Next week, we are headed back to the Kansai region for cherry blossom season in Kyoto. Before we go, I wanted to share one final post related to Universal Studios Japan, which we visited on our last trip to Kansai in January.
I had an article go up on GaijinPot in February detailing “5 Things to Know Before You Go to Universal Studios Japan.” The first thing covered there is how “certain rides are exclusive to” the USJ park in Osaka. One of those is Jaws, which is such a classic that I had to give it its own dedicated post here.
This post expands on that recent Jaws one with a look at five more things unique to USJ: not just rides, but also photo ops and hotel views.
Mario Has Joined the Minions in Hollywood
Here’s the first thing to know, if you’ve been living under a rock with googly eyes for the past five weeks. As of February 17, 2023, Super Nintendo World is no longer unique to Japan, with a second version having opened to great fanfare at Universal Studios Hollywood. That’s right: Mario is ready for his close-up, Mr. DeMille (and like the Minions, he'll be getting one very soon in animation when The Super Mario Bros. Movie opens in April).
However, that doesn’t mean USJ is bereft of its own exclusive Nintendo-themed attractions or other one-of-a-kind park experiences. When I say that, I’m not even necessarily talking about homegrown Japanese rides geared toward anime fans, like the current Jujutsu Kaisen: The Real 4-D, based on a series that was reportedly the most-watched anime in North America on the Crunchyroll streaming service in 2020.
This is more stuff with broad crossover appeal that should theoretically appeal as much to international park guests as domestic visitors or anime fans. Below are five things, just based on our first two visits to the park, that you can’t find anywhere else in the world besides Universal Studios Japan.
1. Yoshi’s Adventure Is Still Available at USJ Only
Yoshi’s Adventure would not, in and of itself, justify a trip to Japan. But if you’re here, anyway, you might as well check it out. This is that other Super Nintendo World attraction, the one that’s not Mario Kart (which Hollywood now has).
In my December /Film article about Super Nintendo World, I described Yoshi's Adventure as a “kid-friendly attraction [that] takes you on a short omnimover ride out across Mount Beanpole,” which forms the main backdrop when you enter the land. The relaxing nature of this ride made it Azusa’s favorite, and USJ has one whole Express Pass built around it.
The Universal Express Pass 4: Fun Ride ticket is one of the cheaper Express Pass options. It gains you timed entry to Super Nintendo World — which you otherwise might not be able to see — and allows you to ride Yoshi’s Adventure, along with Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem, Jaws, and Jurassic Park: The Ride or The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man 4K3D: The Ride.
There aren’t enough details available yet to know whether Yoshi’s Adventure will make it to Florida or Singapore when Super Nintendo World opens in those two places in 2025. For now, at least, this ride’s all Japan.
2. The Flying Dinosaur in Jurassic Park Is Exclusive to USJ
Though Universal Studios Hollywood has turned its version of the Jurassic Park river ride into a Jurassic World attraction, USJ still has the original one like Florida. It also has a roller coaster called The Flying Dinosaur in its Jurassic Park area.
The Flying Dinosaur is quite popular and draws long lines, but they have Express Pass ticket combos you can buy that include it. It was only after I got ours (Universal Express Pass 7: The Flying Dinosaur & Jurassic Park) that I realized the nature of this ride, which is that of a coaster where you’re riding in a prone position, face down.
Azusa doesn’t do well in open heights, and she also has a slight back problem and had forgotten her motion sickness pills. This ride would have probably killed her! So, she skipped it and let me be the one to have the G-force winds blow my face mask down around my chin as the coaster curlicued around and gave me a quick view of the 7-Eleven(?) across the street.
Another popular coaster, available only at USJ, is Hollywood Dream: The Ride. I did try it first thing in the morning using the Single Rider line, but it has a slightly more generic music theme. They have a second version of it, though, called Hollywood Dream: The Ride - Backdrop, which you ride facing backward.
3. You Can See Hogwarts Castle Reflected in the Black Lake
There are five different Universal parks with The Wizarding World of Harry Potter — two in Asia, two in Florida, and one in California — so the sight of Hogwarts Castle is familiar to many parkgoers around the world. Only at USJ, though, can you see a mirror image of Hogwarts reflected upside-down in the waters of the Black Lake or Great Lake.
They have a photo spot alongside the castle that juts out over the lake, but it’s so close to Hogwarts that, even when I brought out my old Pentax camera with its big lens, I couldn’t capture the full castle, the trees below it, and its watery reflection.
It was only later, when we ventured into the outside seating area at the nearby Three Broomsticks restaurant, that we caught the castle and its full mirror image right as the setting sun was hitting Hogwarts, turning it reddish. The Three Broomsticks is set back a bit further, so even with an iPhone, you can get the top of the castle and its corresponding reflection in the water (as long as you don’t mind shooting vertically oriented pictures in portrait mode).
It’s a beautiful sight and was definitely one of the highlights of our very first trip to USJ back in December of last year.
4. Space Fantasy Might Be Better Than Space Mountain
At USJ, the ride building where E.T. Adventure was once located now holds Space Fantasy: The Ride. It’s an indoor roller coaster, similar to Space Mountain at Tokyo Disneyland, except it’s not as pitch-dark. Your ride vehicle, which holds forward-and backward-facing seats, also spins as it zooms past planets and through asteroid belts.
I’ve only ridden it once, but I think I actually like this ride better than Space Mountain (which is due to close next year, anyway, before they rebuild it and relaunch it in 2027). You get a similar coaster effect with Space Fantasy, but the show scenes of planets like Saturn really give it an added wow factor, visually.
By the way, you can still see E.T. in gift shops and on street corners at USJ, but his presence is somewhat diminished compared to Jaws. For its part, Space Fantasy is one of the few USJ rides that’s based on an original concept and not an existing movie or TV property. The story involves saving the sun and the Sun Fairies by gathering stardust in space.
Space Fantasy usually receives a VR overlay where it’s re-themed to something Cool Japan-related during the seasonal event of that name. If it’s open without the overlay while you’re at USJ, it might be a rare opportunity for you to catch this ride. Though the posted wait time was 25 minutes, I was able to walk straight through most of the Single Rider line and be in and out of Space Fantasy in about 10 or 15 minutes at the end of the night.
Be forewarned: this is one of those rides where you’ll board a vehicle that clearly wasn’t built with non-Japanese bodies in mind. Depending on how tall or heavyset you are, you could run into trouble when they try to lock the lap bar in place over you. I’m a big guy with long legs and there was almost nowhere to put my knees.
5. A Room with a View Awaits You at the Park Front Hotel
Despite everything I’ve written here, I’m not the world’s foremost Universal Studios expert. But to the best of my knowledge (and what I could find online), there’s no other hotel like this, anywhere in the world, looking directly down on one of the main theme parks at a Universal resort. USJ’s Park Front Hotel might hold a monopoly on that.
I know from what I’ve read on the official Discover Universal Blog that Universal Orlando Resort has some nice hotel views of its Volcano Bay water park. But if we’re talking straight theme parks, you can’t beat sleeping 26 floors up in one of the luxury rooms with a park view at the Park Front Hotel at Universal Studios Japan.
For comparison, the Hotel Keihan Universal Tower is located elsewhere in the same CityWalk complex in Osaka, but it’s angled more to the side. We haven’t stayed in the adjacent Hotel Kintetsu Universal City tower yet, but it’s positioned a little further back from the Park Front Hotel, and I can’t imagine the view is better. If nothing else, I can say with all certainty that you won’t find any hotel that’s a shorter walk from USJ than the conveniently located Park Front Hotel.
That about does it for USJ for now. See you on the other side of Kyoto next week.