Over on FB, Luna Shimada made a post giving the history of her father's Parasol act and how it differs from the modern umbrella act. I asked her if I could share it here and she graciously said yes. So if you are into some history, kick right back and you'll hear a tale...
_________________________________________________________________________
In 1968 my family and I were traveling all over the world and we ended up in Mexico City. It was my mother’s idea to create a magic act that drew on my father’s Japanese culture. So they went back to Japan and purchased a number of traditional Japanese paper parasols and materials.
Japanese parasols are different from the umbrellas many magicians use today. They are made of paper and bamboo, sometimes silk. This distinction is important.
My parents began creating what became their very original parasol manipulation act. Up to that point nobody in the world had really seen anything quite like it.
My father had been performing a dove act when he met my mother, and at that time many acts followed what magicians call the diminish and return concept. A particular object, whether it was a bird, a bottle, or something else, would be the recurring theme throughout the act, multiplying, vanishing, and reappearing in different ways. That structure was very common in magic of that era.
My mother thought, you produce all these doves, why not parasols. They are larger, more visual, connected to your culture, and artistically beautiful. It was a natural evolution of the diminish and return idea, but expressed through Japanese imagery and aesthetics.
That was the beginning of something entirely new.
The act quickly took them across international stages and gained attention and recognition. When they returned to Japan and performed it on national television, a young magician approached them. He had been inspired by their parasol act and asked if it would be acceptable for him to develop a version of the idea in Western style, performing in tails and producing Western rain umbrellas rather than Japanese parasols.
At the time my parents thought it was an interesting concept, though artistically quite different. Producing rain umbrellas did not carry the same cultural aesthetic as traditional parasols. But they were artists, not territorial people, and they did not see it as competition. So they gave their blessing.
That young magician was Fukai.
Fukai went on to develop what became the well known umbrella manipulation act using specially designed umbrellas that are much smaller than traditional parasols. Because these umbrellas were engineered specifically for magicians and later manufactured and distributed within the magic community, the umbrella act became extremely popular and widely performed.
The important historical point is this. The Shimada Japanese parasol act came first. Fukai’s umbrella act was inspired by that original concept but adapted into a Western performance style with different props, music, and staging. It is not THE parasol act. It is a parasol act adjacent utilizing different materials. 
Japanese parasols and Fukai umbrellas are actually very different instruments. Parasols are larger, more rigid, and do not collapse nearly as small as the umbrellas designed for manipulation. Working with them requires a different handling and stage presence.
And just to be clear, there has never been any conflict between our families. I have great respect for Fukai and Kimika. They are wonderful people and my parents were fond of them as well. Our paths simply developed in different directions.
Fukai chose to manufacture and share his umbrellas widely with the magic community.
The Shimada family took a different path. Our handling and techniques were passed down through personal mentorship, teacher to student, in order to preserve the integrity, history, and lineage of the act.
Many years later, I went on to create my own parasol act that was drawing on the traditions of my father's act, but I modernized it, re-conceptualize the presentation, and even created my own techniques which needed to evolve due to different costuming and different criterias. This version of the parasol act became solely my own creation and skill set. I took my father's work and adapted it to my own style..
Still using the traditional Japanese parasols, though not umbrellas.
Today many magicians refer to umbrella manipulation as the parasol act, but technically speaking they are not the same thing at all. To most performers it may seem like a small semantic difference.
But to artists and to magic history the distinction matters.
____________________________________________________________________________
As a side note, I always liked Luna's Parasol act as it had a subtle story of a universe being created and I thought that was cool. She also has shared some of how the act worked over the years and there is some clever stuff in it.
