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    Home»Universal Studios Hollywood»Photo Updates»Universal Studios Japan – Part 3 – The Different

    Universal Studios Japan – Part 3 – The Different

    December 19, 2014 Photo Updates By Chris Glass
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    December 19, 2014 – This is part three of our ongoing picture tour of Universal Studios Japan. If you haven’t seem the earlier posts, please read Part 1 and Part 2 first. The last update focused on things you’ve seen before, so naturally today will be all about things that are radically different. Let’s get crackin’!

    Photo Index

    » CityWalk Osaka
    » Hollywood
    » New York
    » Space Fantasy
    » Wonderland

    CityWalk Osaka

    0013

    Before we enter the park proper, I’d figure I’d show their take on CityWalk.

    0010

    It wouldn’t be Japan if it didn’t have unusual stores with bizarre names.

    0012

    But I should restate that Japan loves popcorn. They love it.

    0009

    He’s smaller than in Hollywood, but it’s good seeing a familiar face in a land of so much change.

    0011

    Pretty much the entire left side of CityWalk has these construction walls. They’re decorated with Hollywood hotspots. Supposedly it’s for construction but the locals seem to accept them as permanent since it’s been going on so long.

    0007

    They also use this space to advertise a combination credit card and annual pass. I wonder how that would fare in the states.

    0008

    The construction continues on what is a new hotel.

    0014

    There’s some curious decorations on the pillars. Like CD covers of Boyz II Men albums.

    0005

    Off the straight path to the park is where many other stores are. So let’s go over there instead!

    0006

    Like McDonald’s.

    0004

    It has pretty prominent placement and the line gets busy, as long as it’s later in the day. As you can see now, it’s park opening time, so no one cares about CityWalk.

    0003

    There are other restaurants at CityWalk. A good deal.

    0001

    And there’s a store dedicated to Shonen Jump characters, like One Piece.

    0014

    And just regular clothing stores. It’s pretty darn spacious all things considered.

    P1300658

    And this place assumes I know MOSBURGER. I didn’t. But I do now.

    P1300659

    Pancake Days has… pancakes!

    P1300660

    Little Osaka was a tiny convienence store. Really handy around here.

    P1300661

    Oddly enough, this little guy is somewhat popular in Japan. Cheburashka. He’s actually a Russian cartoon character.

    P1300663

    And I’d venture to say many of the stores at CityWalk cater to females more than males.

    P1300664

    Here’s the other entrance to the Jump Shop, along with a Claire’s. You can’t escape Claire’s.

    P1300669

    There was also an arcade with an okay selection of games. But the entire back half was nothing but these glamor photo booths. It’s like an instant Photoshop for girls. If you’ve ever seen blurry, high-glossy pictures with way too many sparkles and artificially-enlarged eyeballs, this is where they came from.

    01

    Ultimately, their CityWalk is a fun place to walk around.

    Hollywood

    DSC07600

    Let’s wrap up CityWalk and get back into the park! This is vaguely familiar. I guess I’m cheating a little.

    DSC07599

    Inside Animation Celebration is a show I did not have the chance to experience.

    New York

    P1300574

    And while I was visiting during Halloween time, they were very much getting ready for Christmas.

    P1300572

    I had to do a double take when I saw this. It’s the Paradise building, known to Orlando as the home of Revenge of the Mummy. But here in Osaka, it contains The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man.

    P1300573

    Spider-Man probably is far more popular here than The Mummy.

    0015

    In the bottom half of the photo is the Universal Monsters Rock and Roll Show. The top half is the track for their Hollywood Dream coaster. Can you spot Waldo?

    0017

    Outside Mel’s Diner, a breakdancing show takes place. People wait for a long while to get good seats for it. Many of the stores at Universal Studios Japan sell these custom sitting mats. It’s a good alternative to America’s use of beach towels.

    0018

    Their time board shows a lot of information. As you can see, a lot of wait times have a huge range. 280 minutes posted for the backwards version of Hollywood Dream. 270 minutes for Forbidden Journey. 270 minutes. That’s four and a half hours. However, I quickly learned these times are actually a sophisticated system of lies. Anything with a wait time past 120 minutes is actually a complete lie. 100%. Wait times for the Horror Nights mazes said 240 minutes and worked out to under an hour. Forbidden Journey was posted at 180 minutes when I initially rode it and it turned out to be less than half that. My best guess is that Universal Studios Japan uses the numbers here for two reasons. One is to actively discourage guests from going on these rides and try to find something with a shorter wait. The other is to mentally reward people when they get through a wait faster than predicted. But the ultimate take away is that these numbers are all inaccurate and you shouldn’t let them dictate your trip.

    0019

    Now that I finished that rant, I want a beer.

    0020

    If you can’t tell, these are spherical caricatures of Sesame Street characters. This is a churro stand.

    0021

    There’s also a plethora of facades around the park. It feels vaguely realistic and wouldn’t be out of place as a movie set. They even have power poles put up.

    0022

    This alley is one of the main streets used for their parade route. In our final USJ update we’ll cover the Halloween Parade.

    0023

    Even the windows have a lot of detail to look for.

    Space Fantasy

    DSC07560

    Let’s take a look at some other rides. First up is Space Fantasy: The Ride. This ride occupies the old building that ET used to be in. It’s a roller coaster similar to the vehicle used at Knott’s in their Timberline Twister. The ride itself is a mixed bag. It’s very smooth and pretty intense, but some scenes seem quite low budget. The preshow is 100% Japanese with no explanation in any other language. Near as I can tell, a 3-winged robot wants you to collect crystals and meet space angels. It’s quite bizarre. At night however, during Halloween Horror Nights, it becomes a different experience which I’ll re-visit in the final update.

    DSC07581

    Before boarding, you must pretty much strip down everything you have. They want you to carry nothing in with you.

    DSC07582

    The lockers themselves are a simple system. And employ a key you keep with you that stays snug on your wrist.

    DSC07583

    It takes a 100 yen coin to operate, but it’s just a deposit and refunded when you return to the locker.

    Universal Wonderland

    0024

    Shifting gears, we’re going to head over to the kids area. And make no bones about it, this park is all about these three characters here.

    0016

    Each of the three characters has their own gigantic land in here. We’ll start with Snoopy first.

    0025

    And it wouldn’t be a land without a speciality restaurant.

    0026

    And of course they have to have cute kitchen goodies.

    DSC07351

    And equally cute food shaped like Snoopy.

    0027

    As for the rides, they’re typical carnival kid fare. Absurd, but it still brings a smile to the face.

    0062

    But all absurdity aside, I wouldn’t be caught dead waiting over 2 hours to ride it.

    0063

    Inside the giant building is no better on busy days.

    0064

    Meet and greets happen here, but they fill up quickly.

    0065

    Snoopy cartoons play in a weird clip format. Not too many people seemed interested in it.

    DSC07351

    There’s even a roller coaster. And it has a horrendous wait like everything else.

    DSC07441

    To its credit, it has a lot of cute scenes.

    DSC07422

    In many places around the park were these lotteries. You pay $5 for a ticket and stick your hand in the giant plastic ball to pull out a paper. On it is lists what you won. The newsstand shows you could potentially win a suitcase, purse, but most win a washcloth.

    DSC07444

    Much like Chuck E. Cheese, the walls have posters with Snoopy injected into parodies of famous movies.

    DSC07445

    The gift shop has a ton of great merchandise and they went out of their way to decorate it.

    DSC07446

    They also really exploit Snoopy’s siblings. Belle is all over the place.

    DSC07447

    But if you need anything Snoopy, you know where to go.

    02

    There are even Snoopy photo booths with custom frames. And they’re updated seasonally. In the states, something like this would be abandoned and covered in graffiti and carved initials.

    0028

    Following Snoopy is Hello Kitty, someone that’s more native to Japan. (Even though she’s a British girl…)

    0029

    Once again, it follows the same idea of Snoopy Studios with simple rides. Here is a cupcake spinning ride sponsored by Mr. Donut. Virtually every ride is sponsored at this park.

    0030

    The ride vehicles are gorgeous. There’s no other way to put it.

    0031

    But the Hello Kitty area was more focused on merchandise and shopping than rides.

    0032

    The reason there’s no line for this store is because it’s over to the side with a wait you couldn’t imagine.

    DSC07406

    But Sesame Street is the true king of this area. They have more space dedicated to them than the other two combined. It also needs to be said that while the Japanese can line up patiently for virtually everything else at the park, they lose it around costumed characters. It becomes a giant crowded free-for-all that makes any useful photos impossible and only rewards the rude.

    0061

    There is no order to how you get a photo with the characters. You just have to push your way forward and hope the character turns towards you. It’s very discouraging.

    0041

    Outside, Sesame Street is a weird mix. It feels very similar to Legoland. Here they have two different miniature Autopia-style rides strictly for children.

    0042

    Not exactly an E-ticket.

    0043

    But continuing their love affair with popcorn, their buckets are simply adorable.

    0044

    Japan also loves carnival games, with a twist.

    0045

    Whether it’s due to culture or law, you always win something regardless of if you win or lose. And the prizes are exclusive to these locations.

    0046

    So these games often have long waits in hopes of getting something amazing.

    0047

    But the real fun of Sesame Street begins in here. A giant indoor playground.

    0048

    You start off walking by Cookie Monster’s Kitchen with churritos!

    0049

    Cookie crumb covered churros.

    0050

    While the name heavily implies that cookies are involved…

    0051

    The actual menu is completely devoid of any cookies. There’s no way in high heaven that Cookie Monster would eat a single thing on this menu outside of the “Me Love Cookies! Cookie Monster Sundae”.

    0052

    >Past the kitchen is where the hell begins. Here you can just feel the blood pressure rising in all the parents as they struggle to maintain control while kids run wild.

    0053

    This was discussed on our recent podcast. This ride is Elmo’s Bubble Bubble. It’s a “water” ride in as much as there’s water in the loop. This is the single point of action on the entire ride. It goes in a single loop down this one hill.

    0055

    The ride capacity is in the single digits. And the wait time posted was no joke. While my previous rant about inaccurate times applies, the kids ride are an exception. Why?

    0058

    Because all the kid rides have fastpass-style tickets, this artifically inflates the wait time to insane levels.

    0059

    The machines are cute but only operate for so long per day before running out of tickets quickly.

    0060

    Here is a slide into a ballpit. It’s completely lined with parents waiting to get a picture of their kids going down the slide.

    0057

    Outside of actual rides, there are simply just construction areas. Surprisingly it wasn’t as crowded here. While without child, I still felt slightly compelled to play with the blocks simply because they were readily available.

    0054

    In here is Moppy’s Lucky Dance Party. Between shows, it’s a stroller parking lot.

    0056

    I should also note that every trash can in Sesame Street land has letters on it. Every one was different.

    0034

    I spent a while tracking them down. But I don’t think I need to dedicate this update to trash can photos.

    DSC07387

    There’s so much other things at the park I’d rather cover.

    0036

    Their take on Sesame Street is really cute. It’s all still within their normal character designs.

    0037

    And as stated in earlier updates, while still Halloween, they got Christmas ready.

    0038

    And they really love selling food boxes.

    0039

    Do you just want to buy every one you see?

    0040

    I may not have said it before, but instead of traditional hats, like Mickey Mouse ears, Japan instead loves to wear giant furry helmets.

    0033

    Overall, there’s a lot of Japan in this park. It’s so amazingly different from anything I could have expected.

    0035

    And there’s still going to be a lot more to discover!

    P1300576

    But that’s pretty much it for the weird things in the park. I could spend a while covering it, but this is a good stopping point.

    P1300671

    So I guess that means goodbye for now!

    Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you in the next Wizarding installment in our Universal Studios Japan series. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to read part one and part two.

    Chris Glass

    Chris Glass is an editor for Inside Universal.

    Chris is a Los Angeles native who grew up visiting the best theme parks in the world, but that wasn’t enough. Whenever he has the chance, he flees the comfort of Southern California to see what the rest of the world has to offer, and is always happy to return home.

    You may contact Chris at chrisglass@insideuniversal.net.


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