An abandoned amusement park in Japan is so similar to the "World of the Wild West" that it becomes uncomfortable
If you spent most of the time before the New Year watching the popular HBO series "The World of the Wild West" (Westworld), these strange and slightly sinister pictures will make you mentally return to the atmosphere of the series. No, they don't have the same theme park as on the screen. This is a place that exists in reality. We are talking about an old abandoned theme park just a few hours north of Tokyo, where photographer Lee Chapman went and photographed what was left there.
The amusement park opened in the 1970s and initially bore the modest name Kinugawa Family Ranch ("Kinugawa Family Ranch"), but eventually was renamed Western Village ("Western Village"). Does it remind you of anything?
(11 photos in total)
When the park opened, visitors could take lasso lessons, ride horses and fish in the pond. In subsequent years, impressive Disneyland-style shows began to be held in the park, where shooters shot apples on the heads of guests. This was written by the Tokyo writer and amateur photographer of the ruins, Michael John Grist, in his blog.
Now the lifeless figures of plastic dolls with robotic insides are frozen in their original positions — either at the bar in the saloon, surrounded by half-empty bottles of alcohol, or at the counter in the bank.
The park is a terrifying reflection of the Wild West World theme park in its early years. In the HBO series, the creators of Ford and Arnold Park have developed early-generation androids that receive guests and are able to perform primitive robot functions. As the park developed, robots were also improved.
Unfortunately, a theme park in the style of the "Wild West World" near Tokyo was forced to close in 2006. Now it looks like a strange, completely unexpected sight in a relatively sparsely populated area a few hours north of Tokyo, as Chapman writes.
The state in which the park is now resembles the supposed state of the "Wild West World" if the programming department from the series decided to abandon the androids inhabiting the park to their fate. Maybe you won't meet Dolores or the Man in Black here, but the characters inhabiting this Japanese park will surely strike the right chord in the fans of the series.
Keywords: Wild West | Amusement park | TV series | Japan