magic?

I saw this youtube on someone's blog. It's one of those TV shows where the magician walks around showing of his skills. This one is a Japanese one. Watch this first.




Okay, now so how does it he do it?

I have a vague idea. First of all, the plastic bottle. I have a feeling the bottle was planted. He just waited for those girls to walk by before picking it up. The bottle was already there with the cap inside. How did he get the cap in there? Probably used liquid nitrogen to freeze and shrink it just enough to push it in and wait for it to defrost or... have it specially molded. How did he hold it in place? Ah... now that's the tricky part.

I have a feeling the hand he was holding the bottle with had a magnet. The bottle cap in the bottle also had a magnet attached to it. So when he picked up the bottle, the cap was held in place, hidden behind the lable. He brought out another cap so people assumed that was the cap outside the bottle.

When he hits the bottle onto the cap, the cap doesn't jump up into the bottle. Instead, he releases the magnet and the cap inside falls down. He then hides away the cap that is outside with his other hand.

Same goes for when he removes the cap from the bottle. He catches the cap with the magnet again behind the label so it remains hidden and then 'reveals' the hidden cap he's holding.

As for the glass bottle... hrmm, I think he might have asked the waiter switch the ladies bottle with one that already had a cap in it. There was also a jump cut in the video, so there might have been something that happened in between, not sure.

Then the rest is still the same magnet trick. Notice the hand holding the bottle never changes and he never releases his grip on the bottle when there is no cap in it in the beginning. Also, notice how he places his hand on the backrest of the chair after pushing the cap into the bottle... I think that's when he hid the external cap. He probably had a small piece of blue tag stuck on the chair already after he sat down. Then he just stuck the bottle cap onto the blue tag. He of course removes everything when he leaves.


As for the jumping straw, the cup with the straw was brought in by him. I believe the straw was magnetized. He had a powerful magnet or solenoid he could activate hidden in his calf or knee. He only had to activate it by clicking his knees together and the reverse polarity of the magnet made the straw jump.

I wonder how close I am to his real trick.