Yuki Maggy jiggles his Ninja rings within his scruffy, but charmed apartment in Warabi, Saitama Prefecture.

It looks like the entrance to an accountant's office, a plain wooden door at the top of three flights of stairs in a nondescript Tokyo downtown business district. Step through it, though, and you'll find yourself deep in a world of trickery and illusion-not the financial type, but honest to goodness magic.

Such is the venerable magic specialty shop Magic Land in the workaday Kayabacho district. The place is as disordered as it is crowded: Silk hats, sponge rabbits, marked playing cards, rubber doves and stainless steel tumblers are spilling out of cardboard boxes. A middle-aged customer is looking for a ring, a young student with girlfriend in tow is asking for a video on something called the ``path technique,'' while a bottle-blond man seated in one corner thumbs through what appears to be a book of spells.

Most unusual of all, a pair of executives, clutching identical attaches, stand fixed before the ``Mama,'' a wide-faced woman perfunctorily demonstrating card tricks on the only counter.

``Hey! No photos you!'' she suddenly barks, barely turning her attention away from the businessmen. ``...and this one is 2,400 yen. It's not so difficult and not so expensive. And you, what do you want?''

Like the businessmen, this writer had come in looking for a simple gag to liven up a coming year's end party.

Japan certainly needs some magic, but customers rushing into shops like Magic Land and into a growing number of magic-themed restaurants and bars may not be exactly what economists had ordered.

The signs of a ``Magic Boom'' are all there: Local magic trick makers such as Tenyo, based in Tokyo's Koto Ward, are reporting their briskest sales in decades; department stores have started stocking tricks again (with some even deploying magicians to distract kids while their parents shop); while at least one major family restaurant chain, Bamiyan, has started offering magic goods-making it possible to pick up magic tricks 24 hours a day.

There's a lot of headscratching going on concerning the current mania. Given Japan's decade-long doldrums, maybe people need to be surprised, or to see the impossible happen. Maybe it's the Internet, putting a vast amount of information at our fingertips, but removing mysteries from our lives. Or maybe people are just tired of being entertained by machines and want a real person-never mind the sequined suit and the clip-on butterfly tie-asking them to reach out and pick a card-any card.

To Mama at Magic Land, the explanation is simple enough. ``Television,'' she says. ``Why do you want to know anyway?''

In fact, adds the woman, the current boom is just the latest in her 28 years at the shop. Illusion magic by likes of Tenko Hikita (mentor to Princess Tenko) used to be big in the '70s and '80s, followed by the smoke-and-mirrors stage magic of Mr. Maric and his apprentices in the late 1990s. The current fad is for close-quarters legerdemain before small audiences, what the cognoscenti call ``close-up magic.''

Many of the magicians in the circuit today, she adds, got their start at the shop, some as teenagers who dropped by after classes.

``It's always easy to tell real aficionados from curiosity seekers. Magicians come in looking for a particular trick they want to master. Others come in, always asking the same thing: `Do you have a trick that's impressive, easy to learn and cheap?' I tell them there's no such thing-try a department store.''

For many would-be wizards the road begins at an institute of higher learning-Japanese universities invariably have a ``magic circle,'' some with their own stages. Crude, off-the-shelf tricks don't cut it with seniors, so new members quickly learn more skillful sleight of hand.

``My motivation was simple,'' says Kiki Oji, a 30-year-old magician who began his career in university. ``I thought I'd learn a few tricks to impress the chicks and be the life of the party. Actually magic has no effect on the opposite sex. My friends would be walking away with the girls while I was still putting my tricks way.''

Oji turned pro a couple of years after graduating, but supported himself with odd jobs-sometimes acting, sometimes playing in a band-until the present boom. ``Nowadays, if you can do magic you can get a job.''

The local magic world is small-one estimate has only about 400 prestidigitation professionals in all Japan-and in it certain names carry weight.

Gawky, knock-kneed Yuki Maggy, rooming in a shabby unit in an otherwise abandoned apartment block in Warabi, Saitama, is the heir to one such name. He's one of several deshi, or apprentices to Shiro Maggy, one of the grand old men of the Japanese magic stage.

Ramshackle as it may be, Yuki's apartment seems to work its own magic: Shinji Maggy, another member of the clan who's just broken into the television celebrity ranks, used to live here, as did the masked Puppet-Muppet, a popular finger puppeteer who's now also big on the little screen. Whatever the charm is, Yuki hopes it'll work for him, too.

``I don't know if this apartment is really magical or not. But the Maggy name certainly carries lots of expectation,'' says the 23-year-old. Like his master, his schtick is that he is clumsy magician. ``Audiences expect a certain type of entertainment, a certain brand of funny, when they hear it.''

His biggest gig so far was in front of convicted murderers at a maximum security prison in Yamagata Prefecture.

``It was a huge success, but then again they would have laughed at anything. ... They're not allowed to speak or laugh at any other time.''

In real life, Yuki is something of a realist. He never set out to be a magician. His original goal was to be a teacher. He entered prestigious Hosei University-where both his parents were members of the magic circle-and joined the rakugo solo comedy club in order to improve his elocution. He started adding magic tricks to spice up his act.

During last year's job search he was ready to give up magic for good, but the major construction company that hired him saw no problem with him continuing his magic career. In fact they put him in sales and had him do tricks in front of the company booth at a recent trade fair.

Now he's 90-percent sure he's going to follow the magic road.

``Once you become a salaryman you begin to see that no one does it because they like it,'' explains Yuki. ``Look at the lottery. How many people say that if they win they want to do exactly what they're doing? Most everyone says they want to quit.

``My parents are dead set against it-they've done magic and know how hard it is. But my friends all support me. They say, `Magic? Why not? At least you've got something like a dream.'''

But dreams, sadly, don't always bring respect, even amid the current magic craze.

``There's a hard edge to the audience these days,'' says Hiroshi, the bottle-blond first spotted in Magic Land. He's a 15-year veteran and regular magician at Usagiya, a magic bar and restaurant in Tokyo's swank Akasaka.

``They come with a definite purpose. They've seen close-up magic on television and can't figure out how it was done. They think, well, if I see it live I'll know how that guy did it. They are totally concentrated-you get the sense that they're not interested in your show or you as a magician, they come to catch you out.''

Such grumblings can be heard in other parts of town. At Kamigataya, a hair salon in Tokyo's Omori district that morphs into a magic bar on weekends, ``charisma stylist'' and magician extraordinaire Masaki Yamabayashi has hung a sign for the benefit of his fans. ``Don't spoil a trick for others if you know how it's done,'' it reads, ``and don't get angry.''

``Actually not everyone enjoys magic,'' says Masaki, who started the magic bar a year and a half ago together with a friend-Akira Fujii-who's now a magic star on TV. ``I sound them out first to see if they do or don't. If they don't I talk more and do less tricks. Watching magic up close can be stressful. It winds people up.''

Unlike his now famous friend, Masaki has no plans for quitting his day job.

``Most people, if they've seen it twice, get bored,'' he says. ``That's the nature of magic, it's something totally out of the ordinary. If you make it commmonplace, then it's no longer magic.''

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Magic Land (03-3666-4749) is located at 3-5-2 Kayabacho, Chuo Ward, a 3-minute walk from Kayabacho subway station on the Tozai line. Open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays and holidays.

Magic Fantasia (03-3905-5872), located 4-3-9 Naka-jyujo, Kita Ward, a 15-minute walk from JR Jyujo Station, offers original tricks, instruction videos and lessons.

Usagiya (03-3583-5344) is located at 4-3-5 Akasaka, Minato Ward, a 5-minute walk from Akasaka subway station. Open 6:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Closed Sundays. The table charge is 2,000 yen.

Kamigataya (03-5709-1416) is located at 1-5-1 Sanno, Ota Ward, a 5-minute walk from JR Omori Station. Shows are at 7 p.m., 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Admission is 4,000 yen for men, 2,000 yen for women, including drinks. Call for reservations.(IHT/Asahi: December 4,2004)