Noboribetsu Marine Park Nixe — Attraction in Noboribetsu

This aquarium is a surprisingly good aquarium in a very weird building. Don't let the bizarre castle style building make you underestimate this aquarium. A wide variety of fish of all sizes as well as penguins, amphibians and reptiles. There is cute theming and at least sometimes there must be some amusement rides like a ferris wheel etc but they weren't running on the day we came in. There are plenty of bathrooms. The path through the aquarium leads you through rooms with various tanks including various fish. Crustaceans and jellyfish. Some are large vertical tanks others smaller. At the end you go through two tunnels with fish swimming all around. There is a separate tank for the leopard seals, penguins, and sardines outside the main building. Staff were friendly and helpful and there were two nice gift shops and a number of...

If you have small kids, this is probably a good place to spend the afternoon. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother. There are positive aspects: dolphin and sea lion shows are entertaining, food is good, aquarium tunnel is cool, touch tank with stingrays is fun. But overall there are better uses of your vacation time in Noboribetsu; I’d recommend the bear park or Jidaimura over this.

I was also put off by a few of the aquariums seeming way too small (sawfish) or having dead animals/floating bits (jellyfish), as well as there being no attendants at the touching tanks. The main show animals seemed well taken care of, but some of the smaller attractions I’m not so sure. I think they are the exception rather than the norm, but it definitely felt like certain animal exhibits had fallen...

I definitely enjoyed some aspects of the aquarium, but it was uncomfortable to see the seals in such a small enclosure with no stimulation other than a loop tunnel to swim through. There were some tanks which appeared to be a good size for the fish they were housing, but others were far too small and lacking stimulation for the animals (rocks/plants/hiding spaces). When you take the escalator to the second floor you are above the tanks and can see the marine life swimming below. There is a tunnel underneath that which was interesting to walk through. There are definitely some fun and appealing aspects (I enjoyed the penguin parade and seeing the jellyfish), but I really, really wish that some of the tanks...