Japan 08/25 – Fuji-Q Highland

Next up was old mate

Day 7 – Fuji-Q Highland

I was a tad apprehensive about revisiting this one, for a myriad of reasons, but mainly that the original visit went so well, all things considered. You hear the stories about how legendary but brutal the coasters are, and how equally diabolical the operations can be. We smashed all the creds, enjoyed all of the big 4 and big Eej was an instant top 10. The only thing that went wrong was not seeing Mt. Fuji.

+1 to be had though, they have #1 Zokkon now, looking all Fury 325 at the entrance but not impressive. Headed here at rope drop to knock it on the head.

Despite being close to the second person into the queue, it took about 30 minutes before I headed out the exit of the ride, in another typical snowballing of faff.

There’s lockers, security scanners, all that fun stuff, then you get batched into a preshow room.

This isn’t a fun preshow in any sense of the word though, and set up a bit of a concerning theme for the day and the park’s future as a whole.

It’s literally just a spoiler-packed instructional safety video of how to ride a rollercoaster, with footage and diagrams of the whole experience. Sit in this specific position, hold onto this bar properly, look into the corners because there might be forces etc.

There’s two tunnel sections here, there’s a launch here, there’s a transfer track here, it goes backwards here. Be warned, be prepared, brace your ass.

I just found this process to be such a buzzkill. It’s extremely clear that the nature of Dodonpa’s (RIP) demise has scared the pants off of the park and they’re just doing everything in their power to not have to take down another $50M worth of steel over a complaint letter campaign. And Zokkon as a product just plain sucks as a result.

‘Lucked out’ on a front row and was thoroughly bored by the experience. It’s such an odd coaster design that makes no sense, seems to appeal to no one in particular and, at a guess, was heavily modified from potential previous concepts for the above reasons.

The launches don’t do a whole lot, the layout doesn’t do a whole lot. Then it goes backwards which doesn’t make sense on motorbikes. Then it does a Hagrid and backs into a shed, but instead of dropping it just sits around, then slowly rolls forwards again to audible yawns.

Just about the only redeeming feature about it is the onboard soundtrack, which plays a happy-go-lucky theme tune, painting a picture of yay, fun, future, motybikes. Very Japanese in that regard.

Trim it down boys.

Sad times. RIP.

Hoping for a pick me up, I headed straight to Eejanaika, my favourite coaster in Japan. Had about a 50 minute queue, not too bad.

They’ve seriously jacked up both their English announcements and safety announcements in the queuelines here. About the only words I understood on park last time were the ‘attention guests, Eejanaika is now open’ announcements, following intermittent rain, followed by the running of the bulls.

These days it’s a constant barrage of DO NOT RIDE THIS RIDE IF THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH YOU. Heart problems? Skip it. Headache? Skip it. Hangnail? Skip it.

Also noticed on all the physical boards now that they’ve lowered the age limit on their attractions to a low, low 54 years old. That’s an ouch for the previous generation of coaster fans.

So all in all, more buzzkill that doesn’t really hype up the most intense coaster in the world in any positive manner. Just about the only redeeming feature about it is that they still play the themed Eejanaika chant with tin tapping audio.

Up in the station, after you’ve de-shoed and lockered up, you enter the same batching process but with an added instructional pep talk including school classroom signage and pointy stick.

Sit in this specific position, hold onto this bar properly, look into the corners because there aren’t any. Ok maybe 1.

What they don’t explain well is how the restraint system works, which I’ve never understood, but staff are always there to help out. It has been ‘enhanced’ since my previous attempt with several more seatbelts, much chonkier ‘padding’ around the shoulders and head making it more like an SLC and some sort of strap to stop you legendarily legging over the seat hump on the final element. The staff went through a process of additional restraint checks, verbal verification and a mutual thumbs up with each rider no less than three times, every time.

I didn’t think much of it however, as this was all happening, I felt like I knew the score. Excited and nervous, these particular contraptions still get to me in a way that little else does any more. Amazing despatch, unnervingly tilting you onto your back out of the station, terrifying lift hill, business as usual.

Then it Shambalaed at the top of the lift and slowed itself right down. Huh. That’s new.

It’s gone.

It is with great sadness and regret that I must report that I no longer like Eejanaika. Rather than something to be scoffed at, all of the safety instructions and warnings here became entirely justified, while also meaningless because you can’t really do anything about it. It’s gotten rough as balls and I hated every second of it, from the moment it first shook my brain, to the moment the new ‘safety features’ cut my leg open when hitting the brakes, to stop me legging over the seat hump. I wouldn’t recommend the experience to anyone.

I’ve always struggled to describe what exactly it is I like(d) about the 4D coasters. They’re so unconventional in forces applied when compared to any other major coaster we like to review. Great airtime there, nope. Great laterals there, nope. Great hangtime, nope. What does it actually do to you that’s measureably good? Not knowing that and simply embracing the chaos in a petrified yet elated manner was just the whole deal, start to finish. It was an unrefined, raw type of thrill and love.

Now there’s just as much doubt in my mind as there was when I first rode one. Did I get too used to it? Who changed more, me or the ride? No, it’s the children who are wrong.

On the upside, I got confirmation that I still care far too much about this stupid hobby as I very nearly shed a tear for Eejainaika on the exit ramp, once the reality of the situation hit me. Even while writing about it now, there’s a tremble in my hands. Sometimes these are more than rollercoasters to us, they’re characters, and our time spent with them is precious. And they’ve killed this one.

RIP.

But don’t worry, you can still do VR Dodonpa with a fan in your face. For the Eejanaika one, the staff now club you with baseball bats.

Back to business, had to go try out the flying theatre. It’s currently running two different layovers a day, the traditional Fuji Airways in the morning and Attack on Titan in the evening. Thus the queue doesn’t know what it wants to be.

Fuji Airways was about as boring as Zokkon, I just don’t vibe with wafting over poorly animated scenery, alongside animated NPCs flying in Gerstlauer Skyfly cars, which was very jarring, especially having done attractions just like it 50 times over.

We’ll be back again for it later.

I then caught myself in a weird trance, willingly walking into the back of a 70 minute queue for Takabisha. Gotta tick it off for the day, right?

As I stood still for about 30 seconds the question just hit me, ‘why?’ So I left again.

In fact I left completely, headed out of the park, via these.

Look at these bad boys.

Didn’t know that one was a thing, but it just made the time travel bucket list.

RIP

It was both sobering and freeing to take some time out from the park that usually causes so much stress to the first time visitor. Had some lunch and went for a little drive to settle a little 7-year vendetta.

Fuji-san was finally out, as famous for spiting people as any good Fuji-Q coaster. Not quite the postcard picture being August, but still a majestic old thing. Tick.

Fuji-Q Highland

Went back later in the afternoon, revitalised, to dust off the rest of the park. Oh, did I mention it was too hot yet?

Thomas’ Party Parade has become Thomas’ Treasure Hunt.

To fit this new theme, it now has flashlights like Disney’s Monsters Inc. ride.
S’alright.

This was new.

And this Naruto X Boruto Ninja Voltage 3D Shooting Ride was cheap and lazy, not a fan.

RIP

Went back to the flying theatre for the other showing, Attack on Titan THE RIDE, and it was a significant improvement. To start, the same batching staff was now putting on an act and scaring the crowd in the build up to the preshow.

Know very little of the franchise, other than big blokes, and it ruining Space Fantasy: The Ride for us many years ago. Very different from the usual experience with this hardware, focusing more on just a single, storytelling scene with much more limited ‘soaring’ but much more violent reactions to what was happening.

Some big blokes beat up some other big blokes, notably quite graphic and with some swearing. Rather cool, and very Japanese once again.

Park started to clear out as the evening wore on, so got onto Fujiyama with about a two train wait, which is incredible in itself.

The sky didn’t look like this though,

It looked more like this, but good.
And god damn.

Eejanaika’s loss is Fujiyama’s gain as I absolutely adored it. It’s the perfect Togo, stupidly huge but with comfy seats and lap bars, poorly designed but with insane and intense forces.

It was a scene to be painted, with a crescendo of magical moments. Heading up the stupidly massive lift hill in the dusk, sunset behind a Fuji I could actually see. Ride begins, it’s big and it’s fast but it doesn’t do a whole lot.

The flat turnaround at the other side now goes around the weird giant observation deck they built within the ride, which I always imagined to be a dumb idea, but it’s glorious. There’s people up there, waving to the train as you go round and that was equal parts surreal and endearing.

The ride builds. More drops, more speed, more slow corners, gradually amping up those forces. In the final third it reaches the point at which Togo clearly didn’t know what to do. We went 260ft up to break a record here and now we’re carrying so much speed, in a specified plot of land that doesn’t have the room to deal with such speed, so…

Bam, super intense, ground level 90° banked hairpin. Off-axis airtime hills but they’re not, they’re off-banked and super janked and what the hell is happening it’s horrifying and hilarious and so, so out of control. How is this 30 years old, how has it not torn itself to shreds over that time like Eejanaika? I hit the brakes absolutely buzzing with joy, slapping the restraint and laughing my arse off.

It’s such a wild and intense finale and the perfect summation of what Fuji-Q represents, or at least what it used to. You can’t experience any of what I’ve just described anywhere else. It’s a legend of the industry. There’s never been another one like it and there never will be.

They used to have 4 legends here, and very little else. Collectively these were always their global draw, and ticking them off always felt like an impossibly daunting experience, where any one of them could be your new favourite, but any one of them could also kill you. You could obsessively cycle through them in your head for days, months or years before a visit. What’s the rank order of priority if I can’t ride them all? What’s the most efficient way to ride them all? What if it rains and they all go home?

Now one’s been removed for safety, one probably should be removed for safety and one’s a clone. When the park announced their largest investment ever, it should have been lifechanging. Instead we got Zokkon, which now simply exists to suggest they’re too scared to build anything adventurous any more.

There’s 1 legend left and it’s stood the longest. Fujiyama, the King of Coasters.

Oh yeah, the clone. Figured I may as well complete the set now that the queue had died down for Takabisha, which it had, but nowhere near as much, depressingly.

Should have left it alone, it’s also rough as balls now, bottom of Saw’s first drop rough in every valley and juddering headaches through the rest of the inversions. Used to be ‘decent fun for a Eurofighter, shame about the restraints’. Now it’s ‘kill it with fire’. And in an American mall, not operating.
Paultons, 2026.

So those were some ups and downs to end the day with. I could have walked back onto Fujiyama several times but I felt it wasn’t worth the risk to it’s reputation and that there was a lesson to be learned here. A cred is only as good as the last time you rode it, so try and walk away with that W.

As for the park, a sorry state of affairs really, made me sad. Dodonpa has left a huge hole physically, in their lineup and in their future as a coaster destination of the world. While it was nice to have a much more relaxed visit, I feel like the jeopardy and adventure of making it onto that big 4 is what made the place special. The golden era has passed and now it’s just a bad collection of rides with a special Togo.

So exactly what this trip was built around.