東京ディズニー The fusion of Disney & Japan
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Welcome to Tokyo Disney! Where dreams come true in Japanese.
This is where you can post and discuss all things related to the culture of Disney and how it uniquely relates to the culture of Japan. Everything from official announcements about the Tokyo Disney Resort parks to your personal photos of Fantasy Springs.
Rules:
- You must follow all of the rules of your Lemmy instance and this Lemmy instance (lemmy.world).
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- Due to the nature of this community, posts/content/links in English or Japanese are allowed, although English is preferred. If you do post in Japanese, please try to offer an English translation. Posts and comments in any other language will be removed.
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Above: The billboard for Captain Eo, presented by JCB @ Tokyo Disneyland, just prior to the attraction's permanent closure.
After 14 years, Captain Eo reopened in Tomorrowland @ Tokyo Disneyland in 2010 and played until 2014 when it was replaced by Stitch's Encounter. Captain Eo originally ran in Tokyo Disneyland from 1987, replacing Magic Journeys, until 1996, when it was replaced by Honey, I Shrunk the Audience.
Unlike the American parks, the revival of Captain Eo wasn't billed as a "revival", rather it simply came back in its original form minus some of the special effects for which the hardware has since been removed from the theater.
Picture taken by me in 2013.
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A giant Jack-o-Lantern Mickey hanging in a shopping arcade in Suginami in 2013.
(A little late to the party, I know.)
Picture taken by me.
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Hoot & Holler Hideout Inside Splash Mountain @ Tokyo Disneyland to Permenantly Close
(www.tokyodisneyresort.jp)
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Above: The classic Starjets ride at Tokyo Disneyland as it stood in mid-2017 just prior to its closure. Tokyo Disneyland was the last park to feature the space shuttle variation of the ride.
Back in 2017, when construction on the Beauty & the Beast area began, Starjets was one of Tomorrowland's attractions that had to be removed to make way for it. That and the one churro stand that served the "blue"-flavored churros. I still haven't forgiven OLC for that.
That year, Tokyo Disneyland held a "sayonara" campaign for Starjets so guests could say farewell and ride one last time. These are the pictures I took a couple of months before it was closed:
Pretty sure I only waited for about 15 minutes.
Standing on the platform, and even more so when you raised your car to the highest setting, you were given a great view of the initial construction of Beast's Castle (As well as the rest of the park).
The snack stand that was built into the base of Starjets served a special sundae that commemorated the end of the ride.
Hilariously, the land that Starjets occupied was used for a building that houses the FastPass ticket machines for the Beauty & the Beast ride... ticket machines that were never used because COVID ended FastPass throughout the resort just before that area was suppose to open to the public. Now express ticketing is done exclusively through the TDR app, so those machines have been abandoned in place for half a decade now. The building is designed to look like Maurice's workshop from the animated movie, which is nice... I guess. It has a moving watermill.
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A pair of black & white Mickey & Minnie dolls in the window of a bridal shop in Ginza, Tokyo.
I doubt they were for sale, but they look very well done for something made especially for that shop.
Picture taken by me in 2014.
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The delightful entrance to the Disney Store in Shibuya. Inside, it's quite small and multi-leveled. It feels more like a gift shop than a full Disney Store, which just makes it very cozy, IMO.
Picture taken by me in 2014.
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18317484
(Sorry, maxso216, but this is truly the shortest functional train line in Japan.)
The DisneySea Electric Railway is a 2-station line coming in at less than half a kilometer in total length (0.48km). Even at the relaxed 15kph speed of the trains, it only takes two and a half minutes to traverse the entire line. The line runs between the American Waterfront and Port Discovery areas of Tokyo DisneySea. It also has what must be the smallest fleet of rolling stock of any line in Japan; Four two-car sets, of which only two or three sets are in operation at any given time. (Fewer sets than even the Tokyo Disney Resort Line monorail.)
A trivial oddity about the trains is their numbering system. Which initially appears to not be a system at all. All eight cars of the four train sets have a unique (yet random) car number, and the set pairs are never separated from each other. The only discernible pattern with the car numbers is that the final digit in each number seems to represent in which order the sets were commissioned:
Set #1) 5591 & 1111
Set #2) 1022 & 2842
Set #3) 1783 & 5593
Set #4) 0214 & 4824Set #1 traversing the elevated tracks over American Waterfront:
The origin of the train sets are a bit of mystery. Their manufacturer is not known. Since the beginning of operation in 2001, the DisneySea Electric Railway has been sponsored by Takara Tomy - A Japanese toy company that makes functioning toy train sets, including replicas of the trains on the DisneySea Electric Railway.
Sign over the American Waterfront Station entrance:
It is possible that the train sets were designed and built by WED themselves as simply another park attraction, or possibly by Kyosan Kogyo Co. Ltd. which manufactured the sets used on the Western River Railroad in Tokyo Disneyland. The DisneySea Electric Railway sets are modeled to resemble some of the elevated streetcars used in what became the New York City subway system at the turn of the 20th century.
Preserved Brooklyn Union streetcar at the New York City Transit Museum, WikipediaAll four sets have been in service since Tokyo DisneySea opened on September 4th, 2001. Apart from having air conditioners installed in 2015, there have been no notable improvements to the trains themselves.
Is the DisneySea Electric Railway an actual train line? Yes. In addition to having two stops which allows the line to be used by park guests to easily get from one side of the park to the other, the line falls under the jurisdiction of Japan's transit authority. Despite being on private land and requiring admission to the park to use, DisneySea Electric Railway must adhere to the same standards as any other public train line.
Set #2 arriving at Port Discovery Station:
When Tokyo Disneyland was built and opened in 1983, the Western River Railroad was purposefully designed to have only one stop and run in a loop that sent riders back to where they started to avoid a law that required charging a train fare and that a departure schedule be posted and followed by the line's operators. This decision made it another attraction, rather than a functional line like the Disneyland Railroad in Anaheim. This particular law was abolished in 1987, allowing DisneySea Electric Railway to function as an actual line with destinations without needing to follow those rules.
(This is my first attempt at a long form post here, let me know how I did. All pictures are by me unless noted.)
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This is probably going to be the best picture I ever take of Cinderella's Castle. That morning was cold and wet, then the clouds disappeared and the sun lit everything up in a way you don't often see.
Taken by me in 2017, before the castle got repainted in 2020.
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