I need to be honest about something. I am a thirty-four-year-old man. I write about temples, food markets, and the particular quality of light in Japanese gardens. I do not, on paper, belong at a theme park. And yet Universal Studios Japan in Osaka was one of the best days of our three weeks in Japan, and I am not being ironic when I say that standing in a Slytherin robe in front of Hogwarts Castle at age thirty-four felt more emotionally significant than several actual cultural landmarks I visited on this trip.
Lia, who had been vibrating with excitement since we bought the tickets, stood at the entrance gate with the park stretching behind her and gave me the look she gives when she has been proven right about something — which is to say, the look she gives most of the time.
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
We went to Harry Potter first, because Lia is a Gryffindor and I am a Slytherin and we had unfinished business with this franchise. I bought the robe at the first shop we passed. Slytherin, obviously. Green and silver, with the crest on the chest and the kind of dramatic swish that made me feel like a man with opinions about the Dark Arts. Lia declined a robe on the grounds that she has “taste” and “dignity,” but she was wearing a Piranha Plant hat from the Nintendo merch shop within the hour, so I consider that argument settled.
Hogwarts Castle is the centrepiece, and the Japanese version is, like most things Japan does with borrowed material, better than the original. The castle rises on its rocky outcrop at the end of Hogsmeade village, and the attention to detail — the weathered stone, the leaded windows, the snow on the rooftops — creates a genuine moment of suspended disbelief. I stood on the bridge leading to the entrance, Slytherin robes billowing in what I choose to remember as a dramatic wind, and felt twelve years old again.
Inside the castle, the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride was extraordinary — a combination of physical coaster and projection that moved through scenes from the films with a fluidity and intensity that left both of us speechless. The queue itself is half the experience: you walk through Dumbledore’s office, the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, the Gryffindor common room, each one so perfectly realised that I caught myself looking for details in the corners instead of watching for the line to move.
The broomstick display in the castle caught my eye — Nimbus 2000 and Firebolt mounted on the wall, looking like props from the actual films. I stood in front of them longer than was socially acceptable.
Lunch was at the Three Broomsticks — the pub from the films, recreated with heavy wooden beams, candlelit chandeliers, and the kind of medieval-fantasy atmosphere that makes you want to order everything with a British accent. Lia sat across from me with four butterbeers, a plate of ribs, corn on the cob, and her Piranha Plant hat still firmly on her head, looking like the happiest person in any theme park on earth.
The butterbeer, for the record, is excellent — creamy, sweet, with a butterscotch foam on top that sticks to your upper lip. I had two. Lia had two. We do not discuss who had a third.
Later, as the park lights came on, I found a dark alley off Hogsmeade that was meant to look like a snowy side street. The Honeydukes sweet shop glowed green through its window behind me. I stood in my Slytherin robes in the artificial snow and struck a pose that can only be described as “wizard who has made questionable life choices and is at peace with them.”
Super Nintendo World
If Harry Potter was the emotional peak, Super Nintendo World was pure, uncut joy. The area opened in 2021 and it is, without exaggeration, the most impressive themed environment I have ever walked through. You enter through a green pipe — of course — and emerge into the Mushroom Kingdom: a multi-level, interactive world of question blocks, spinning coins, piranha plants, and a Bowser’s Castle that towers over everything with the menace of a final boss.
Lia found the question blocks immediately. She crouched beneath one, jumped, and hit it with her fist. It made the sound. The actual Super Mario coin sound. She turned to me with an expression of delight so pure it could have powered the park.
The Mario Kart: Koopa’s Challenge ride was the reason we came. You wear AR headsets built into red Mario helmets, and the ride combines a physical track with augmented reality so you are simultaneously on a moving vehicle and throwing virtual shells at Bowser’s minions. Lia and I took a selfie in our helmets in the queue — two adults in Mario hats, grinning like children, entirely unashamed.
The ride photo captured us mid-scream. I will not describe my facial expression except to say it confirms that I am not, despite what I project on this website, a calm person.
Donkey Kong Country
The newest area — Donkey Kong Country — had just opened, and the theming was jaw-dropping. The entire area is built to look like DK’s jungle: wooden bridges, vine-covered structures, mine cart tracks, and a level of environmental detail that made me stop every few metres to look at something. The Mine Cart Madness ride entrance was a work of art on its own — the banana-shaped archway, the faux-wooden signage, the staff in explorer costumes.
The wider Donkey Kong area had a tropical-adventure aesthetic that was somehow both absurd and completely convincing. The Kong area with its tiki huts and jungle canopy felt like stepping into a game cartridge from 1994.
Lia, meanwhile, had fully committed to the merch. She was browsing the Nintendo shop with a Bowser shell backpack on her back and the Piranha Plant hat still on her head, examining headbands with the focus of someone making investment decisions.
I stood at the overlook with the full Nintendo World panorama behind me — Bowser’s Castle, the question blocks, the green hills, the Thwomp, the Piranha Plants — holding my Nintendo shopping bag in one hand and wearing my Slytherin robes in the other section’s franchise. Cross-universe contamination. I regret nothing.
The view of Nintendo World at golden hour, with the crowds flowing through and the late afternoon clouds building above the castle, was genuinely beautiful — theme-park beauty, which is its own category, but beauty nonetheless.
Jurassic Park & The Rest
The rest of USJ is impressive in its own right. The Jurassic Park area has a rollercoaster with loops that twist above the walkway, and the entrance gate with its wooden signage and tropical planting does exactly what Spielberg intended — makes you feel like something large and prehistoric is about to appear.
Minion Park
Minion Park at dusk was unexpectedly charming. The architecture is a pastel fever dream — pink and yellow buildings, candy-themed shop facades, Minions climbing walls and sliding down chutes everywhere you look. The Despicable Me Minion Mayhem building glowed against the twilight sky, and the Surrender Candies & Treats shop had Minions tumbling out of windows in a permanent state of chaos.
I stood in the middle of Minion Park at blue hour — Slytherin robes still on, Nintendo bag still in hand, a giant Minion statue waving behind me — and a photographer asked if I wanted a picture. I said yes. The result is the most ridiculous photograph of me in existence, and possibly the most honest.
The Final Stop
Our last photograph of the day was under the JAWS shark. The great white hangs from a wooden frame near the park exit, mouth open, teeth bared, and every visitor on the way out stops to pose beneath it. We joined them. Lia screamed. I gave a thumbs up. The shark looked indifferent. It was nine-thirty at night and we had been in the park for twelve hours and I could not feel my legs and I was completely, unreservedly happy.
Practical Notes
USJ is not a half-day park. We arrived at opening and left at closing and still did not do everything. Buy the Express Pass — the queues without it are two to three hours for the major rides. The Nintendo World timed entry system means you need to plan your slot or risk not getting in. Go on a weekday if possible. Eat in the Three Broomsticks, not the generic food courts. Wear comfortable shoes — the park is enormous. And buy the robe. Whatever house you are, buy the robe. You will feel ridiculous and you will not care and the photographs will be the ones you show people for the rest of your life.
When to go: Weekdays are dramatically less crowded than weekends. October was good — warm enough for comfort, not hot enough for misery. Avoid Japanese school holidays and Golden Week (late April to early May). The park does seasonal events — Halloween in October, Christmas in December — that add atmosphere but also add crowds. An Express Pass is worth every yen regardless of when you go.