Our publisher Randy Pitchford, a fellow Tenyo aficionado, was in Tokyo in late September, appearing at the Tokyo Game Show to support the release of his new video game Borderlands 4.
Since the annual Tenyo Festival was going to take place on Sunday, September 28, it was all the excuse I needed to hop on a plane and join him for the Tenyo event of the year. The company uses the Tenyo Festival to introduce and sell the Creative Division’s new effects. The subsequent frenzy of buying would appear to an unknown onlooker as if hundred dollar bills were being given away. It is the dream of many fans of Tenyo’s consistently ingenious effects to attend and tickets to the festival sell out quickly. As has been the tradition for many years, the event takes place at the Mitsukoshi Department store in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, which has a theater on the top floor to accommodate the event’s stage show.
As an aside, Mitsukoshi invented the concept of a department store in 1683, and the present-day store stands on the site of the original. It was at this store that Tenyo Shōkyokusai opened the first counter where he demonstrated and sold magic in 1931.
The Tenyo Festival is held twice on the Sunday, at 1 p.m. and again at 5 p.m. There’s a social aspect to the event, like a magic convention, where many noted people show up—in this case Shimpei Katsuragawa, Bona Ueki (the surviving member of the Napoleons), Ton and Mama Onosaka, Kazuyuki Hase (whose trick I described in the October installment of Magicana), and others.
We had a small tea party in advance, which Randy and I attended along with Yuki Kadoya, Yasuo Amano, Tomoyuki Shimomura (ex-member of the Creative Division), and others. And after the event, we all went out for dinner, joined by Shigeru Sugawara (a genius from the old Creative Division), and Kazumasa Shimizu, Tenyo’s senior demonstrator.
The shopping frenzy at this year’s Tenyo Festival
Here follows what the frenzied masses could buy at the festival on September 28. Only the first three items will be sold worldwide; some themed to video games and anime will be sold only in Japan due to restrictions on Tenyo’s license, and others were limited editions created to be sold just on the day. Any stock left over was sold at Tenyo magic counters in other stores in the subsequent weeks. All three general release tricks require some DIY work, as has been the case in recent years as Tenyo tries to keep its retail prices competitive.