Half Moon

The sign in the lobby does not have the name of the bar, only a picture of a half moon.

There was another building one block away that also had a picture of a half moon on the sign outside.

During my trip to Tokyo I had one evening with nothing to do, so I again tried to book a seat at the fantastic magic bar Half Moon. This time I was told that they had had some cancellations, so they had seats available for the 23:00 show. I was happy to be back since it had been several years since I last visited.

This time, I talked quite a bit to a young guy who did not work there the last time I visited. He liked my shirt, which said "I am not Japanese" in Japanese, and said he might go buy one for himself. He spoke Japanese much better than I do, so I first thought he was Japanese but he told me he was Korean. He had come there to see the fantastic show that many people had told him about, and found it to be so great that he asked the magician of Half Moon to take him on as his apprentice.

While we passed time waiting for the show time, we talked a bit about army training. In Korea it is mandatory, and it used to be in Sweden too. So we both had army training and talked about all the strange things that happen to you then.

There were only two other guests for the late show that evening. The rest of the seats had been booked by a large group, but they had cancelled at the last minute. The show was great, of course. The Korean guy also did a quite impressive card trick before the regular magician Hide started his show. Half Moon has a magic show that has lots of impressive magic, but the most interesting part is the presentation style. It is very different from any other magician I have ever seen. I think Hide once said that he used to work with some other form of entertainment and moved into magic much later, so he comes from a very different direction than most magicians. This style is very unique and very good. The girls sitting next to me was so moved that she cried after the show.