By our final day in Tokyo I had put this place off for as long as possible.
Day 13 – Tokyo Dome City
Because it’s 2025, and they’ve put new trains on Thunder Dolphin, but then it had been closed for the entire duration of the trip. So I gave it every chance to return.
Don’t particularly care, got the cred, but would have liked to give it a fresh go.
As such we snuck in the back entrance, straight into the indoor part of the other half of the park.
Which is where their latest coaster lives, having replaced an old dark ride that had not long closed down forever just before our previous visit.
#1 Panic Coaster Back!? Daaaan!! currently has an overlay for these animated characters. There was some sweaty queue for their merch as well, one that I would totally been a part of had it been for something I cared about.
Which changes what happens on the station screens before each ‘launch’ sequence. This is the clever Gerstlauer family coaster that comes into the station both forwards and backwards in each sequence, utilising the same layout twice, in both directions.
And that’s probably the most interesting part about it, gooning about the technology and trickery, as there’s not a whole lot going on force wise. There’s a weird stunted double moment to the despatch as you hit a sharp corner pretty early and then it kinda flops around in a fun way in warehouse for a bit. Much like many other Gersts in this country. +1.
Park successfully back to completion, mooched around the city until the evening for
Tokyo Disneyland
After the relative success of the Disneysea cheap evening ticket, decided to do the exact same thing for the other park as well.
They have got one new major dark ride since my last outing here.
That being Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast.
Queue is rather impressive, feel like Disney don’t use fog enough.
Then there’s a lot of indoor shenanigans, though perhaps with a disappointing amount of movement.
This leads to a pre-show, which was exceptional. The stained glass screen sets the scene before full-scale animatronics of Beast and Belle have an interaction across the two balconies. Beast in particular is absolutely incredible with his movements, real top tier Disney stuff and perhaps the highlight of the whole attraction for me.
Bit more queue before the station. Bit more life in it.
Don’t remember this guy, nor do I remember the film from so long ago to be honest, which may have been a problem.
Because I wasn’t bowled over by the ride itself. It ticks a lot of my boxes with trackless technology and ride vehicles dancing around each other, but it almost takes this trick too far, in a way that detracts from the magic.
The opening scene is no doubt spectacular, with the signature Be Our Guest bonanza, but another issue lies here with the story having to open with what is essentially it’s hardest hitter for a general audience. The one that always represents the film, the one you’ll always hear in every park, in everything from Philharmagic to the nighttime shows.
Most of the following scenes, and there aren’t that many at all, are songs with less general appeal and gusto, with the movements of the vehicles limited to just aimlessly wafting around with no purpose. There’s always 6 of them so you just end up with a bit of a mess that feels like it has no visual intent, simply creating an endless flow of watching everyone else with their phones out, while listening to some light music.
There is one very magical ‘wow’ moment later on, using Shanghai Jack Sparrow-style trickery and doing a lot of the heavy lifting before the climax, but I’d kinda checked out of the story at this point.
And then it’s another dancing scene. Eh, it’s a vibe, but not my vibe. Impressive and underwhelming at the same time.
Went straight back over to Pooh’s Hunny Hunt to prove a point.
This is more my vibe. The intent is stronger, there’s more fun moments like the bounce, the chaotic thrust into vehicles dancing around each other for one scene lands a lot harder. It’s the OG and it’s so well done.
Still best on park for me, the destination attracion, with a lot of Tokyo’s counterparts being weaker than their global equivalent.
With darkness truly falling and some reasonably hefty queuetimes for those weaker counterparts, decided to go for a basically walk-on night-time Jungle Cruise.
Couldn’t actually remember whether I’d done this version before. As with all, it lives and dies a bit on the performance and enthusiasm of the driver and on this day they were just ok. If anything there were a couple of seemingly local super fans on board providing some extra energy.
Then it goes inside and does exciting cave scenes like I thought only the Hong Kong one has over it’s rivals. Hmm, maybe I haven’t done this before.
S’alright.
Definitely done this before, but can never say no to Pirates of the Caribbean. Scale and substance, truly one of the greats.
Also bagged a cheeky Star Tours for a final ride of the night and trip. It has so many different potential story sequences at this point as they keep updating it, so always fun to see what happens.
This occasion covered a full breadth of Star Wars history, from old mate Hoth to the space whales in the Ahsoka streaming series. Appreciate how up to date they keep it.
Headed out before the masses did from the show, straight into an unbearably long travel sequence of late night flight, layover and Heathrow sucking ass. The things we do for entertainment.
Summary
Total prefectures – 12 + China New creds – 38 New dark rides – 12 New parks – 13 New Togos – 5 Best new coaster – Ultra Twister Best coaster – Fujiyama Best new dark ride – Frozen Best new park – Rusutsu Spites – 3/41 (7.32%) plus SLC self-spite.
Successful trip overall, made me happy and want to return as soon as possible. Nothing spectacular on the coaster front, but there’s not a whole lot I can do about that at this point, sadly. Apologies.
Personally it was great to tick off some personal coaster legends, catch up with some Disney dark rides and generally just take things a bit more chill than usual. Relatively. For me.
Jumped on a train to Yokohama the next morning for a bit of a revenge run.
Day 12 – Yokohama Cosmo World – The Revenge
2018, Yokohama. Both the coasters in the main complex were closed for ‘the track being wet’ and the park were being shady about if and when they would reopen.
We only managed to nab the banana coaster over the road and then, 5 miles up the road rode Wet Bandit, an attraction that laughed in the face of wet track. Spitey place.
Thankfully #1 Diving Coaster Vanish was running this time, in 40°C, so finally got to tick it off the list.
The signature diving moment doesn’t really amount to much on board, particularly with dodgy restraints, it’s just visually spectacular.
The part you don’t often get to see – exit of the vanish, above a street.
What I didn’t expect is Giovanala hyper levels of prolonged crushing positive forces in the final helix, so that added a bit of character to the ride. Wasn’t paying twice out of principle though.
Also on top of the central building is the #2 Spinning Coaster, which was poor.
It took about 3 hairpins into the second, lower set of hairpins before the spin was unlocked, the latest I’ve ever known this happen, by which point I had assumed it was one of these that just doesn’t spin at all.
Didn’t spin much after that anyway, so it’s just janky and rubbish.
Creds complete, still not a fan of the place.
Cup Noodle Museum
Over the road is the cup noodle museum, not to be confused with the ramen museum. Yes, they have both.
Entrance to the museum itself was cheap and easy, though it had some convoluted time slot system for the ‘make your own cup noodle’ activity that it’s likely more famous for. Upon inspection, this seemed massively overcrowded and unpleasant. You can do the exact same thing and far more intimately at Yomiuriland, next to the cup noodle rapids ride, so I’d recommend that instead.
Museum starts with this. Yep, that’s a lot of noodles.
Then there’s a cinema bit that talks about the history of the guy who invented them.
It’s all done in a slightly jarring, curated fashion that leaves a lot of questions unanswered and seemingly wants to paint the image of this mythical, untouchable figure. But they also have him as an animated character getting up to shenanigans so it’s quite endearing.
Then you see his house.
Then there’s some pretentious abstract stuff.
He helped invent space noodles at the age of 90, so that’s cool I guess.
Then it ends. It was ok.
Asakusa
Another tourist trap.
Famed for decorative temples contrasting against modern skyscrapers. And there’s a massive market full of souvenir rubbish.
Out the back of it though is
Hanayashiki
Turns out this place can, in a way, rip you off if you come in the evening. They stop doing a paid entry with pay per ride option and instead offer a ‘cheaper’ wristband deal. But this deal still costs more than paid entry and a couple of pay per rides would usually, which was a bit of a spite for my specific requirements.
Forced me to do the trash ghost train Thriller Car at least, which was trash.
Then Japan’s oldest #3 Roller Coaster had a bit of a sweaty queue, so only got to do it once anyway.
Trains are great, cushy and open.
And it gets pretty violent. Great setting again, dipping up and down, in and out of the old buildings that surround the perimeter.
The climax is a particularly wild drop through another building and then airtimes you into the station, which is also the only brake section, at high speed.
Good bit of Togo history, goes out on a bang.
Headed over to the Tokyo Skytree for shopping reasons, not Skytree reasons.
Heading back south again now, the journey took us through the part of Fukushima prefecture closest to the location of the nuclear disaster in 2011, which the area is still recovering from. Evidence of this can still be noted by regular signs on the motorway displaying the current radiation levels which, reassuringly or otherwise, are less than an average day in London.
Day 11 – Kamine Park
First park of the day had a worrying stillness in the air. Not a single ride operated from driving past the entrance, parking, applying copious amounts of sun cream in the car for 10 minutes and then walking to the ticket desk.
As such my first question was ‘is the rollercoaster running?’ The response was a positive one, so paid up and headed in.
No sooner had we set foot inside the place, the coaster dispatched with guests on. Like magic.
#1 Dream Coaster is a medium-sized jet coaster with a great location and a bee on the front. It begins with a decently forceful terrain turn that got me wet somehow.
Before heading off into the skyline for some more hard cornering. Decent fun, and lap bars were appreciated of course.
Stopped for a drink as it felt mean on the place to be done so quickly. Next.
Pleasure Garden
Further along the coast is this big resort, which includes an amusement section.
Beelined the #2 Banana Coaster first, which wins the award for friendliest ride-op of the trip.
Then the bigger coaster at the back, #3 Wood Land Jet Coaster. There are some pretty cool shots of this ride that make it look a tad more impressive than it actually is. Track poking above the treeline and disappearing into nothing, it’s a good effect.
This happens out of the first drop, but overall it’s a fair bit less significant than I had anticipated and wasn’t particularly standout in any way. Just more simple fun.
Another one of these shooting dark rides next in Legend of Salamander. Sometimes they properly gamify the scoring system and you can win a prize, which this one was doing, and we won.
The prize is a nice shiny coin with the logo of the ride on one side and the park on the other. The intention is for you to then put this in a machine in exchange for a trading card. Kept the coin as it seems a far better souvenir than a piece of paper.
Spotted a few questionable attractions in passing that needed checking out. One was designated as a ‘VR coaster’ but it just uses a short piece of straight rail to give the illusion of being a cred.
Another was a 4D cinema but it just had cheap swivel stools in a room.
Lastly was an actual dark ride discovery, Smog Kingdom Great Adventure.
It’s another interactive one, but more AR style. You point a handheld tablet screen thing in the direction of different parts of the scenery and then little mould monsters appear on the screen that you have to tap and destroy. It also had a prize for beating a score, but we lost. In typical fashion, interacting with the screen also meant I took in almost none of the scenery. Turns out there are multiple versions of this particular ride found throughout Japan.
Job done, it was then time to head back into Tokyo and drop off the car, made more difficult by severe delays from a traffic accident and expensive detours.
Our next destination was the city of Sendai, which is home to
Day 10 – Benyland
Car park is a bit of a tease here as it places you in front of a service gate that would provide incredibly convenient access to the park.
Instead you have to trudge a significant distance around the perimeter, Magic Mountain style.
This does eventually grant you a more picturesque entrance, if you don’t then mind the stairs.
First coaster we came across was the #1 Mini Cyclone, the one and only known extant coaster from Midgety Engineering. That’s a win.
Lots of weird history here, such as the trains which came from a Hoei Sangyo ride at the now defunct Toshimaen in Tokyo.
And if you look further into Midgety, they were responsible for constructing a few big names like Titan MAX at Space World, all deceased now.
They still sell bins for your park on their website though.
Oh, the ride, functional.
Next was one of these plane things, #2 Aero 5. Also functional.
Main draw for the visit was the #3 Yagiyama Cyclone, Excalibur’s smaller sibling.
Panda height gauge is an appreciated touch.
As an Arrow ‘mine train’ with a wild first drop it kinda lives and dies on that first moment, which is pretty wild in the back.
The remainder of the layout is far less notable, but still gives you something to think about. Bit of poke, bit of interaction.
Sadly the last cred is another Arrow.
But at least this #4 Cork Screw ran in an acceptable fashion. No headaches today.
Park complete. Nice place, very chill, cheap, and mildly interesting.
Sendai
Headed into Sendai for some shopping shenanigans, including Pokemon centre and some poxy challenge to find all the posters in a mall, except one was in another mall, a massive walk away through burning sun, all just to get a piece of paper that says well done.
A more interesting part was our arrival at the car park, which I didn’t realise was one of those magic automated ‘car goes up in an elevator and gets stacked away by machine’ things. The process was so sudden and unanticipated and I regret not getting a picture.
Another building here has a free observation deck, so headed up to that.
To see this.
Apparently this Zunda Shake is a thing in Sendai. Bean flavour, but a fair bit nicer than that may sound.
Matsushima
Then headed out of the city to a town called Matsushima.
Matsushima bay is famed for having around 260 islands in it.
Another morning, another jet coaster. This park is right next to a massive stadium and shares the car park, which was surprisingly full at bang on opening time.
Even though there were only about 3 guests on park.
This particular #1 Jet Coaster is cute for looking like a toy shinkansen. And the fact that it had nothing but a seatbelt was also a pleasant surprise.
A very spread out layout, improved all the more for having hundreds of kids at the academy across the road all waving at the train as it goes past.
Nothing else of note here, tick.
Nasu Highland
Here’s a park of note though, equal biggest of the trip for pure cred potential.
Known for its glorious mess of multi-coloured coaster track, which we headed down to first.
Sadly this area doesn’t quite have the magic it once did, with the loss of ‘the green one’, there’s now only blue, yellow and red intertwined.
The yellow one was also closed all day, though they repeatedly sent test laps.
From where I was standing it looked like the spin these cars were picking up was borderline dangerous, so maybe that’s why.
#2 Big Boom first then, a name with a certain degree of legendary status that’s been living in my head forever.
Entirely for that drop, which is just way steeper than any hardware like this usually goes. And the panoramic turnaround before it I guess.
There is a bit of a lurch to it, albeit an uncomfortable one given the shoulder restraints, more like a Gerstlauer Eurofighter first drop than an airtime machine.
Then there’s a loop.
Then a corner and it ends, hitting their weird friction tyre brakes at like 50Mph on a downhill slope and providing a potent smell of burning rubber.
It’s a thing.
The red one is one of many camel-related jet coasters, #3 Camel Coaster.
Was great, incredible views in the outbound direction heading just over the tips of the trees, looking over miles of forests, mountains and nothing else.
Quite forceful as well, some of the oddly banked turns giving a bit of lateral whip, rather fun and not too uncomfortable. Best ride here probably.
Back up the hill a bit is the rare #4 Batflyer. Struggled to climb into it as you have to straddle the seat through some fabric and that required a bit of contortion.
Then my head was very, very close to the bat’s decorative ass, which was very hard and unforgiving. So I spent the entirety of the ride trying to stay as low as possible in order to not bump it.
Layout does a grand total of 0, while overly blocking itself at every (one) opportunity. The spinning one at Skyline Park is superior in every way.
Next was the SLC, #5 F² Fright Flight, which was absolute trash. I’ve reached the point where I don’t expect too much of a beating from these, thinking the worst is behind me and they’re not that bad. They are, they really are. It’s not the headbanging, it’s the violent shaking as it tracks so roughly. Awful.
Moving swiftly on, they’ve got a mostly-indoor powered coaster with some scenes. #6 Shinpi was very popular given the shade, so had the longest queue of the day. Have I complained about how hot it was yet?
Starts off very sedate in the first bit, then trundles outside for a bit of waving shenanigans. Then you head back in and get eaten by a frog and suddenly the ride goes crazy fast and out of control for about 15 seconds. S’alright.
Couple of dark rides next, beginning with Curse of Dark Castle.
Liked this one, scary omnimover with some elevation changes and haunted stuff going on. There’s not enough mid-tier dark rides in mid-tier Japanese parks like this, and it’s quite old and got a bit of character to it.
Just next door is the dinosaur themed Dino World, which had an onboard screen with quiz.
Didn’t understand a word so had to guess, got a grand total of 1 question correct, which moved us out of the bottom ranking. Like the shooters, it kinda distracts from actually looking at the ride though.
Last cred was a powered dragon, but it’s #7 Woopy Coaster, the park’s mascot.
Glorious.
The wild mouse type coaster behind it was also closed all day. 2 spites in total, and pretty much the only traditional ones of the trip, as we shouldn’t count breaking a conveyor belt lift hill.
Don’t begrudge them that badly as in the absence of these parks every getting anything new, it’s an excuse to return if in the region again, assuming the rides aren’t just fully cooked.
Nice enough place overall, if a little tired. Good scenery, bit of quirk, weird obsession with dogs.
Then we went to a cheese garden, a brand name for some upmarket restaurant, cafe and shop that likes cheese.
Bade farewell to Fuji-san the following morning and headed deeper into the mountains.
Day 8 – Shirakaba Resort
This place was another inspiration for the trip, though unfortunately more in sentiment than execution.
They had the last remaining Togo Bobster, but it closed at the end of last year. RIP.
Still got something to do though, in the form of this funky looking #1 Shirakaba Wood Coaster.
A wood coaster in name only, it didn’t do a whole lot beyond a slight punch in the launch.
Looks more interesting than it turned out to be. +1.
I had got the impression from the website that there was a lot more to this park, but it turns out that their other listed attractions are spread across the ‘resort’ with different entrances, tickets and even separately paid car parks, which is an oddly inconvenient setup. As such the actual amusement bit was probably the worst value of any on the trip. Ah well, have to try these things.
Tateshina Teddy Bear Museum
Passing on animals, as we’ve done those, walked down the road to the teddy bear museum.
Does what it says on the tin.
Had a little interactive game in which you had to spot certain ones in certain scenes in order to win a prize, so that was nice.
As was their concept of a bear UN.
Onwards. Couple of hours back out of the mountains and skirting around the north of Tokyo was this place
Kezoji Park
At least that’s what it used to be called.
Another odd setup here, the coaster isn’t through the park entrance.
Instead you have to cross a road away from the car park to get to it, and a log flume if you so desire.
#2 Cosmic Express is a standard jet coaster affair. Looks cool, doesn’t do a whole lot. +1.
There is a dark ride in the main bit, one of these very common Senyo sideways omnimoving shooter attractions with overcomplicated names like Super Shooting Ride (Monsta X Heroes 3D).
Standard shooting dark ride affair. Looks cool, but you aren’t looking because you’re shooting. +1.
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.
Picked a car up the following morning in order to, sort of, escape Tokyo. Didn’t have massively solid plans for the day, just a sprinkling of potential +1s here and there, and the main focus ended up being to simply not die from heat exhaustion.
First establishment was down on a little southern peninsula, about an hours drive out. Noticed it pop up on coast2coaster and that it had no photos, so for the good of the community…
Day 6 – Nagai Uminote Park Soleil Hill
The place is free to enter and has a range of other activities. Main focus seems to be on general wellbeing, seeing some animals, touching some grass, playing in some water, a nice escape from the mad metropolis.
Tucked away in one corner is a small amusement section that I assume has been around a while, with some views out over the sea.
But the coaster is brand new so, you’re welcome. Picked up a couple of ride tickets from an automated machine under the ferris wheel and hopped on.
After becoming the most popular animal on the internet, it seems they jumped on the bandwagon here in creating #1 Capybara Coaster, a change from the old faithful dragons we’ve come to know and love.
Interestingly the front car was closed off and, from the second car, you could see through the shell of the footwell and into the ‘engine’/cogs/power system for the train inside it’s brain, so I guess the custom moulding didn’t go exactly to plan.
Elsewhere they have a very chill petting zoo, where you can meet the real deal and get kicked by a kangaroo. Too hot for that thankfully.
And this lot.
Nice place, grabbed an ice cream and headed out.
I remembered the next park was a bit of a pain to get to by train before, so also had it on the ‘with car’ hitlist.
Yomiuriland
Downside is that you don’t get to ride the cablecar across the park if you enter via the car park, but been there and done that, wanted to just be in and out as efficiently as possible for the sake of self preservation.
Hit the record for the trip on the drive to the park at an eye watering 41°C. This had me worried at the entrance to the park as it seemed the gates were closed, with a large crowd stuck outside them. Have they (sensibly) deemed it too hot to theme park?
Asked for clarification at the ticket desk and it turns out I’d just rocked up seconds before 3pm, at which point they had a cheap afternoon deal on, so everyone was just being held back for that. Sweet, I’ll take one of those please.
Thus one of my favourite parks in Japan was offensively under-priced.
Once inside, headed straight to what I knew as the new cred, #2 Lipovitan Rocket☆Luna, the weird Gerstlauer family suspended thing that very much suits this place. Had about a 30 minute wait (as advertised), but in a beautifully air-conned building, so all good.
Queueline has a bit of storyline setup, but most of it went over my head. Bad robots show up and pink power ranger shouts for help to blue power ranger, so loud that it carries through space.
The coaster itself is partially interactive, as you’re encouraged to scream or clap at certain key moments and then your train gets given a score on the final brakes. This is mainly on audio cue as the show building doesn’t really contain much of anything visually striking. You just sort of waft around some disco lights and sounds in a rather awkward layout that seems to not know what to do with itself. Kinda like the fashion themed spinning coaster across the way.
I had forgotten the details of the installation and was hoping for a launched lift or something to spice things up a bit, but there’s just two chain lifts, the second leading to the little outdoor fly by and then ending a tad slow as the station is elevated.
S’alright.
The actual newest coaster, though we use the term loosely here, was #3 Dino Runner. It’s a weird little powered contraption that barely, barely seems to be affected by gravity.
Trains are fun, as you can be seated on carnivores, herbivores or in a 3-adult-wide mine cart, all of which rhythmically rock back and forth during the layout.
It goes round a volcano, bit of smoke, bit of a water effect at the end, so all tarted up rather nicely. Just a complete non-event in terms of hardware. Good for a little cooldown.
You know what else is good for a cooldown. Wet Bandit.
This ride, specifically the summer upgrade that gets you wet, was life-changing on my first visit. On a day that had been riddled with rain-related spite, because ‘tracks were wet’, this 250ft monstrosity of a jet coaster was actively soaking everyone and itself by means of geysers, ridiculously powerful water jets hidden in forests and general summer party vibes.
It still delivered all of that on this occasion, though this time themed to anime babies and it’s remained an insane coaster to experience. The layout is just so weird, but weirdly good, starting out with the epic views from the top and a huge drop into some intense corners.
The highlights though are heading out into valleys and plains that feel miles from the station at that point, a true terrain coaster. The second half is interspersed with surprisingly good airtime hills, considering the restraints, age of it etc. These old Togos really are something special.
They were running it super efficiently for Japan too, two trains and all. Also upgraded the loose item system from ‘here’s a weird canvas sack for your stuff, stick that under your feet’ to free lockers. Ok, maybe that’s more boring and less quirky, but an upgrade to most.
Headed out just as an epic thunderstorm rolled in and evacuated the extremely sweaty water park, so that was good timing which then provided a very atmospheric drive out into the mountains. Pleased with the flying visit overall. +2 and some love to a legend of the industry. Great park.
The following morning we flew to Tokyo, with the only real highlight being that the aircraft safety video contained Pokémon.
Train to the hotel was giving lovely weather reports on the screens, implying that the whole upcoming week was completely cooked. It included a safety rating system, of which we were on the highest (or lowest) as the heat was deemed a significant risk to human life. Can’t escape it.
Didn’t have much planned for the day, so wisely spent most of it in air-conned malls and trains, seeing some sights and doing some shopping.
In the evening however, I did have tickets booked for
Day 5 – Tokyo Disneysea
All business here. They had 3 new dark rides and we had 4 hours in which to do them, thanks to the fact that they now offer cheap entry after 5pm. Seemed like a fun idea and a good challenge. Wasn’t a huge fan of the Tokyo resort before, not least for their handling of other weather related incidents. But also a general soullessness, lacklustre versions of rides, busyness and overhyping.
Wasn’t overly pleased to learn that they now offer paid one-shot fast track on every major attraction and it absolutely tanks throughput for everyone else.
Powered straight through the park and into the new Disney Springs land then, past the iconic volcano in scaffolding and a closed Indiana Jones. Indy was in fact the main motivator behind choosing this particular day to visit. It was down for a long scheduled maintenance starting the following day, but had broken down today anyway, so that was another meaningless decision among many.
Mercifully all of the restricted entry rubbish that this place once had is now over and done with. Mental maths dictated that Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure was to be up first.
Pre-show happened on these screens, introduced to the lost boys. Kid with the glasses needs saving from Captain Hook. Nothing new here.
Boarded the cool boat looking things and flew off around various stuff.
It’s an odd one, a 4D motion-based dark ride that marks a closer Disney attempt at a Spiderman/Transformers equivalent (not their own Spiderman, which might be their worst thing ever). The motions themselves are much less violent, inevitably, and thus it spends a lot of the time acting like a mini flying theatre in front of a sequence of screens. Great for an Asian audience in that regard, they love a flying theatre.
This is all well and good, just a little underwhelming amongst their later streak of attractions. The most effective parts for me were some interesting visual transitions into and out of the screens, to and from physical scenery. There’s about 15% of the Shanghai Pirates effect in there, in that it feels magical and disorienting but then the media was just quite boring and easy for me to check out on.
I just don’t know why it’s Peter Pan at this point. They have his ride over in the other park. There’s no new story, just repeating the same old classics. Walk the plank, crocodile, you can fly, you can fly, Big Ben. End. Oh and it has glasses, which I had completely forgotten that until writing this, so they added nothing.
My most hopeful theory is that this is a testing ground for a much more violent and impressive version of the hardware that is yet to come. Maybe we can feel like we’ve had a few rounds with Thanos on it.
Alternatively people will just eat up anything in these parks at this point, so there’s no need to care.
Moving swiftly on, Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey had the biggest queue of course. The queue was extended out beyond the entrance and had staff members with signs to highlight >>>this is the back of the queue<<<, all that fun stuff.
Though I don’t consider myself to be the biggest of Frozen fans, it is from right about my peak era of consuming that type of media, enough to have seen it more than once and know and enjoy a number of the songs anyway.
As such there was a bit of a special moment for me shortly after joining the back of the queue and taking in the admittedly impressive surroundings, as the intro song from the first film hit in the background. Disney magic still exists, in places. Tastefully they continued to play instrumental versions of other tunes throughout the area and as we, eventually, headed indoors.
Queue contains an interesting collection of stuff, set mostly within the castle when they were kids. Then you get on some boats. Then god damn.
I’ve always been spoiler averse, but additionally in my business-like mode of making decisions to visit theme parks currently – well they’ve got something new, guess I’ll go ride it – this attraction just wasn’t on my radar of things to get excited about. I’m not sure anything actively is these days.
Which can be a blessing when something comes and blows you away. This attraction hit for me on every level. Not only on visuals, songs, nostalgia, but the more geeky technical stuff of dark ride systems like the precision timing of specific show sequences, with boats.
It’s got wow moments, it’s got scary moments, it’s got aww moments and it’s everything the shoehorned Epcot version wasn’t. Loved it. I’ve got no specific data to back it up, but in my head it’s ‘top 5 Disney ride, that.’
With hours on the clock fading fast, there was just Rapunzel’s Lantern Festival left to do.
This is also of that era for me, so had a modicum of expectation to live up to, even though I knew it was supposedly the lesser of the attractions here.
It starts outside, drifting past a massive version of the tower with Rapunzel singing from all the way up the top. Sense of scale here is pretty impressive for a ‘dark ride’, even more for an outdoor portion of one, however that may work.
Then you go inside and get a lovely rendition of I See the Light, surrounded by all the lanterns and stuff. Then it ends.
Cute and all, but diabolically short. Glad the queue had reduced to almost nothing for the night and anyone who fast-tracks it for the same price as other rides should probably feel ripped off.
Mission complete and basically everything in the park was closed at this point.
Except Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage. The unloved ride of the park. Well I love it at least, it’s very much my thing. Goes on literally forever in comparison to what we had just ridden, while he contently sings variations on the same tune, in a happy tone, about all his crazy adventures.
It’s also just much more visually impressive than it gets credit for I feel. This ain’t no small world. Great ride, second best of the night.
And that was Disneysea. I do kinda vibe with the evening ticket idea, works well with the city location and is very good value for money. When Florida is trying to charge me £1100 a head to go back and force me to stay for a minimum of 2 weeks, popping out of Tokyo for £20 and getting some quality dark rides in is perfect for the seasoned visitor that doesn’t need to spend 15 years planning every second of their 15 hour day on park, hating both life and their bank account. Just wish the queues were better.
The main event on Hokkaido is Rusutsu Resort, which we arrived at the following morning after navigating this mountain.
Day 4 – Rusutsu Resort
I had specifically saved this visit for a weekend day, in what the park themselves designated as peak season, in the hopes of minimal spite, so it was time to see if that worked out. Interestingly they charge you for the car park on a peak day, but not off-peak.
The entrance is like a hotel lobby, weirdly, and contains this tree near the ticket desk.
Bit of a European vibe all round in the indoor bit.
Which then leads outside to a long walk up a big hill. Very pretty though.
I was, semi-tactically heading to the top of the hill first, past this area which was unfortunately all closed. Think that might have been the last in the set of first generation Intamin drop towers for me.
What wasn’t closed, and hidden round the corner in some trees, was the reason I came.
Yes, it’s the legendary #1 Ultra Twister with the dive loop instead of the mid-course reversal. Beautiful.
What I had never considered in knowing about this one is how it does take care of the direction change. Immediately after leaving the station there’s a little turntable that spins you round and backs you out in preparation for the vertical lift. It’s so over-complicated and unnerving and ahead of its time and it makes me happy.
I also don’t remember, or it’s more exaggerated here, but the restraint system is terrifying in itself. The shoulder part is super wide, so a more narrow human, such as their target audience, could easily just turn a bit and slip out if they so wished. Then there’s a ‘lap’ bar which is barely the width of one leg, so made no contact with my legs at all and, again, you could just sort of straddle yourself past it if you so wished.
Anyway, this made it all the more exciting with the layout, which starts with two moments of legitimate, scary airtime. Then the entry to the famed dive loop is super sustained, providing hangtime into the restraint that barely functions.
Then, because there’s no braking in this configuration, it absolutely flies through the heartline rolls at the end, which is super intense and a little painful on the shoulders as it hurls you around. Worth it though.
Got my fill of this fabulous thing before moving on, suddenly feeling a bit emotional about it as the reality hit me that any lap on one of these could be the very last, particularly with this being the only unique layout. My namesake rides don’t feel long for this world, with another slated for removal and this one tucked away up in the trees at the back of the park with almost zero footfall. Sad.
Moving further down the hill we hit this Jungle Mouse type thing in #2 Go Go Sneaker.
Was alright, single file seating for that extra poke and reasonably efficiently operated.
Then off to the right was the park’s signature Jet Coaster in #3 Mountain Jet Coaster.
Bit smaller than Hokkaido Greenland’s finest and back to the more usual affair of having a lack of any real forces, which is fine. Lovely views.
Not sure what this was from, old trains of a still existing coaster here.
This coaster is gone though.
Down in the back corner is another terrific Togo. Standard #4 Standing Coaster with the one loop, the only one left now since Yomiuriland got rid of theirs. Sad.
Still the best standups in the genre for actually standing you up, and instilling the fear of that into you. I should probably reserve judgment on that until I try the new B&M version I guess, but it’s B&M so I’m confident in the statement.
Park has a serious issue with guest flow it seems. All of these rides that are slightly out of the way were getting no guests at all.
And then I queued over an hour for this stupid #5 Loop the Loop, which is bang in the middle of the park, on the main path. One of the infinite reasons it took so long is that they weren’t filling all the rows for some reason. Maybe speed / heat?
First time I’ve managed to do one of this model at least, the Meisho reverse shuttle loop. Was quite forceful even without the full train, but rode pretty poorly for a straight line. A step below the Togos for sure.
The other ride bang in the middle of the park, on the main path, directly opposite, was the Vekoma SLC. This was originally slated as down for maintenance, which I was happy about, but then it opened, to my dismay. Regardless, the queue was pure unshaded misery, non-moving with 7-10 minute train dispatches and I’m overdue on moaning about how hot it was again, so I didn’t want to be dealing with that.
Instead walked straight into the train of the Arrow #6 Corkscrew directly behind it. There’s such a serious bottleneck in this park, and it’s nothing to do with the quality of the rides, just physical location, sightlines and guests being sheep.
The ride was absolute trash and gave me a disgusting headache. I’ve already said it once in the past few months, but I’ll say it again. Some old coasters should be treasured and saved, we’ve just seen a handful of them. These should not. These aren’t it.
So to clear that, we jumped on the cable car which you can add as an extra to your park ticket for a few quid.
It takes you up the mountain to look at the other mountain.
And a lake.
Headache cleared.
I had a different kind of headache brewing though, driven purely by my unhealthy obsessions. Hokkaido Greenland. Didn’t finish it. Last day in Hokkaido. We can still make it.
The sacrifice to be made here was skipping the hour+ queue and heatstroke for the SLC in order to revisit the other park, thus not finishing this park. So it was all a bit daft, but an easy decision to make.
So that was Rusutsu. Beautiful place, great value, very chill. Worth it for Ultra Twister and some other rare oddities, but needs a dark ride and, like all these Japanese parks these days, something actually new and good. Hit the shuttle loop and SLC first seems to be the best play if you come, and care.
The other advantage of leaving early was the opportunity to drive round this lake.
Hokkaido Greenland, again
Same drill as before, rocked up with just enough time for the parking attendant to be concerned, and then let us in for free.
Knew exactly what I was doing with entry and ride tickets this time though.
Started out on the other kiddie cred, Torokko Coaster. Would have been set complete for the only known Takahashi Kikai Sangyo coaster in the world, but disaster struck.
It rounded the corner and hit the lift hill, then at the literal second I was contemplating and remarking about how the lift was a conveyor belt, it broke. E-stopped dead.
The operator came running over, shouting, and immediately pulled a piece of said conveyor belt from straight underneath us and the train. It was gone.
He then whipped a ladder out and row by row we evacuated through the ride area, climbing over the track in the process. Quite the experience, but not the one I came for.
Severely spited, headed up the hill to the last cred, #7 Dragon King. Another horrible corkscrew coaster but this time a local one from Senyo.
It was also awful, in a different way. No headaches, but a nasty self tightening restraint that just got worse and worse as the course and forces went on, to the point that I was extremely pinned and uncomfortable by the final brakes, in a half-panicked claustrophobic kinda way. Not good.
The Great Haunted House might have my new favourite façade, but it delivered nothing on what it promised.
Just an underwhelming ghost train in a hot box.
Obviously the broken coaster wasn’t back, though I checked their website for a laugh where they had it listed as ‘closed for special circumstances.’ Nice.
So that was that for the day. In the end I traded 1 awful coaster for another awful coaster, and failed to complete both parks, with an extra few hours driving on top. But at least the trade was locally built. We’ve got Vekoma at home.
Got what I came for though, Ultra Twister, Crazy Mouse and GO-ON are the real deal. And seals. That’s it from Hokkaido, off to the mainland.
