We're near the town of Nikko
And we just got into an abandoned amusement park called Western Village
Well there's no western movie without a panda
Here, we got this room
This is actually kind of creepy
I wonder if this was really left like this or did somebody put this bunny up just to be creepy
Nice, you got a gun
To give an idea of how badly this place crashed
This room used to comfortably seat about 400 people
and now it's abandoned
A church, this is going to be creepy
Oh f*ck, I didn't see that
This priest is holding a real bible
You can flip through the pages
And there's another gun here for some reason.
This theme park was closed just eight years ago
And to give an idea, the plastic bags are till totally intact
and look quite fresh
But because it's mostly built out of wood and this climate is very humid
It's kind of got a really creepy, super run-down sort of vibe
It's made to look old anyway because it's western-themed
It says '2015, F*ck me' over there
Apparently the owner of this place was very passionate about the wild west
So he kind of, he had a ranch, then he transformed it into an amusement park
This was not a calculated commercial move on his behalf, he just wanted to have all this
So I guess it makes it even sadder that this kind of went bankrupt and all
There are strangely accurate things in here
The guy must have really been passionate about the wild west
Billy the Kid is a real convict that was being chased by the U.S. in the wild west
The ranch was opened in 1973
became an amusement park in 1975
and the place got closed in 2007
It had a pretty decently long run
Yeah
This looks to be a stage for western-themed performances
The crowd was seated over there, 'Buffalo Stadium' it says
There are some mats so it seems like the scenes were heavy on the stunts
Some of this stuff, I can't even say how it was supposed to look originally, right?
Like how run-down was this supposed to be and how run-down it actually is
because it's meant to look a little run down
We got a dead man
Ah shit
Sheriff John Edwards
How's the prison
Bed's wooden
But it's kind of warm, so it's not bad
Every western village needs a bank
Yes
These figures of people here really creep us out
You walk in and don't realize there is going to be one and it just stares you in the face
What the h*ll is going on here?
It's a dentist
Howdy partner
It's like an illusion house
Isn't it?
Maybe
If you take pictures in one end, you look giant compared to the other
Like every amusement park, this one has an arcade here
Looks like someone stole all the toys
This UFO catcher is no longer functioning
This looks fun, this place looks like it was fun
There are some gachapons left
There is a river there and if you take the bridge across, you're in the Mexican village
So it's like the Rio Grande in the U.S.
Wow
The year is accurate because this building was built here in 1995
Along with what's on the other side
Apparently the owner of this place impulsively built this and the surprise on the other side in 1995
12 years before it closed, so I guess it was still booming
This stuff is crazy
How do you like Mt. Rushmore?
It's my first time seeing it, it's beautiful
The Mt. Rushmore stage
Built in this park in 1995
It's honestly my first time seeing Mt. Rushmore so I don't know how accurate it is
It looks like the pictures
What did you think?
Pretty amazing
I like the buffalo, I like all the creepy pets, animals
This place breathes like failed dreams
and it's quite sad
It has the added value of being like an actual childhood playground
that makes it double creepy
And it's in fact one of the many abandoned theme parks in Japan
For some reason Japan has a lot of this stuff
And it's one of the less popular, less known, I think
So it's worth visiting if you're into this type of stuff
Still a lot of things are very intact
and worth checking out
Pretty easy to get to, very close to the station
And only about a 2.5-3 hour commute from Tokyo