My Japanese Experience
  One of the best experiences of my whole life was when I was one of four junior magicians in the United States chosen to be featured in a Japanese documentary. It is called "The Life of a Young Magician"
It all started when a guy with an Asian accent called my home and said he got my name from Hank Moorehouse ( a famous magician). He said they were going to do a film documentary about young magicians in the United States. He started asking my mom all kinds of questions about me and my magic. Mom told him some of the things I did, like producing fire from my bare hands and turning that fire into a dove. Making doves turn into rabbits and rabbits disappearing and reappearing in another part of the room. He was very impressed. We were excited about the phone call. Mom said not to get my hopes up though. We didn't think too much about it until he called again about a week later. He asked some more questions. Then we got a little more excited. The real kicker came when we got a call and they asked if the producer from Japan could come to our house. Well, knowing mothers, guess what she did? Started cleaning!!!
Well, Mom and I went to the library and got a tape on how to speak Japanese. I learned how to say, "Very nice to meet you", and a few other things in Japanese. I said that to the producer, Hiroshi Hamada, when he pulled up to the house. I think that Mr. Hamada was a little shocked but impressed. Elaine Morikawa, was the enterpreter. She had to translate everything each of said. We talked a little bit and he didn't show much emotion. Then I took him to my Magic Room where I practice. Mr. Hamada got really excited and ran out of the room to get his camcorder. He started filming everything. Then I put his head in my guillotine and cut his head off. He seemed a little nervous at first but when he came out with his head still attached, he was laughing really hard. I bet Mr. Hamada has never had his head in a guillotine before.
Elaine Morikawa was our enterpreter. Mr. Hiroshi Hamada was the producer. Elaine was so nice. She and my mom got along great. They were a lot alike. Mr. Hamada was the classiest man I think I have ever met. You knew he was somebody important when he walked into a room.
My magic room. It's a room built inside a very large block building we have. The walls and ceiling are all black and the carpet is black and white with stars and planets on it. What's really cool about the carpet is that is glows in the dark. There is a very, very long mirror on one side of the room so I can watch myself practice. I have lots of photographs and posters of famous magicians all over the wall. I really love this room. It's really cool.
The film crew got there with Elaine. She was our enterpreter. Elaine lives in New York City. They filmed everything. It was a little hard at first, not looking at the camera. Trying to be natural. But when you have a camera in your face many, many hours of the day, you soon don't even notice it.
They filmed us eating, cooking, sleeping, driving, dance class, magic lesson, my friends, at restaurants, you name it, they were there. (except the bathroom, that was off limits) I have to say, I felt like a movie star. It was really great.
The crew followed us to Abbott's Magic Get Together in Colon, Michigan. (The Magic Capitol of the World) I took third place in the competition. I was on cloud nine.
A couple months after Abbott's, the movie aired in Japan, so of course, we couldn't watch it in the States. But when I went to "The World's Magic Seminar" in Las Vegas, 3 months after Abbott's, many magicians from Japan came up to me and said they saw me on TV. I felt very famous. WOW!!! That's about all I can say. WOW, WOW, WOW !!! It was really hard to say good bye. We became so close during those 10 days. I miss Toshiya the most. He was like a big brother. I hope I can see him again.  From left to right: Mr. Tamaki Bannouchi - Sound Man, Mr. Koji Orikasa - Camera Man, Dakota Rose, Mr. Toshiya Komaki - Director, Ms. Elaine Morikawa - Enterpreter.
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