Japanese culture
Jun 19, 2016 2:12:54 GMT -5
Post by tangerinesun on Jun 19, 2016 2:12:54 GMT -5
Nara Dreamland
Ghost theme park in historic Nara
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nara_Dreamland
A sort of a tale of Japanese entrepreneurship gone a bit bad.
In 1961, Nippon Dream Ltd. opened Dreamland on a prime foothill site outside the
temple district in the city of Nara. It was a cheesier replica of Disneyland in California!
Rather than bringing Disney itself into Japan, they copied its best-known property on
their own. They also duped Coney Island's Cyclone and threw in a haunted cave with
a Snow White-ish witch figurehead.
Dreamland, Nara's land of dreams — first half
2009 FEB 03 by dreamlandjp (08:50)
Film record of Nara Dreamland, which regrettably closed on 21 August, 2006.
I've heard that, at first, Walt-san himself was scheduled to attend the opening ceremony.
Note the splendid appearance and formal attire of the attendees at that time.
Insider history page at kcn.ne.jp/~jrwest/
Note also that when this film was archived to video, they squeezed the cinema aspect
of the picture into a 4:3 TV frame. NARROW!
A somewhat weird theatrical newsreel about the commercially significant development.
That URL on the classic Disney-like title card belongs to Dreamland's defunct website.
The founders claimed they had authorization from none other than Walt Disney. One look
at the absence of character licensing or Disney branding should tell you that's not the case,
but Disney had no legal standing in Japan.
A second location opened in Yokohama.
Yokohama Dreamland (Part I)
2010 APR 17 by dreamlandjp (07:05)
There was a sister relationship between Yokohama Dreamland and
Nara Dreamland. Enjoy the bustling appearance of the time.
Another early 1960s trailer for advertising in movie theaters. The uploader
talks about hearing the actual voice and seeing a bronze statue of Kunimi Matsuo,
late President of Nippon Dream. I see statues of other famous people, and hear
commentary by some v.o. lady. Perhaps something other than this was meant.
Nara Dreamland in Showa 44 — NARA DREAMLAND 1969
2014 JUN 29 by Tatsuaki Tateyama (03:45)
Nara Dreamland, one-time contract.
Sequence from a special-investigations TV cop show filmed on location
at the park in its heyday.
Yokohama/Nara Dreamland
1979 Commemorative Album — Another Dream —
members.jcom.home.ne.jp/dream41830/dream1010.htm
Color brochure detailing renovations and added attractions
to restore the sister parks.
Nippon Dream got about 45 years' worth of memories for its trouble.
The Disney-sanctioned (really!) Tokyo Disney Resort had already been
weakening them for a couple of decades when Universal Studios opened
in nearby Osaka in 2001. That's when the visitors stopped coming.
Nara Dreamland 2004
2013 APR 14 by toppo jijyo (01:45)
Two years before the demise.
Nara Dreamland closed in August 2006 with unpaid taxes it couldn't afford.
They could do nothing with the site but let it sit, although a 2015 sale
cleaned up the debts.
It's sitting there still, going to pot. Japan has more than its share of ruins,
but there's nothing quite as good as a decaying amusement park… unless
it's an abandoned prison, hospital, or insane asylum.
My first time in the ruins of Nara Dreamland was amazing!
What does this reflect!?
2014 NOV 11 by gazo ashigaru
Images of the ruins of Nara Dreamland. A good taste of it came through, I'd say.
The eeriness is complete. Atmosphere like a Stephen King horror novel…
pretty scary, like Halloween in the old days.
→ Spooky vintage JP halloween stuff at youtu.be/VlSIEMsRWtk
Nara Dreamland: Japan’s Last Abandoned Theme Park
2010 September 22 by Michael John Grist
michaeljohngrist.com/2010/09/nara-dreamland-japans-last-abandoned-theme-park/
I’ve heard many stories of haikyoists arriving only to be either deterred by
the cameras, sensors, alarms and fines, or actually physically expelled by
the furious security guard. For my visit I decided to bypass those risks
altogether, and entered by night…
Urbex hero Florian's photos from the same excursion:
panoramio.com/user/5415510
Florian's posts to the Abandoned Kansai blog re: nara dreamland
abandonedkansai.com/special-nara-dreamland/
〜〜〜〜〜
JULY 4 UPDATE
Urban explorers The Proper People just got a major new video of
their exploits up on YouTube.
Abandoned Disneyland Knock-Off -
Nara Dreamland Theme Park Exploration
2016 JUN 30 by The Proper People (35:17)
After taking the midnight train from Osaka, we arrived in Nara, Japan,
the home of a massive abandoned theme park called Nara Dreamland…
A half-hour walking tour through Nara Dreamland by night and early morning.
This place is going to the dogs fast. The new owner must not see the point of
paying to guard a site they want to bulldoze anyway. Letting it turn into a
magnet for vandals and vagrants might be a great way of pressuring the city
to get out of the way of re-development.
Plusses: PP go all over, including interiors. Fantastic coverage.
Minuses: It's like touring with that couple you met on vacation that don't
always get along so well.
The commentary is 75% empty because, beyond a general knowledge of Japan
and theme parks, PP don't have background on what they're looking at.
Buddhist hell, equestrian Napoleon, jungle boat ride… what is this, do not recognize.
The cheese factor is high, but it should be said that (a) this place was for kids, and
(b) when it closed it had been standing 45 years and only really profitable, you can
imagine, for the middle third of that. Everyone connected with the place must have
known how tacky it was. That's not really the point.
It's easy to find photo albums by people who were young when they went, recording
what a great time they had there together.
1963 May — sixth-graders on a class field trip to Nara Dreamland. All the adults remember the decade after 1945, none of the kids really do.
From the incredible online photo album of Yoshitaka Kitamura.
kurafuto.com/modules/pico0/index.php?content_id=3
2006 August – from "HN", editor of the KFEG travel blog, itself looking pretty abandoned. HN was born in the year
Dreamland opened, and went back the month it closed to say goodbye.
kfeg.blog.shinobi.jp/お出かけ/奈良ドリームランド
Nao Negura's parents visited on their honeymoon, she thinks. Dates are a little fuzzy.
nnaosaloon.com/archives/1823/
1968 photo courtesy of Light Camera (in the archive of the Nara Prefectural Library and Information Center)
library.pref.nara.jp/supporter/naraweb/yuuenti.html
The 2000 Ultraman Festival – photo by Osamu
plala.or.jp/osamuf/ultraman.html
Ghost theme park in historic Nara
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nara_Dreamland
A sort of a tale of Japanese entrepreneurship gone a bit bad.
In 1961, Nippon Dream Ltd. opened Dreamland on a prime foothill site outside the
temple district in the city of Nara. It was a cheesier replica of Disneyland in California!
Rather than bringing Disney itself into Japan, they copied its best-known property on
their own. They also duped Coney Island's Cyclone and threw in a haunted cave with
a Snow White-ish witch figurehead.
Dreamland, Nara's land of dreams — first half
2009 FEB 03 by dreamlandjp (08:50)
Film record of Nara Dreamland, which regrettably closed on 21 August, 2006.
I've heard that, at first, Walt-san himself was scheduled to attend the opening ceremony.
Note the splendid appearance and formal attire of the attendees at that time.
Insider history page at kcn.ne.jp/~jrwest/
Note also that when this film was archived to video, they squeezed the cinema aspect
of the picture into a 4:3 TV frame. NARROW!
A somewhat weird theatrical newsreel about the commercially significant development.
That URL on the classic Disney-like title card belongs to Dreamland's defunct website.
The founders claimed they had authorization from none other than Walt Disney. One look
at the absence of character licensing or Disney branding should tell you that's not the case,
but Disney had no legal standing in Japan.
A second location opened in Yokohama.
Yokohama Dreamland (Part I)
2010 APR 17 by dreamlandjp (07:05)
There was a sister relationship between Yokohama Dreamland and
Nara Dreamland. Enjoy the bustling appearance of the time.
Another early 1960s trailer for advertising in movie theaters. The uploader
talks about hearing the actual voice and seeing a bronze statue of Kunimi Matsuo,
late President of Nippon Dream. I see statues of other famous people, and hear
commentary by some v.o. lady. Perhaps something other than this was meant.
Nara Dreamland in Showa 44 — NARA DREAMLAND 1969
2014 JUN 29 by Tatsuaki Tateyama (03:45)
Nara Dreamland, one-time contract.
Sequence from a special-investigations TV cop show filmed on location
at the park in its heyday.
Yokohama/Nara Dreamland
1979 Commemorative Album — Another Dream —
members.jcom.home.ne.jp/dream41830/dream1010.htm
Color brochure detailing renovations and added attractions
to restore the sister parks.
Nippon Dream got about 45 years' worth of memories for its trouble.
The Disney-sanctioned (really!) Tokyo Disney Resort had already been
weakening them for a couple of decades when Universal Studios opened
in nearby Osaka in 2001. That's when the visitors stopped coming.
Nara Dreamland 2004
2013 APR 14 by toppo jijyo (01:45)
Two years before the demise.
Nara Dreamland closed in August 2006 with unpaid taxes it couldn't afford.
They could do nothing with the site but let it sit, although a 2015 sale
cleaned up the debts.
It's sitting there still, going to pot. Japan has more than its share of ruins,
but there's nothing quite as good as a decaying amusement park… unless
it's an abandoned prison, hospital, or insane asylum.
My first time in the ruins of Nara Dreamland was amazing!
What does this reflect!?
2014 NOV 11 by gazo ashigaru
Images of the ruins of Nara Dreamland. A good taste of it came through, I'd say.
The eeriness is complete. Atmosphere like a Stephen King horror novel…
pretty scary, like Halloween in the old days.
→ Spooky vintage JP halloween stuff at youtu.be/VlSIEMsRWtk
Nara Dreamland: Japan’s Last Abandoned Theme Park
2010 September 22 by Michael John Grist
michaeljohngrist.com/2010/09/nara-dreamland-japans-last-abandoned-theme-park/
I’ve heard many stories of haikyoists arriving only to be either deterred by
the cameras, sensors, alarms and fines, or actually physically expelled by
the furious security guard. For my visit I decided to bypass those risks
altogether, and entered by night…
Urbex hero Florian's photos from the same excursion:
panoramio.com/user/5415510
Florian's posts to the Abandoned Kansai blog re: nara dreamland
abandonedkansai.com/special-nara-dreamland/
〜〜〜〜〜
JULY 4 UPDATE
Urban explorers The Proper People just got a major new video of
their exploits up on YouTube.
Abandoned Disneyland Knock-Off -
Nara Dreamland Theme Park Exploration
2016 JUN 30 by The Proper People (35:17)
After taking the midnight train from Osaka, we arrived in Nara, Japan,
the home of a massive abandoned theme park called Nara Dreamland…
A half-hour walking tour through Nara Dreamland by night and early morning.
This place is going to the dogs fast. The new owner must not see the point of
paying to guard a site they want to bulldoze anyway. Letting it turn into a
magnet for vandals and vagrants might be a great way of pressuring the city
to get out of the way of re-development.
Plusses: PP go all over, including interiors. Fantastic coverage.
Minuses: It's like touring with that couple you met on vacation that don't
always get along so well.
The commentary is 75% empty because, beyond a general knowledge of Japan
and theme parks, PP don't have background on what they're looking at.
Buddhist hell, equestrian Napoleon, jungle boat ride… what is this, do not recognize.
The cheese factor is high, but it should be said that (a) this place was for kids, and
(b) when it closed it had been standing 45 years and only really profitable, you can
imagine, for the middle third of that. Everyone connected with the place must have
known how tacky it was. That's not really the point.
It's easy to find photo albums by people who were young when they went, recording
what a great time they had there together.
1963 May — sixth-graders on a class field trip to Nara Dreamland. All the adults remember the decade after 1945, none of the kids really do.
From the incredible online photo album of Yoshitaka Kitamura.
kurafuto.com/modules/pico0/index.php?content_id=3
2006 August – from "HN", editor of the KFEG travel blog, itself looking pretty abandoned. HN was born in the year
Dreamland opened, and went back the month it closed to say goodbye.
kfeg.blog.shinobi.jp/お出かけ/奈良ドリームランド
Nao Negura's parents visited on their honeymoon, she thinks. Dates are a little fuzzy.
nnaosaloon.com/archives/1823/
1968 photo courtesy of Light Camera (in the archive of the Nara Prefectural Library and Information Center)
library.pref.nara.jp/supporter/naraweb/yuuenti.html
The 2000 Ultraman Festival – photo by Osamu
plala.or.jp/osamuf/ultraman.html