Nara dreamland; no more
In 1961, Japan opened Nara Dreamland, inspired by Disneyland Anaheim. The park featured almost carbon copy versions of all the areas in the original US park, and when compared, the two layouts were almost identical! After the war, Japan and America set about rebuilding the Japanese economy, and the popularity of Disney was irresistible. With the help of the team behind the original Disney parks, it seemed like a match made in heaven! So, what went wrong? During some disputes over licensing on characters, the decision was made to create new characters for the Japanese park!
The park opened, and at its peak, it saw over 1.6million guests. The park evolved in a new direction and very soon was adding unique rides of its own! But numbers dwindled, and there are numerous images showing empty rides with only a handful of visitors. The nail in the coffin for Nara Dreamland came in 1983 when Disneyland finally came to Japan, and this time it had successfully navigated the red tape that was licensing and was bringing the full cast of characters with it! Opening to roaring success, numbers at Nara hit rock bottom! A further nail was driven in when Universal Studios opened in Osaka, bringing in ten times the guests that Nara had at its peak. Alongside the expansion to Disneyland, Disney Sea also opened, adding new interest to the official parks.
The writing had been on the wall for years, and after receiving multiple nails in the coffin, Nara Dreamland closed in 2006, joining a very long list of abandoned theme parks in Asia. For a while, Nara fell into memory as just another failed project. However, it started gaining unexpected attraction from a different crowd. The urbex crowd!
Abandoned places capture the imagination of many, with their forgotten pasts and what happens when humanity leaves. Nature is free to reclaim land, which once bustled with life. It creates beautifully eerie images and can spark the imagination of many. Many books, games and movies have been inspired by ghost towns or places that once hosted populations which crumbled into the annals of time.
I have dabbled in Urbex and loved every second. I do not support breaking and entering. However, I do believe, especially with larger places that have no owner or pose no risk, there is something to be gained and learnt from photographing them. There is something humbling about seeing concrete buildings slowly dismantled by the power of nature. I condemn those who vandalize, loot, and destroy these places further. I believe respect should always be shown, and the few times I have had chances to explore abandoned airfields, asylums, and Gunkanjima on its walking tour, the images I take are always stunning. I hope to leave no trace, so the next explorer gets the same images and experience I do.
Nara Dreamland's legacy continued to spark the imaginations of many; images of abandoned rides and crumbling castles flooded the internet. The images are a contrast to our ideas of a theme park; they add to our curiosity. Theme parks are seen as some of the happiest places, so to see them in a crumbling state of disrepair creates fascination.
Nara Dreamland resurfaced in interest, and many were drawn to the area. Eventually, the landowners, getting tired of removing people from the area, decided to pull the park down.
I visited Nara this year to see the four-legged antlered residents that inhabit the park and decided out of curiosity to head to Nara Dreamland to see if anything remained. The bus can be taken to the Lawson, which is near where the old entrance used to stand. Tall barriers can be seen, with signs in Japanese and English telling people that trespassers will be prosecuted. There is a small shrine that you can walk to that uses a public footpath skimming the perimeter of the park. From this path, I could see the old carparks and the road leading to the entrance. Sadly, all that remains now of the park is the castle that once welcomed guests into the grounds. This is all that remains of Nara Dreamland. There are no rides anymore, no vending machines, no decaying animatronics, or stalls standing empty.
Nara Dreamland gained almost a cult like following; people were fascinated by the idea of a slowly decaying theme park. But the story has ended, and Nara will fall back into obscurity. Many companies have tried and failed to set up theme parks across Asia, and Nara was no different. Had it navigated the licensing with Disney better, this story would be very different. However, there was no real interest in a park with characters no one had heard of.
My trip to Nara was fun, and I had fun seeing the deer. I am glad to have at least glimpsed the castle that used to stand proudly with a pool and fountains in front of it. There are many places similar in Japan that allow glimpses into a forgotten past. But at the end of the day, nature will always reclaim them. Everything returns to dust.
