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UNIVERSAL STUDIOS JAPAN
Osaka, Japan
Comcast NBCUniversal
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(1/5/2025) Universal Studios Japan Sets Reopening Date for Jurassic Park: The Ride
(12/31/2024) Universal Studios Japan Confirms The Return of Space Fantasy: The Ride
(12/21/2024) Universal Studios Japan Is Looking Into New Ways The Park Can Expand
(12/12/2024) A Better Mine Cart Madness Video Is Posted
(12/3/2024) See the Donkey Kong Mine-Cart Madness POV from Universal Studios Japan
Ride Rehabs - These dates are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as refurbishments are subject to change.
Elmo’s Go-Go Skateboard - NOW CLOSED through Feb. 19, 2025
Jaws - Feb 25 through May 19
Moppy’s Balloon Trip - Feb. 25 through Mar 19
Hollywood Dream: Backdrop - Jan. 26, 2025 through Mar. 23, 2025
Hollywood Dream: The Ride - Feb. 5 through Feb 24
Flying Snoopy - Apr. 9 through Apr. 11
 Park News - (1/5/2025) Universal Studios Japan has announced on Twitter than the park’s Jurassic Park: The Ride will finally reopen to guests on January 8th, 2025. The water attraction has been closed since September 2023 for an extensive refurbishment. A video preview of the ride can be seen below in the social media post.
While many had hoped that the Japanese version of the attraction might be undergoing a similar transformation to what we say take place in the Hollywood park, where it reopened as a “Jurassic World” themed attraction, the Japanese version will maintain it’s classic Jurassic Park name and theming.
Fans of the park will be glad to see this large attraction finally reopen, as too many other park attractions have been retired over the past few years, so this should help spread the crowds out a bit more.
(12/31/2024) Universal Studios Japan has confirmed that the original Space Fantasy: The Ride experience will be returning to the park starting on January 26, 2025.
(12/21/2024) As with most major attraction in Japan, space is always at a premium, so typically when they want to build new attractions, old ones must close to make way. Universal Studios Japan is no stranger to this concept, as the park was built very close to the waters of Osaka Bay and is surrounded by either industrial buildings or hotels on virtually every side, making expansion outside the main property line nearly impossible.
Parking for the theme park appears to be limited to a single large parking structure located near the back side of the park (behind the Waterworld and MarioKart attractions) which gives guests who drive a rather long walk to get around to the park entrance.
What is interesting is that Universal Parks News Today reports that the President of Universal Studios Japan mentioned in an interview that the park is possibly exploring the use of the parking lots to become future expansion space for the theme park “within the next decade”. In order to do so, they would obviously need to source a new parking lot location, but if they are willing to even bring this up right now, I’m guessing they may already have some sort of plan in mind.
(6/3/2023) Universal Studios Japan may seem a little smaller these days. Following the announcement that the park will close the Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man ride on Jan. 22, 2023, the park also confirmed the permanent closure of two more long-time attractions. Terminator 2: 3D and Backdraft have now both been confirmed as being closed for good. Technically both attractions shut down back in 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and apparently never reopened.
While I did hear that T2:3D never reopened, for some reason I thought I had heard at one point that Backdraft did reopen for a brief period of time, but I can not verify that. Regardless, both attractions are now confirmed as being closed for good. Location wise, T2:3D and Backdraft are located near, but on opposite sides, of the Spider-Man attraction.
No rumors have presented themselves yet for what might replace either attraction, but the former T2 theater building in the Hollywood park was re-purposed into that park’s Despicable Me ride, while the original T2 building in the Orlando park was transformed into the fantastic “The Bourne Stuntacular” attraction. Given how amazing the tech and performances are in the Borne attraction, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to come up with a similar concept in Japan, though perhaps with a different IP.
The Backdraft attraction fits inside a large soundstage building that sits next door to the USJ’s Despicable Me Minion Mayhem attraction. In Hollywood that park’s Backdraft soundstage was removed and replaced by the Transformers: The Ride attraction, though given the proximity and popularity of the Minions characters, perhaps a future Minions attractions may be under consideration, not unlike the Villain-Con: Minion Blast attraction that will open soon in Orlando.
Oh… if all this wasn’t enough, yet another attraction will be closing for a long-term refurbishment this fall. Confirmed by the park’s website, Jurassic Park: The Ride will be shutting down “September 4, 2023 - Indefinitely”. While the “Indefinately” part is likely to mean that they just don’t know when the work will be finished, we are hearing rumors that Jurassic Park: The Ride may not reopen until Late 2024 to Early 2025. The last time one of the sister Jurassic Park attractions closed for a massive 12-18 month refurbishment, was when the Hollywood park updated their version to become Jurassic World: The Ride.
I’m not saying that a IP update is coming just yet, as the Orlando park has been hesitant to update their own version of JP, even though the update done to the Hollywood ride has proven to be very popular. That said… with the Jurassic World trilogy now complete and the studio reluctant to confirm any future plans to expand upon the franchise any further, it may be hard to tell what kind of future the “Jurassic” IP may have within Universal Studios Japan.
Regardless, before too long the backside of Universal Studios Japan is going to seem a lot more empty for the next couple of years.
2024 - Donkey Kong Country / Mine Cart Madness - (12/12/2024) A better looking video showing off the new Mine Cart Madness roller coaster at Universal Studios Japan can be seen below.
(12/3/2024) A quick spoiler warning, but the Donkey Kong themed Mine-Cart Madness coaster at Universal Studios Japan has soft opened ahead of the official grand opening on Dec. 11th, and a POV video of the ride experience can be found below.
As far as I know, the version under construction at Epic Universe will be a clone of the Japanese original version.
2025/2026 - Snoopy Sound Stage Update - (11/11/2023) According to an update Universal Studios Japan is expected to begin removing the park’s indoor kiddie coaster, Snoopy’s Great Race. The small coaster closed down with the rest of the park in 2020 during the first wave of the pandemic, but unlike the rest of the park, Snoopy’s Great Race never reopened and was removed from the website long ago.
Digging a little deeper Universal Studios Japan website has confirmed that they will be temporarily closing the entire Snoopy’s Sound Stage Adventure building on Nov. 13th to begin a “Major Renovation” of the attraction. With the removal of the coaster inside, this will open up a large amount of space to allow for future new attraction development.
2025/2026 - Pokemon or Detective Pikachu Dark Ride - Rumor - (1/17/2024) It’s hard to believe it, but in just a few short days the Adventures of Spider-Man will close forever at Universal Studios Japan. While the park has yet to announce what will replace it, the adventures of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man will all come to a sudden end on Monday, January 22, 2024.
(5/17/2023) Universal Studios Japan has confirmed that The Adventures of Spider-Man ride will close forever at the end of January 22, 2024. As the attraction first opened in January 2004, it sounds like Universal is running it though to the very end of their current IP licensing agreement. Now before you argue and say that Universal has a never-ending agreement to use the Marvel characters, that agreement is only for Universal’s use of the characters in the eastern half of North America, and was really only used in the Islands of Adventure theme park in Florida. The agreement to use the Spider-Man IP for the attraction in Japan had an entirely separate contract, and only for the IPs used in the Spider-Man attraction itself.
While nothing was said about what might replace it, the rumor we reported back in 2021 still holds water… that Spider-Man was expected to close down sometime in 2024 in order to make way for some kind of new ride with a Pokemon or Pikachu theme about 18 to 24 months later.
(1/22/2023) While sorting through a large number of open positions that Universal Creative is hiring for currently, I noticed an interesting trend. A number of the open positions involve working on an unknown project in Orlando through 2024 and then require “relocation to Osaka, Japan for over a year.”
This essentially confirms that something big is planned to open in 2025/2026 at Universal Studios Japan, and based on the previous rumors we’ve been hearing since 2021, this will very likely involve the closure of that park’s Adventures of Spider-Man ride. While nothing has been confirmed yet, the most likely scenario would see Spider-Man closed in 2024 to be transformed into an all new experience 18-24 months later.
Based on all the previous rumors, the new attraction is expected to be a Pokemon or Detective Pikachu themed dark ride experience.
(10/8/21) According to press release, Universal Studios Japan has officially entered into a long-term partnership with The Pokemon Company “that will immerse guests into the world of Pokemon with with innovative technology and creativity beginning in 2022.“
So what exactly does this mean? If you recall, back in May we posted a report that the park was likely preparing to retire their popular Adventures of Spider-Man dark ride, and if the rumors hold true, it would evolve into a new Pokemon themed attraction. While 2022 is to fast of the timeline to transform the dark ride into something Pokemon themed, especially since it hasn’t even closed yet, I suspect we’ll see Pokemon added to the park in some other new way as a slow build up to the eventual announcement of the Pokemon themed dark ride project. Given how rapidly the park has been able to add various highly themed temporary attractions over the years as part of the Universal Cool Japan series of events, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of this magic put in place throughout 2022 to add several temporary Pokemon attraction, possibly including an VR overlay on the park’s Space Fantasy indoor coaster.
In the meantime, if you love Spider-Man in Japan, get your last rides in now, before it’s too late!
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