Tokyo Joypolis — Attraction in Tokyo

The flagship Joypolis park is located in Odaiba area of Tokyo, and originally opened on 12 July 1996. Currently, it is the only Japanese Joypolis park to remain in operation and has been refurbished twice - in December 2000 and early 2012.

Sendai (Joypolis Sports)

In January 2022, a new format under the Joypolis name was officially announced. Joypolis Sports is a sports center located in Izumi-ku, Sendai on the Sendai Nakayama complex and will heavily focus on sports-related activities, as well as a few minor non-Sports facilities like a Comic Book section, and a small arcade. The venue was originally planned to open on March 18,but this opening window was put on hold a day before opening following the 2022 Fukushima earthquake. On April 13, the venue announced a new opening date of April 29.

Joypolis is a chain of indoor amusement parks created by Sega and run by CA Sega Joypolis. Beginning on July 20, 1994 with the original location sited in Yokohama, Japan,Joypolis centers have since opened in several cities in Japan and later China. The parks feature arcade games and amusement rides based on Sega's intellectual properties, original themes, and licensed franchises. Alongside the predecessor Galbo venues and the overseas spin-offs SegaWorld London and Sega World Sydney, they were officially referred to under the "Amusement Theme Park" or "ATP" concept by Sega in the 1990s.

Overall, eleven Joypolis theme parks have been opened, but as of 2021, five parks remain operational; two in Japan (Tokyo and a Sports Center in Sendai) and three in China (Qingdao, Shanghai and Guangzhou); the failure of many of the parks has largely been attributed to poor visitor numbers, managerial problems, and cost-cutting measures, with the closures and downsizing of several occurring in the midst of Sega's companywide losses during the early 2000s.

After its formation the previous year to operate the parks, Sega announced in 2016 that China Animations would acquire a majority stake in Sega Live Creation (now CA Sega Joypolis) for 600 million yen, effective January 2017. All three currently operating Joypolis branches are no longer fully controlled by Sega, although their attractions, branding, and intellectual properties continue to be used under license from them for the foreseeable future.

On April 20, 2005, Sega Corp. closed its Tokyo Joypolis (Odaiba area) theme park temporarily, pending a police investigation and an internal investigation into park safety procedures. The action came in the wake of an accident on the previous Monday in which a 30-year-old man died after he fell out of a ride. The ride, called "Viva! Skydiving," is a simulator ride that is designed to give passengers an experience of virtual skydiving. Apparently, the ride's operators allowed the overweight man to board the ride, even though the safety belt was not long enough to fit around his body. The man was secured only by an over-the-shoulder restraint, but Sega president Hisao Oguchi says that the restraint was locked in a "more loose position," causing the man to fall out. Reports indicate that, while Sega's official park operations manual forbids riders from riding without seat belts, Tokyo Joypolis had given its employees an unofficial manual that allowed ride operators to use their own discretion as to whether a person could board a ride. Sega says it was unaware that the park had its own...

Tons of fun, we ended spent the whole day here. My tips:

• Showing a foreign passport gets you 300 yen off your entrance fee, as well as a little set of coupons for discounts at the merch store / a free go on a UFO catcher / money off ice cream. • Admission prices (with a foreign passport) are 500 yen for general admission and 4000 for a passport, which gets you unlimited rides all day (no restrictions except the Zero Latency VR attraction, which you have to book in advance for anyway). Think carefully about whether you want the passport or not; if you're only here for the busiest middle hours of the day then it may not be physically possible to get your money's worth because of the length of the queues. Also, note the following... • If you don't speak Japanese, 9 out of 22 of the attractions will be inaccessible to you. One of the attractions is wrongly labelled on the map as being available in English (The Joypolis Explorer); it turns out that it is in both Japanese and English simultaneously, so you cannot take part without understanding Japanese. Don't let that put you off coming, as the 13 remaining attractions are still a blast - it's just something to consider when you're thinking about whether or not to get the passport ticket. • Come with a friend so that you have someone to talk to in the queues. On the Monday that we went, lines for the most popular rides (particularly the two big first floor ones) hovered around the 60-90 minute mark. They try their best to entertain you while you wait - the line for the Gekion Live Coaster goes past a stage where hologram idol concerts occasionally happen and somebody dressed as Sonic sometimes stops by - but there's only so much they can do. We waited for 75 minutes for the Live Coaster and it was just about worth it. There are screens on each floor telling you the length of the wait at each of the rides in the park so that you can choose accordingly. The queues start dying down at around 7pm (and I assume they're fairly short in the morning too, though we arrived too late to know). • If you're a Sonic fan, this isn't quite as much of a Sonic mecca as the internet may tell you. It's still great - there's a fair amount of merchandise to buy, there's a handful of Sonic-branded carnival games and a few attractions featuring him (including a 3D animated movie, with no dialogue, based around characters from Sonic Unleashed) - but don't expect to be able to geek out about obscure entries in his back catalogue (not even Big the Cat was anywhere to be seen). • Some of the most fun is to be had in the arcade and carnival games, which cost extra, so save money for those as well.

Generally this was a great day; I was disappointed not to know beforehand that many of the attractions were only in Japanese, but that didn't spoil it. All the attractions were exciting and well maintained and the staff were extremely friendly. When I eventually learn Japanese I'll definitely be...

I arrived here around 3:25pm on a Friday with my friends. We were supposed to be here earlier but hey, the day didn’t go as planned, lol. This is definitely a place where you can spend the entire day. I will note that almost all of the interactive attractions is narrated in Japanese, which is a bummer as I didn’t understand many things. They do have print outs with the rules in English too but as far as what they actually say, we have no idea. I wish we could use our phones for translation but they don’t allow phones one the attraction starts.

We started off with the roller coaster when you first enter and I liked it! The actual roller coasting part was unexpected and fun but not overwhelming.

Wild Wing attraction was pretty interesting. It was immersive w/ movements and wind but no water. We did another one with a jeep and that one was underwhelming and some parts didn’t make sense.

Murder Lodge attraction almost took me out of here. It was very thrilling and scary, for me at least. I won’t spoil what happened, but if you’re easily frightened, I’d skip that one lol.

Ring attraction was interesting and thrilling. There’s a part of the ride where you’re in a box, which they tell you ahead of time. Not the scariest attraction I did but gave me a thrill.

House of the dead scarlet dawn shooting game was pretty fun and so was Storm G attraction. For this one, you will rotate completely! Spicy taxi was the last attraction which was a teamwork ride that was nice. It had instructions in both Japanese and English, which was great!

Overall, I would like to return. There was so much we didn’t get to do because of timing. I would plan for this to be at least a half day event if you plan to go. There is something for everyone! They are strict with timing as they will close ride down earlier. I noticed around 6pm they were closing the lines so new people couldn’t join and/or closed some attractions completely. The arcade games are self paced and available until they close. I believe they may have been short staffed. The turnaround for attractions...