ONCE hailed as Japan’s own Disneyland, this theme park was left to rot for over a decade with empty rides and crumbling castles painting a horror picture.
Nara Dreamland was supposed to be the country’s most popular adventure attraction, but all it could become was an eerily abandoned site filled with rot and dust.
5
5
5
Nara Dreamland was opened in 1961 and was based on the original Disneyland in California, which had opened just six years before.
The theme park was heavily copied from the California-based site – it featured copies of Main Street USA, Sleeping Beauty Castle, Autopia, Matterhorn and Jungle Cruise.
From the above, the layout of the park seemed identical to that of the original Disneyland – even the entrance castle looked the same.
The park also had its own mascots Ran-chan and Dori-chan – just like Disney’s Mickey Mouse – which were two children dressed as bearskin guards.
During the initial years, Nara was at the peak of its popularity, attracting over 1.7 million visitors a year.
But after The Walt Disney Company closed a deal to bring its theme park to Japan, things started to fall apart for Nara.
As the Tokyo Disneyland opened its gates in 1983, visitors to Nara slowly began to decrease since most people wanted to visit the original site.
And after Universal Studio opened its theme park next to Tokyo Disneyland in the early 2000s, people forgot Nara completely.
After failing to attract even the most minimal amount t of visitors, the ambitious theme park started to crumble down.
By 2004, the park began to decline in quality – stores started to shut down, some attractions began to rust, and service trucks would be left abandoned with no one using them.
Nara finally shut down its gates in 2006 – and was eventually demolished in 2016 for good.
5
5