Tomohiro Maeda

Across a table, within reach of your hands. For a great many people in Japan, the phrase "close-up magic" entered the language through the work of Tomohiro Maeda.

Reference footage (unofficial)

The following are not official channels but uploads by third parties. We link to them rather than embedding them, and will take a link down promptly at a rights holder's request.

• The close-up world of Tomohiro Maeda Channel: 狩野真二
• The close-up world of Tomohiro Maeda, continued Channel: 狩野真二
• A card magic performance Channel: takimagic

Key achievements

1. Born in Shinagawa, Tokyo; works as a professional close-up magician.
2. Through television appearances, brought close-up magic to a wide Japanese audience.
3. Also an author, articulating the thinking behind magic for a general readership.

Distance as a condition

Tomohiro Maeda was born on 10 November 1965 in Shinagawa, Tokyo, and works as a professional close-up magician.

Close-up magic operates under entirely different conditions from stage work.

The audience is a few dozen centimetres away. Angles cannot be managed. Nothing can be done twice. The audience is within reach. What Dai Vernon spent a lifetime working out was exactly what survives those conditions.

In exchange, the impact when it lands is enormous. The experience of having been that close and still not knowing is not available in a large theatre.

What television carried

The significant thing about Maeda’s career is that television delivered this genre to a general Japanese audience.

Until then, magic in Japan largely meant either large stage productions or the escape spectaculars of television specials. Tenko Hikita had captured the country on precisely that line.

What Maeda’s work added was a third option — magic that happens in someone’s hands, right in front of you.

The format suited television because a camera can move in close. Other guests are shown being astonished at arm’s length, and the viewer sees the astonished face and the working hands at the same time. It is a format that makes people want to be sitting in that seat themselves.

A Gold Star in London

His standing is not confined to Japan.

The Magic Circle in London is an internationally known society of conjurers, and Maeda holds Gold Star membership of it. He has also appeared on the covers and in the features of American professional journals.

In August 2007, an NHK programme followed him visiting the Magic Circle in London.

Putting it into words

Maeda has also worked as an author, articulating the thinking behind magic for a general readership.

Performing is one thing; sharing in language what is actually going on is another. It is what Robert-Houdin did in his memoirs and what Dai Vernon did through his study of the literature. This is a field with writers in it.

That work has become an entry point both for people taking up magic and for those who simply want to watch it better.

The near distance, from here

Magic began in the great nineteenth-century theatres, passed through the age of television, and has come back to arm’s length.

What Maeda spread in Japan is that oldest and newest of formats. Sit across a table and watch what happens in front of you. His career reminded Japanese audiences that this is the strongest version of it.

Notable works

• Gold Star membership of the Magic Circle in London
• Cover and feature appearances in American professional magic journals
• His writing for a general readership, articulating how magic is thought about

Chronology

Only years that could be verified are listed.

1. 1965 Born on 10 November in Shinagawa, Tokyo
2. 2007 An NHK programme broadcast in August follows him visiting the Magic Circle in London