Why There Are No Large-Scale Theme Parks for Japanese Content ← Since No One Seems to Know, I'll Explain

First of all, large-scale theme parks require enormous budgets for construction and maintenance. You have to recoup the costs over several decades.

The reason Disneyland is successful is because it deals with universal themes. It sets up theme lands that everyone around the world, young and old, can admire, such as the world of fairy tales and the world of adventure. The basic plan is to fill these lands with attractions based on universal themes like jungle exploration or space travel.

The name "Disneyland" refers to the land created by Mr. Walt Disney, not a country of Disney content. It's like Mori Building. Specific characters or movie-themed attractions like Mickey Mouse or Pixar only exist as side elements in Disneyland. Even if they are popular initially, they tend to close and get replaced quickly due to trends.

On the other hand, trying to create a theme park based on Japanese anime or games is unrealistic. You can't draw a universal foundation for a large-scale theme park, so you can't secure repeat visitors over decades. Moreover, if the latest anime or game hits, it can sustain the park while it's popular, but once it ends, the attraction also ends. You'd have to constantly replace a large number of attractions permanently. If the new attraction fails, you'll be in debt.

This is why there are no large-scale domestic theme parks in Japan. Probably no one else has realized this but me.

So, what are you saying?

Summarize it in three lines.

Too long, octopus.

The Jews are putting pressure on it.

People already noticed, that's why Nijigen no Mori rotates Japanese content.

Ghibli Park.

>>8
That doesn't look like a large-scale theme park at all. It's more like the Harry Potter Studio Tour.

Where’s the image of the pumps on tatami?

Globally, the two major theme parks are Disneyland and Universal Studios (including adjacent second parks). But actually, Universal Studios doesn't have as much management power as Disneyland.

Why? Because it's a movie theme park. The attractions are basically tied to movies, so they "age" faster than Disneyland's, making investment costs high and recovery difficult.

Let's say you made a theme park with only Japanese content. Universal anime like Doraemon or GeGeGe no Kitaro are mostly known only by Japanese people, so they lack international appeal. Next, the ones known by Westerners are Dragon Ball or Famicom games, so they only appeal to the generation that was young in the 1980s to early 90s, making it local to people in their 50s. Otaku anime is known only to otaku, and kids' shows are known only to kids. It’s a dead end.

In Disneyland's case, the basic concept transcends generations and borders, so it has widespread appeal.

Universal Studios has only succeeded in its home country, the U.S. Osaka almost went bankrupt and had to shift to a "non-original" route, and Singapore is like a small trial version with only the main essence (a risk hedge so they don’t incur debt if it fails).

Nikko Edo Wonderland?

>>14
That's just a theme park. It's not a "large-scale theme park." The scale difference between Disneyland and that is like comparing an Aeon Mall to a local grocery store.

Doraemon is only known by Japanese people…?

Wouldn’t it work with Nintendo?

>>16
Nope, Mario Land at USJ is the limit.

So why does Universal Studios work in the U.S.? Because Americans are a movie-loving nation, movie tickets are cheap, and they are much more familiar with movies than Japanese people, with many having a special attachment to movies.

Moreover, the theme lands are divided into concepts of various American cities like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, allowing for a pseudo-national tour.

It’s actually a theme park that appeals to American nationalism.

In short, it’s because the anime sells worldwide and has a unified style. Don’t explain such an obvious thing at length.

>>21
You didn’t summarize it at all and completely misunderstood. I’m talking about how Disneyland can function without Mickey Mouse…

>>23
Your summary is quite off. My summary is probably correct.

>>33
You fundamentally don’t understand the argument, so it’s not a summary. Zero points.

>>35
Your after-the-fact argument is meaningless. Debate over.

>>37
I’m talking about the argument I made in >>1. What do you mean by "after-the-fact"?

>>39
You didn’t argue anything. Debate over.

>>41
That’s you. Wipe your tears.

>>43
No one in Japan would interpret 1 as 23. Try asking everyone here. Debate over.

>>46
1.2 billion people can understand it. You’re the only one without reading comprehension.

>>48
If you have the confidence to face your incoherence, try it. Debate over.

>>52
Gross.

>>54
Gross is fine, but not trying is bad. Debate over.

For Americans, even if there are some attractions based on movies they don’t know, they can enjoy the pseudo-experience of visiting the theme lands and exploring the major cities of the U.S.

But Japanese people are different. For Japanese people, America is a foreign country, and few have visited. In Osaka, a local city, American culture doesn’t come in as much as in Tokyo, so they can’t understand the differences between New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

That’s why USJ failed once.

What do Star Tours or Big Thunder Mountain have to do with Disney? Now even Indiana Jones is part of Disney.

Universal Studios actually made a V-shaped recovery without Woody Woodpecker.

Go spout your nonsense on X.

Can’t we make it with just Mario and Pokémon?

>>27
That’s what I’m saying is impossible. Mario and Pokémon are "content-based." Japan lacks non-content-based universality.

>>29
Mario has been around since before I was born, so in terms of universality, it’s no different from Mickey.

So why did USJ recover? Because they thoroughly took the "non-original" route. First, they abolished the Western Land. That was a Western movie zone. For Americans, Westerns are like historical dramas for us, a cornerstone. But Japanese people didn’t care, so it didn’t catch on. So they scrapped it.

Then they replaced all the old American movie-themed attractions. ET and BTTF, for example.

For example, the initial mascot of USJ, Woody Woodpecker, was popular in America but a minor character in Japan, known only to those who watched Cartoon Network. So they removed him.

Even American content is "high-context" from the perspective of non-Americans. Japanese content is even more so. That’s why theme parks don’t work.

Hey! Descendant of Takamasa Chisaka!

This guy is just spewing long-winded nonsense by himself. What are you doing on a Saturday? LOL

Disneyland in America attracts people from Canada and South America. Tokyo Disneyland had lots of Chinese visitors even before the inbound tourism boom. In Paris, it’s within the reach of all of Europe.

Large theme parks require high investment, so you need to consider surrounding countries as markets for them to be viable. Japanese content is too high-context and only appeals to otaku or people in their 50s abroad, so it’s a dead end.

You can't make a theme park with just Pokémon or Dragon Quest. If you could, they would have done it already, right?

Disneyland is built on theme lands like Adventureland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. Universal Studios offers a pseudo-American tour with zones themed after New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

So what about a Japanese theme park? You can't even create the "theme" areas. There's no foundational concept to encompass all the content.

Japan has the world-famous BTP, doesn’t it?

For example, if you made a "Japan Land" with theme lands like Tokyo Land, Osaka Land, Fukuoka Land, and Sendai Land.

Would that be fun? Would foreigners understand the differences between the lands?

Let’s go with Sazae-san Land.

>>44
No one outside of Japan knows it, so it’s impossible.

Disneyland has universal attractions with some content-based ones in between.

Universal Studios lacks universal attractions due to its nature, but it compensates with the universality of the pseudo-American tour theme lands. So, in the San Francisco zone, you can take a picture with the famous crab sign replica, for example.

Japanese theme parks can’t create universality. That’s why they don’t work.

There was a limited-time Pokémon Land at the 2005 Aichi Expo, but it couldn’t be made permanent. There was also an Ultraman theme park in the Heisei era, but it closed. That says it all. Content-based attractions will always hit a dead end.

The Tora-san theme park in Kamakura closed in an instant.

The challenge with Japanese content is its high-context nature. Even Gundam is only understood by otaku or men in their 40s. In contrast, Star Wars is for everyone, including Japanese people. Theme parks are for everyone, so high-context content is unfeasible.

Disneyland used to have an attraction called Visionarium, which was based on Jules Verne. DisneySea's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is also based on a Verne novel.

Does Japan have any authors as universally known across time and countries? A Mishima Yukio's Golden Pavilion Burning Ride might be fun though, lol.

>>56
You're making a typical mistake by thinking in the opposite way. Visionarium features H.G. Wells, but also Jules Verne, both non-Americans (Wells is British, Verne is French). Many Disney works are based on foreign (non-American) folklore, fairy tales, and literature. Japan has something similar with World Masterpiece Theater, but even if they cleared the rights issues, they wouldn't make a profit. This isn't because Japan is incompetent, it's also impossible in Germany, Korea, or India. In other words, America and Disney are not universal, they're a special country with a special business that achieved special success.

With the giant Gundam in Yokohama and the Pokémon Park at Expo Aichi, Japan's "limited-time" content trend shows that Japanese content lacks permanence.

If it's Yukio Mishima, let's make an attraction where you can debate with members of the Zengakuren.

You had no one to listen to you, so you had to write it here...

Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion, the trend of turning attractions into movies seen since the 2000s, is an effort to re-convert existing universality into content.

When is Toriyama Land coming? (´・ω・`)

Manga Nihon Mukashibanashi Land

>>62
Hmm, compared to Grimm's Fairy Tales, it lacks universality. Only Japanese people know Momotaro.

Walt Disney was right-wing, but he loved the Russian composer Tchaikovsky. Before Disneyland closes, they always play "Waltz of the Flowers." That's another example of universality. If it were a Disney movie theme song, no one would get excited.

When I went to USJ 20 years ago, they kept replaying "Hooray for Hollywood" at the entrance. It felt like "Sekai Marumie" (Total Global Exposure). Now they apparently keep playing the song from "Enta no Kamisama."

It's not like they haven't made parks with domestic content like Sanrio, but they weren't on the scale of Disney or Universal. Now they're making a Dragon Ball park of the same scale, but in Saudi Arabia.

People often try to find universality in what succeeds globally, but if you think calmly, you'll see. Global success is a special case, the opposite of universal.

Let's make a Ninja and Samurai theme park lol

>>69
Isn't that what Nikko Edomura is?

So basically, Disney sets the theme of their "theme" park as more than just video works, right? I don't feel any universality in Disney stuff though.

This guy's a troll.

This guy is always making far-fetched arguments.