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Surprising number-one pick wasn\u2019t Universal Studios Japan either<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n For decades, Tokyo Disneyland<\/strong> has been the default image when people in Japan think of a theme park. However, Disneyland might be losing its status as the go-to mental image of a theme park among Japanese kids, as in a recent survey it wasn\u2019t the park they most wanted to visit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Japanese publisher Shogakukan<\/strong> recently released the results of a survey which collected results from 1,000 readers of its monthly Ciao<\/strong> magazine, which is aimed at elementary school-age girls. The survey asked them which theme parks they\u2019ve been to, and not surprisingly, Tokyo Disneyland was at the top of the list<\/strong>, followed by its most high-profile rival, Osaka\u2019s Universal Studios Japan<\/strong>. Coming in behind them, in order, were Tokyo\u2019s Sanrio Puroland<\/strong>, Nagoya\u2019s Legoland Japan<\/strong>, and Adventure World<\/strong>, a combination amusement park, zoo, and aquarium in Wakayama Prefecture.<\/p>\n Four of those parks were also in the top five responses for the survey\u2019s other question, \u201cWhat amusement park do you want to visit?\u201d<\/strong> Legoland came in fifth, with Tokyo Disneyland fourth, Sanrio Puroland third, and Universal Studios Japan second. So who bested all those big names in the theme park world?<\/strong><\/p>\n Chiikawa Park<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Located in Tokyo\u2019s Ikebukuro<\/strong> neighborhood, Chiikawa Park, as the name implies, is all about Chiikawa<\/strong>, the cute but unspecified-species manga\/anime character that\u2019s skyrocketed in popularity since its 2020 debut. Chiikawa beat out the casts of Evangelion<\/em> and Super Mario<\/em> for the 2022 Japan Character Award<\/a> and has become such a pop culture phenomenon that it was even recruited for a public awareness campaign teaching foreign tourists about Japanese manners<\/a> that launched earlier this year. At Chiikawa Park, fans can play games and walk through immersive spaces inspired by the series characters and environments<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u25bc Chiikawa Park<\/p>\n It is true that Tokyo Disneyland has seen its popularity slipping<\/a>. Between the park ratcheting up its ticket prices and a dearth of new attractions, it\u2019s been bested in overall attendance for the last two years by Universal Studios Japan, which can draw from the huge pool of popular non-Disney anime and video game characters for its collaborations and regularly rolls out new, limited-time attractions as part of the partnerships.<\/p>\n However, it\u2019s probably too soon to crown Chiikawa Park the new long-term king of amusement parks, since there are a number of factors that likely boosted its ranking in the survey. First is novelty<\/strong>. Questionnaire cards were included in the issue of Ciao<\/em> that went on sale August 1, just four days after Chiikawa Park had its grand opening, so it was definitely someplace kids had been hearing\/thinking about as they filled out their responses. The August 1 timing also meant that the survey was being conducted during a brutally hot summer. The high temperatures this year have been theorized as another reason for Tokyo Disneyland\u2019s reduced attendance<\/a>, whereas Chiikawa Park is an entirely indoor, and thus air-conditioned, facility<\/strong>, and is located within the Sunshine City shopping\/entertainment center, so you don\u2019t even have to contend with the elements during your walk up to the entrance.<\/p>\n Linguistics might have also influenced the results<\/strong>. In Japanese, the simplest way to say you \u201cwant to go\u201d someplace is to use the word ikitai<\/em>, which comes from iku<\/em>\/\u201cgo.\u201d However, in asking respondents which theme park they\u2019d like to go to, the survey used the term \u201cittemitai,\u201d<\/strong> a conjugated combination of iku<\/em>\/\u201cgo\u201d and miru<\/em>\/\u201csee.\u201d Following a verb with a form of miru<\/em> creates a nuance along the lines of \u201ctry (doing something) and see what it\u2019s like,\u201d so it\u2019s most commonly used for talking about new experiences<\/strong>, or at least an experience where you\u2019re not entirely sure what the outcome is going to be like. In other words, ittemitai<\/em> is a great fit, conceptually, for a brand-new theme park like Chiikawa Park, but might not necessarily trigger a response of wanting to make a repeat visit to someplace someone\u2019s already been to and hasn\u2019t had any major changes since, like Disneyland.<\/p>\n Finally, the results might have skewed more towards Chiikawa Park because of who was conducting the survey. Ciao<\/em> is one of Japan\u2019s most popular shojo manga<\/strong> (girls\u2019 comics) magazines. While the Chiikawa<\/em> manga doesn\u2019t run in Ciao<\/em>, the survey was still polling manga readers, and odds are they\u2019re especially agreeable to the idea of a manga-themed amusement park.<\/p>\n \u25bc An issue of Ciao<\/em><\/p>\n Taking all this into consideration, it\u2019s unlikely that we\u2019ve reached a tipping point in which Chiikawa Park will be perennially more popular than Tokyo Disneyland from now on, and considering Chiikawa Park\u2019s more modest scale and lower repeat-visit potential, interest will probably dip a bit once its newness fades. However, the survey does show that while Japan still loves Tokyo Disneyland, it\u2019s got room in its heart for other amusement parks now too.<\/p>\n Source: PR Times<\/a> via Narinari<\/a><\/em> Surprising number-one pick wasn\u2019t Universal Studios Japan either. For decades, Tokyo Disneyland has been the default image when people in Japan think of a theme park. However, Disneyland might be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/10\/cp-2.jpg?w=640\")
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\nInsert images: PR Times (1<\/a>, 2<\/a>)<\/em>
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