2016 Hardcover

• 

  So Sato

  Author
• 

  Richard Kaufman

  Author

• Translator:
  • Yukishige Kadoya
• Illustrator:
  • Tomoki Kawashima

Who is So Sato? Until two years ago few in the west had heard his name. Fore some people, it was his invention of "Magical Butterfly" during his firs year as a member of Tenyo's Creative Division that caught their attention. His subsequent creations for Tenyo were equally impressive. But when So Sato was first approached by Toru Suzuki to join Tenyo, he wondered why. He was a card guy,, and widely known among magicians of Japan for the two books he'd published, Playing Cards and Warujie Solutions and Card Magic Designs. The books had sold very well, and his creations had fooled and amazed Japanese card magicians. But Suzuki saw something creative in his work that he thought could be applied to the type of tricks Tenyo produces for the Japanese public, and he was right. On one of my trips to Japan to work on my book Tenyoism, my friend Yuki Kadoya arranged for So Sato to visit my hotel room. He kindly performed half a dozen card tricks. When he finished, I asked him to do them again because I could not figure out a single one. After seeing the tricks twice, I was still fooled. This led to discussions about turning both of So Sato's Japanese books into one larger volume in English with additional material (you're holding the result). In the process of having Kadoya-san beside me verbally translating the material from the books into English, I rewrote quite a bit of the text in the course of transcribing what he was saying. The good fortune of being able to type 80 words a minute! I kept the writing in So Sato's first person as it is in the original books. We've also added many more illustrations than were originally included, al done by the same artist, Tomoki Kawashima. I also asked So Sato to perform a the second Genii convention, which took place in October 2015. Fortunately, he speaks fluent English. He is quite soft spoken, and I didn't think he would do well in our large room with everyone watching at once. This led me to create three smaller rooms with two additional performers, so that small groups of people could see magic the way we used to at conventions: in a more intimate environment. with no video screens or microphone. I waited outside the room during So Sato' s first show to listen to the reaction from the magicians, and it was good...very good. They were as fooled as I had been. There's an interesting mix of creativity in these pages. You will find self-working material, some of it mathematically based, that is drenched in brain-twisting psychology; you'll also find some very difficult sleight of hand which, when combined with So Sato's unique psychological approach, will weaken the knees of even the most stout cardman. There's a DVD included with the book, which I shot in Tokyo earlier this year. So Sato performs in Japanese. I don't feel that it requires subtitles: you'll find the patter you in the the written descriptions of the tricks. Just watch and be amazed. Richard Kaufman, June 2016