Malcolm's Global Trip: Day 18

My first full day in the Osaka area would be spent at Universal Studios Japan. A park that I've been to once before in 2009 where there were only a couple of rollercoasters to ride. Since then the park had expanded and now has five and had given up some car parking for it's own take on the Harry Potter expansion that has been seen in the US. I recall the park being really busy on my last visit and I bought a fast pass on the day, something I try to avoid unless I really feel I need one to get me around everything I want to do in the park. From reading other reports the park had gotten even busier now, so I was prepared for the worst. It's so bad that I'd heard you needed to be given an allocated time just to enter the Harry Potter bit such is its popularity. I knew that this would be the most expensive day of the trip if I was to buy fast passes on top of the entrance, and had budgeted as such but £50 to get in and £90 for the fast pass was ridiculous.

With regards to the rides I started with their most recent addition, the flying coaster Flying Dinosaur which soars over and around the Jurassic Park section of the park. I like the flying rides but am not a fan of the chest-crushing forces that these sometimes have. This one has two in close succession which made it a surprise I could have done without but otherwise the ride is really good offering a nice blurry view of the park because I had to take my glasses off. The fast pass that included this ride had run out by the time I'd bought my ticket but I was able to skip most of the queue that had built up by using the single rider queue.

The Harry Potter section is, like it's Floridian clone, stunning and they've done an incredible job with the theming here. In fact the Japan one has a better entrance with a walk through a forest leading into the town. They also had a cool looking wizarding attraction throughout where guests could buy wands and wave them in a certain way at specific spots to make things happen, snow fell in one alleyway, fire came from a chimney spot, a quidditch ball floated etc. There are a couple of rides here both copies of the ride in Florida. The Forbidden Journey is a ride I knew I wouldn't get to ride as I barely fitted into the seat in the Florida one a few years ago, so not a disappointment to be told I couldn't ride this one. I was told I could use my fast pass on another ride, but the fast pass I had covered all the rides I wanted to do. Ah well. As consolation I was able to ride the rollercoaster, a Hippogriff themed coaster.

New rollercoaster number 3 was a space themed ride over the other side of the park in what used to be ET attraction the last time I visited. This ride is your usual space themed spinning coaster but with a crystal harvesting theme and a very bizarre non-epileptic-friendly ending. Close to that was a new Despicable Me themed ride retrofitting the old Back to the Future ride with the video from Orlando's Despicable Me simulator attraction.

My day ended back in Hogwarts watching their evening show which consisted of lots of waiting in advance and then a really cool project mapped lighting routine on the castle as Harry and friends battle some dementors that fly around the castle.

The day was full and busy. The crowd were cool and I liked how they often dressed alike, whether couples or in groups. Dressing up as a minion seemed to be the most common. Everything was running well despite the crowds; they do seem to cope with the crowds well but as I've experienced on previous trips the good nature of the people visiting is part of the reason why it's not a pain to queue up. We'd moan in the west and China would be a free-for-all. However it's a park that has become one I'll be happy to drop in future, it'd need to have a really good reason for me to visit again; the problem is that it's one park that likely would do exactly that. This year they announced a tie up with Nintendo and they've announced a Mario Kart coaster attraction, so...and I know that the queue for that is going to be insane. The Space Fantasy Ride had a 4-hour queue on it's opening day. Any Mario themed ride is going to be way more than that...

Getting to the park is straightforward, there's a dedicated train that runs from Osaka to the park. I boarded at Nishikujo station and you travel to Universal City Station. As for knowing which train is the correct one, it's pretty obvious.

It took a while to go through the queue and on buying my fastpass I got a hand-written translation from the woman serving me explaining the times when my fast pass could be used on each of hte rides I'd chosen. Yep, it's so busy that have to time band the fast passes. Sheesh! I didn't have that restriction last time.

The 4D cinema was showing two films: A Dragonball one in the morning and another based on Jojo's Bizarre Adventure on the second. Both were ok with a single stand-alone 3D sequence in each one, a hand hand reaching out in the first and a multiple punching sequence in the second.

Flying Dinosaur at the back of the park was the first port of call as I knew it'd get big queues and I didn't have a fast pass for it. Fortunately the single ride came to my rescue and I was able to hop the already big queue to reach the front fairly quickly. It's a fun, if forceful ride. During the first drop it seems apparent that you have to wave at the Japanese crowd that will be waving up at you. Similarly if you're under the ride and you see the train coming down the track you must wave back, and enthusiastically. I love Japan!

I didn't bother with the Jurassic Park ride as they've not bothered to fix the issue where the boats go off the correct path. Someone is going to get hurt!

Over to Harry Potter next and the cool entrance taking you from a rock circle through the forest into the land proper. It was already heaving and there was little chance of photographing anything without someone else being in front of it.

The area consists of Hogsmeade including shops and the Oliander's wand shop attraction.

and the Hogwarts castle looking incredible at the back. This houses the Forbidden Journey attraction. A robot arm ride with 3D screens. The skies weren't great today but helped add to the wintery feel. I, like Hagrid, was not able to ride this on account of being too big. Ah well...

The Japanese version is also the only one that features the lake.

I was ok with the Hippogriff ride.

Other attractions in this area included the second best frog chorus of all time. (Paul Mcartney will always have the best). The wand training and a photo opp at the Hogwarts Express with the controller, a British chap who was having a blast in the role. We chatted for a little bit on how easy a gig he had.

The floating wand in one of the shop windows was a very clever effect. I couldn't see the wires. It may be magnets :)

It's mandatory to have a butterbeer. I had both the normal and frozen varieties.

Space Adventure is the spinning coaster. It sometimes runs with VR and a few years ago had a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu theme where you ride on a dog (she's a bonkers J-Pop singer so not a surprise) which would have been great, but not today. Instead we seemed to have a slight collaboration with a very famous Japanese band, that I can't admit to knowing. The Spiderman ride is the 4K version with much clearer, if less cartoony visuals and additional Stan Lee cameo. It's still a great dark ride that I don't need to go into too much as I'm sure most of us would have been on it in the US; if not, it's a ride through a spectacular mix of 3D and live effects.

The Despicable Me section was popular and has the one Dark Ride and a lot of shops, including a lovely mango iced drink and an opportunity to meet some costumed characters, who must be tiny in height to fit in them.

The Sesame Street area is designed for little kids. There is a rollercoaster in here that I didn't bother with. It used to

An opportunity to race ducks.

There were plenty of meet and greet opportunities. I wonder what happens if you get close with a cookie?

The biggest coaster in the park is Hollywood Dream which this year was running one train backwards with a Backdrop rename. I was impressed with the quality of the pun. The ride is really good, if a bit weird not knowing where the drops are coming.

There was a decent queue just to have a photo taken with a mock-up shark!

The Waterworld stunt show is always good fun but this one looked to have gone a bit wrong when one of the stuntmen caught alight and set fire to the stage. Being the professionals they are they carried on for the remaining few minutes until the show ended. I hope he's ok ;)