Ruins / Haikyo

Japan’s myriad haikyo (or ruins) are quickly becoming famous- both within the country and around the web, and it’s no surprise as there just so darn many of them, often at such ridiculous scales, with such ridiculous design motifs, all left exactly as they were when abandoned. In other countries perhaps these giant theme parks and gorgeous old museums would have been torn down, or preserved as history, but not here. Here they moulder, rot, and sink into the past even as the world moves on around them.

Here’s my own humble collection- enjoy!

Akasaka Love Hotel	Red Blossom Restaurant
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The Akasaka Love Hotel Haikyo in Higashi-Yamato, Tokyo, clearly suffered for lack of passing traffic. Inside, its gaudy rooms still sing of forbidden pleasures, the walls plastered with bright helios, lurking cheetahs, and naked Bathsheba’s, though I doubt any lusty couples have joined in their bawdy chorus for some time.	The Red Blossom Restaurant Haikyo on the Lake Tama ring road rests as a peaceful shrine to the yin and yang of Nature, showing in gentle tones both her power to tear down the old, and raise up the new. The restaurant itself sits on a small hill like a rusted old tank, off-kilter, gap-toothed, and leering to the side.
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Sports World Water Park	Russian Village Theme Park	US Air Force Base

The Sports World Water Park in Izu is a well-hidden gem in the crown of Japan’s abandoned theme parks. Tucked away from the main theme park down a slim passage over-awed by rabid weeds, its brilliant blue umbilical water-slides snaking and inter-twining through the verdant green jungle canopy.	The Russian Village Theme Park in Suibara, Niigata, sprawls empty and forlorn atop a small hill set back from the main road, its giant fake mammoths resting unseen in their dark and musty show hall, and the vibrant blue onion-domes of its vaulting ’Russian’ church slowly tarnishing to white.	The abandoned US Air Force (USAF) base in Fuchu is a vine-slathered memento from the early days of Japanese/American peace. Its huge twin parabolic dishes are still visible from the exterior- though now half-eaten up by the passing decades, rusted red and bobbing like hole-riddled yachts on the sea of green jungle.
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Negishi Plateau Caverns	Queen Chateau Soapland	Toyo Bowl Bowling Alley

Deep within the solid rock of the Negishi Plateau in Yokohama, spreading beneath the old race-course Grandstand and Yokosuka Naval Base, lies a twisting warren of hidden World War Two era caverns, reportedly filled with ancient munitions and top-secret military dossiers.	The Queen Chateau Soapland Haikyo in Mito, Ibaraki, is at once a grand but squalid folly. A bath-based brothel rising 5 fairy-tale stories into the sky, cornered with towers and capped with bright red tile, it represents an era gone mad with indulgence, audacity, and hopefulness.	The Toyo Bowl in Kanagawa was a mammoth venture when first dreamed up, the second biggest bowling alley in the world behind the Nagoya Toyo Bowl, featuring 108 bowling lanes spread over 3 huge floors, along with a large pachinko hall, restaurants, gift shops, arcades, and a creche.
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Keishin Radiology Hospital	Negishi Racecourse Grandstand	Sports World Theme Park

The gutted shell of the abandoned Keishin Hospital stands blank and ghostly on the rural Kanagawa sky-line. It once housed state-of-the-art radiology and cancer departments, now the only pieces of equipment remaining are the chairs bolted to the floor in the dentist’s office.	The Negishi Racecourse Grandstand in Yokohama looms like an ancient 3-headed Titan over the Negishi Plateau. It once drew crowds of thousands to cheer from its elaborate bleachers, to wander its long hallways and admire its extravagant architecture.	Sports World occupies an idyllic position at the crown of the Izu peninsula, overlooking a wide swathe of richly forested mountains and valleys. In its heyday it was a sports and relaxation haven, featuring tennis courts, miniature golf, a dive pool, restaurants, a hotel, a huge wave pool, a spa, and a gym.
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Nichitsu Mining Town High School	Mt. Asama Volcano Museum	Kappa Pia Theme Park

The abandoned Nichitsu Mining Town sits cramped into a narrow valley at the head of a long and buckled road in the mountainous western edge of Saitama. It was once a thriving company town with hundreds of families, the women staying at home in their rickety apartments, the children at the large wooden high school, and the men down in the mines digging for tin	Up in the mountainous north-west corner of snowy Gunma prefecture, at the foot of the once-active volcano Mt. Asama, lies a beautifully weathered abandoned volcano museum. Ruptured by avalanche scree and scoured by the harsh winter winds rushing down the valley, it stands as a lone sentinel guarding the jagged granite slopes leading up to the volcano’s cone.	The Kappa Pia Theme Park in Saitama prefecture was in the process of being demolished when I went to see it. The grand rusted rollercoasters, creaking tea-cup rides, teddy bear-winning sideshows and themed restaurants I’d hoped to see were all gone, leaving nothing but bare concrete platforms with rust-pocked rivet marks where rides had once been.
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