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Universal Studios Japan General Discussion

I missed your videos!

Still need to get out to USJ. With all the annual events they have and temporary attractions, what would you say is the best time of year to go? Most of the IPs for these are totally lost on me but a good attraction is a good attraction.
 
A look into USJ at the tail end of their summer version of cool japan. I think for me the stand out of this years event was the Lupin the 3rd retheme of space fantasy. Also I happened to be there on the day that all of Japan forgot that USJ existed with walk ons for everything!

:thumbsup::toast: As always, thank you very much for your coverage of a park we don't often see videos or photos of. ....Probably the first video I've seen that the park was not jam packed with visitors. Interesting take.
 
I missed your videos!

Still need to get out to USJ. With all the annual events they have and temporary attractions, what would you say is the best time of year to go? Most of the IPs for these are totally lost on me but a good attraction is a good attraction.
I still believe that their best event is Halloween horror nights. It’s got the prefect blend of cutesy stuff including an unpredictable “cosplay” like setting and then pure horror. Also the changed attractions are worth the cost of admission.
But I’m still around but covering the equally undercovered Disneysea now. But I can barely seem to get people interested in those.
 
2 years late on this one.. But Universal Studios Japan had a parade called REBORN! That ran from 2016-2017 (Maybe even 2015, not sure) It was a HUGE hit with the Japanese fans. Found this video of the final show~ It actually got rained out so the performers came out and said goodbye instead. Pretty cool

 
The land the Nishin Steel plant is on (next to SNW) has been reclassified as for 'urban function' Not entirely sure what that means but could be a sign of future expansion?
@quinnmac000 do you know anything about it?

Green = Universal Studios Japan
Red = Nishin Steel Plant

USJ.jpg
 
The land the Nishin Steel plant is on (next to SNW) has been reclassified as for 'urban function' Not entirely sure what that means but could be a sign of future expansion?
@quinnmac000 do you know anything about it?

Green = Universal Studios Japan
Red = Nishin Steel Plant

View attachment 10734

Give me about 20 minutes and I can find out...but it looks like the city may have reclaimed this land.

Yea, don't think this is necessarily a USJ expansion but my intuition was correct about it being claimed by the city.
 
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Not much SNW visible but a beautiful pic of USJ for sure:


Also, the park are just about ready to open their 8th (!!!) resort hotel:
 


Horror nights starts in Japan on Sept 7th at 9am in the morning, some of the houses open at 10 am. This event is a bit different than the rest of the Hhn’s as it’s Japan. Three years ago they did this experience where the military blocked off an area, warned that a zombie swarm was coming told everyone that could to get into the containment area. Zombies then invaded that gated containment area, and the only solution was to throw a gernade. Blasting the trapped guests with petroleum jelly. It was sticky, scary, and strange but awesome. Attached is the pov of that experience.
 
First: USJ is Universal's most attended park by a landslide per Tom Willams...while Universal Orlando has more total visitors.

Right. Moving on to Japan. In 2017, Comcast bought out the 49% stake that your former partners owned for $2.3 billion. You now have full ownership of Universal Japan, which as you just said measured by attendance is your single largest park. Attendance for the park was affected by the typhoon last year. Can you give us color on attendance trends in the park this year and what's your outlook moving forward for the next year or so?

Tom Williams

Yes. Year-over-year, it's been great because last year and of course in two months they had five typhoons, an earthquake and a heat wave. It was really rough. And this year, it's been great. Last year was a total abnormality. We have been open 16, 17 years and never had anything like that ever before. So it was a one-off deal. It was all over in a couple of months and we have fully recovered and we are up double digit, equivalent time period, we are way up.

So they are into Halloween now. They opened at the start of Halloween last week. We did a Sing attraction there based on Illumination Entertainment movie, Sing, which has gone over great, because it's a popular Western song. And it's a sing along kind of a show. So it's been done really well.

The employees there are super dedicated, super friendly I would really like to bottle them, so to speak, get all of our parks around the world because just culturally, they are very considerate, very considerate. When you see everybody walking around with a mask, because they don't want to give you their illness. And they don't want to get one either. But they are very considerate, very thoughtful and it's just a great environment.

Q

Is there anything you can talk about the economics of that park?

Tom Williams

It's very, very strong otherwise we wouldn't have bought it. We were an investment in that park when we first opened it back in 2001. I think we had a 24% stake and GE had to sell it. And when we started talking about international expansion after Comcast acquired us, so I kept telling to Steve, step one is we ought to buy back because we designed it, we staffed it. It was all our key management. We opened it. We marketed it. This is like our home week. This is our park. And I was pleased when there was agreement to do so.

Q

So in 2015, you signed a partnership with Nintendo and as you said before, this will be the first park to open a Super Nintendo World. I think the plan is to open in time for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The total cost has been reported at between $350 million and $550 million. Are you on track for that opening? Are there any details you can provide on that?

{For Answer see Super Nintendo World Osaka thread}

additionally Looks like Universal is planning their second park

I think that China would be the first logical opportunity. There is additional opportunity in Japan. Right where we are in Osaka, the government has created a man-made island, more than one, but one called Yumeshima. They bid for and got the World's Fair rights for 2025. So they are going to host the World's Fair there. And we are in discussions with them about how we can perhaps support them in that. They also are likely to be one of three cities in Japan that get awarded the rights to do an integrated resort which would include gaming and the most important part is entertainment. We would not participate in any gaming but we could see how that could be something we could participate in.
 
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