Universal Cool Japan featuring Video

[Yukendoit]

For the last two years, Universal Studios Japan have been putting on a special event that last for five months called Cool Japan. Since the majority of visitors to the park are locals there is not much interest or need to return all the time. But USJ as its referred to in Osaka, puts out pretty decent special events that are large enough to attract large numbers. This year the event features areas dedicated to the anime's Evangelion and Attack on Titan, both have 4-D shows. They have an upgrade attraction for Bioharzard aka Resident Evil called Bioharzard: the escape 2 which is an escape room attraction featuring characters from Bioharzard. There are giant animatronics of monsters from the game Monster Hunter. And they rethemed space fantasy into a virtual reality enhanced roller coaster, featuring a J-Pop a star. It's absolute insanity! Please check out this video I just shot from Cool Japan!

 

[pat_naughty05]

Thanks for the video, Scott. I want to check out the Japan Disney and Universal parks so bad. These random little events seem really cool.

 

[Viator]

Its fascinating to see, that Major theme parks like Alton and USJ, those are the two that are trying the VR technology before anywhere else in their brands. It's going to be interesting to hear possibly the success of these VR Coaster conversions, and if Universal takes that to apply to Orlando, Singapore or Beijing if its a success.

 

[pat_naughty05]

You know, I think I'm missing the boat on the VR coasters thing. I just don't see the appeal. When I'm on a coaster, I want to see what is actually around me. Scott, can you give your opinion on the VR coaster application at USJ?

 

[Yukendoit]

So first let me preface this by saying the ride is insane regularly just from it's bonkers story and the fact that it's a spinning indoor coaster. And the ride is now limited because they can only load the front side of the ride. As going backwards this way would probably make you sick. The virtual reality though looked like something you'd see at a tech-demo for a ride. Imagine riding a ride with an Oculus rift attached to your face. But the visuals are mostly the J-pop star dancing in front of you while you are traveling through her "kawaii" factory. A giant creature is hinted at and eventually takes the tour off the course. Causing the J-pop star to fight the monster and save you after a ridiculous fall.
Now you may say, I want to see whats going on around me. And that's a perfectly logical thing to say. I want to see the stuff they originally built for the riders to see. But this is a limited time attraction, only showing up for five months. It also only took two days of the ride being down for it to be fully operational. Which is a hint that something similar might return again, because the downtime is so limited. Also I'd like to note that since this is Japan, they trust you to walk down a hallway by yourself with the head piece, a heavy expensive piece of equipment. You can see my shock in the video as I quickly showed it off on camera.
All in all I would say that this ride is a huge success for USJ. It's a unique ride targeting locals. I mean it wasn't even released that it was a VR ride until two days before the event. Just a vague statement of XR infront of the ride. I couldn't see this retheme happening at the parks in the states, but I have been wrong many times before.