color I had selected from a menu earlier.

最初はK-SUKEさんのマジックだった。カードマジックもコインマジックも見せてくれた。他にコーラの復活もしたし、サインカードが新品のペットボトルに入ったし。僕の一番好きなマジックはメニュー表みたいなものに「K-SUKE」と書いてあって、「Magic Show」に変わったマジックとシェーカーから僕が選んだ色のカクテルが出てきたマジック。その前にシェーカーが空だったし、サインカードなども前にシェーカーから出てきたし。

Shun, with a nail in his nose

The Shun did a counter show for me, including some Tom Mullica style cigarette magic. He also did some card magic, including a signed card appearing inside a kiwi, a chop cup routine (where the kiwi appeared), fork bending, and some levitations with one of my credit cards. I was also quite happy to see him produce three big nails from his nose. I have never seen anyone do the nail in nose stuff live (apart from seeing myself do it). The first nail seemed to have been there more or less the whole time he did the rest of the magic, but I do not think I could pull out three nails that size from my nose (and his nose was smaller than mine), so that was nice.

SHUNさんも長くカウンターショーをやってくれた。トム・マリカ風なタバコのマジックが凄い。他にカードマジック（キウイからサインカードが出た）やチョップカップ（カップからキウイが出てきた）やフォーク曲げとかも見せてくれた。僕のクレジットカードが浮いてきたし。一番面白いと思ったのは鼻からでかい釘を3本も出した。鼻からの釘は初めて生で観た（僕がやっている以外ｗ）。最初の釘は他のマジックをやっている時から入れっぱなしっぽくて、ウケると思った。僕の鼻に3本が入らないと思う（僕の鼻の方が大きいと思うし）から3本も出るのが不思議だね、笑。

Presents for me

After the magic was finished, we sat around talking about Swedish magicians and other things for a long time, and the owner (?) who did not do magic also joined in. They also gave me two business card size magic tricks as a gift, and both tricks are pretty cute. Last time I was in Tokyo I considered buying one of them (in a magic shop in Ikebukuro), but in the end I did not.

マジックが終わってからも長く皆でスウェーデン人のマジシャンの話とかしていた。マジシャンではない店長（？）も面白い話色々してくれた。名刺サイズのマジック２つをプレゼントで貰ったし。前回東京に行った時に池袋のマジックショップで買おうかなって悩んでいたネタだった。