The purpose of this post is to shed some light on a young underground star who passed away decades ago. Katakura Yuichi was a Japanese magician who was revered among his colleagues and fellow magicians. He was a sleight of hand beast, and possessed a unique flow. I’ll be linking you to some information about him, and showing you some of his incredible magic.

I first came across Mr. Katakura’s magic in an old Lu Chen video on YouTube. First of all, I love the vibes in the video. I love the music, Lu Chen’s outfit, his friend/hype man, and the classical vibes to the card tricks. When I was watching this video, one thing really floored me. The sequence from 0:17 to 0:40. At first I thought it was the standard 4 for 4 type switch you do with those packets. Then they changed again. WTF?

This elegant arrangement is Mr. Katakura’s signature piece, “Double Shock”. This can be found in Phil Goldstein and Richard Kaufman’s book “New Magic of Japan” (1988). I can see why Kaufman and Max Maven chose this piece to be included in their book.

Mr. Katakura was an inventor for the high quality line of props and tricks from Tricks Co. Japan, a Japanese magic company as prominent as Tenyo at one point in time. According to an old Japanese magic website, he was a dealer at a magic shop as well.

Here are a couple examples of his work:
Miracle Paddle
The Ultra Coins

Saggy, a Japanese magic blog, explained that he passed away at the young age of 38 in 1993. “A Young Master in Magic Who Passed Away,” the blog is titled. It’s worth a read, and it is where I got the photo of Mr. Katakura for this post.

Here is a catalogue of his published material on Conjuring Archive.

Here is a fun performance by someone on YouTube. It’s worth translating (or reading) the description, he mentions that he managed to scrape the trick together from memory after a friend showed him Mr. Katakura’s trick in person.

Finally, a smooth performance of the original “Double Shock” as described in the Goldstein and Kaufman book.

Rest in peace Katakura Yuichi, magic became a richer art because of you.

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