Gulliver’s Kingdom Abandoned Theme Park - Japan

Gulliver’s Kingdom Theme Park, built in the shadow of Japan‘s Mount Fuji with oodles of government stimulus money, was a sprawling white elephant that existed for only 10 years. Today there’s little if any trace of the abandoned theme park, its ruins, or Gulliver himself but the eerie and unsettling images captured by a legion of intrepid “haikyo” explorers. 

Gulliver’s Kingdom was a failed theme park located near Kawaguchi-machi, Yamanashi prefecture, Japan. The park opened in 1997 and typified the “bridge to nowhere” construction projects Japan’s government and banking sector championed in the 1990s. Though intended to boost the economy out of its post-bubble doldrums, white elephants like Gulliver’s Kingdom created some short-term construction jobs but little permanent employment.

Gulliver’s Kingdom was backed financially by the Niigata Chuo Bank, which later collapsed into a sea of red ink and toxic, non-performing loans. As it morphed into a so-called Zombie Bank, the Niigata Chuo Bank was ordered to clear its books of unprofitable assets, of which Gulliver’s Kingdom was one: they had lent the venture around $350 million. In October of 2001, the unpopular theme park shut its Brobdingnagian doors for the last time.

On the face of it, Gulliver’s Kingdom had a few things going for it. Its location, for one thing – nestled in Kamikuishiki village at the foot of Mount Fuji. Mount Fuji has a dark side, most notably the Aokigahara area where seemingly oblivious project planners decided to build Gulliver’s Kingdom. Ranked sixth by the website Cracked.com on their list of The 6 Creepiest Places on Earth, Aokigahara is Japan’s “suicide forest” – said to be the second most popular suicide location after San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

Bad enough Gulliver’s Kingdom had a suicide forest as its neighbor, the park’s other neighbors were much, much worse. Kamikuishiki village is notorious for being the location of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult’s headquarters and nerve gas production facility. The exposure of Aum Shinrikyo was pretty much the straw that broke the back of Gulliver’s Kingdom, though there was really so much wrong with the park on so many levels, one might say it was clearly doomed from the start. Gulliver’s Kingdom wasn’t actually a Six Flags style park. The closest things to the usual amusement park rides and rollercoasters were a bobsled track and a luge course. 

After a thorough demolition in 2007, all one can see are some exposed foundations and the odd tuft of asbestos insulation snagged on twisted rebar. Nothing remains of Gulliver’s Kingdom today but a rough concrete scar, and even this basic foundation is gradually being subsumed by dirt, dust and windblown sand.

Source: weburbanist | Image credits: 1 2 3 4 5 6