Japanese theme park Immersive Fort Tokyo takes you from Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper to Spy Action
- The latest attraction in the nation’s capital, Immersive Fort Tokyo takes visitors through Victorian London, and allows them to perform onstage at a jazz club
- In Spy Action, participants see a fight with henchmen take place around them, and Hansel and Gretel becomes a walk-through experience
The Japanese do enjoy a trip to a theme park, and the latest addition to the escapist landscape opened on March 1, delivering a number of eerie experiences designed to draw the visitor into its storyline and to participate in the adventure.
Immersive Fort Tokyo has taken over the sprawling Venus Fort shopping centre, in the Odaiba waterfront district of the capital, and describes itself as the world’s first fully immersive theme park.
The concept is based on the interactive theatrical performances that started in London in the 2000s, with the operators taking full advantage of the venue’s European-style interior, which was the setting for dozens of shops, cafes and restaurants. Think Italian piazzas with stucco walls, columns, balconies and alleys paved with flagstones.
The designers have recreated constant Mediterranean weather, with the skies a deep blue and clouds tinged pink with the setting sun. But we have not come to admire the artificial sunset.
Immersive Fort Tokyo has 12 attractions, although a couple require that children under the age of 12 are accompanied by an adult, and the age limit is 15 for the Jack the Ripper experience.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tales of Edo Oiran has an age requirement of 18 – oiran were historically the highest-ranking prostitutes in the pleasure quarters of Tokyo and other major cities.
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My visit starts with a stroll through the dank and poorly illuminated streets of the East End of London in the 1880s. It is soon apparent that I am not alone, as these are the streets that serial killer Jack the Ripper prowled.
Dispatched into the inky maze as part of a group of eight clutching a length of rope to ensure we stay together, I am given a stern warning by a policeman in period uniform holding a lantern before the frights come thick and fast: screaming faces at broken windows, curtains blowing in an eerie breeze and mist swirling around our knees.
A frightfully wounded woman emerges from the mist and wails. And that is all before Jack himself puts in an appearance, wielding a worryingly large knife. And if you assume you’re safe at the back of the group, think again.
The Brothers’ Grimm tale of Hansel and Gretel is recreated as a walk-through experience that uses projection mapping, while the smartly dressed hood and his henchmen in the Spy Action attraction require audience participation.
The fight scenes can be left to the professionals who have infiltrated your party, but do expect to have guns pointed at you, and at least one person has their head covered by a sack.
For a break in the excitement, there are four food outlets, or you could book a seat alongside the stage at The Cabaret for an enthusiastic performance by the lead singer, saxophonist, violinist and backing dancers.
No cabaret would be complete without a cancan, with members of the audience invited on stage to perform alongside the professionals. While the dancers’ skirts are lifting and their legs are above head height, the unfortunates plucked from the crowd can consider it a victory if they get their feet kicking to waist level.
The most expansive area of the venue is given over to The Sherlock, where visitors are once again transported to a shadowy Victorian London populated by street urchins and pickpockets, ladies of the night, buskers, confused policemen and, in this case, the eponymous hero of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels.
The story takes place in a variety of settings – a town square, a tavern, a brothel, a marketplace – with the key characters all heading hither and thither.
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Visitors are encouraged to follow a suspicious character, listen to his or her conversations and other interactions and narrow the pool of potential murderers.
The conversations are in Japanese, but foreign visitors are given a handset and earphones to listen to the exchanges in a number of languages, although it is at times challenging to keep up with all the clues and subplots.
While many people choose to follow in the footsteps of the most famous fictional detective in history, that may not be the fastest way to unmask the villain.
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For anyone still craving a sense of panic, try the Immersive Chase room. Teams are given a series of tasks to complete in a darkened area that looks like the interior of an abandoned lunatic asylum – torn curtains and old-fashioned hospital beds – with a series of red herrings thrown in for added confusion.
And if that’s not enough, each team is being pursued by a larger-than-life monster who looks like something that Dr Frankenstein dreamed up on a bad day.
As for the Edo Oiran experience and the seedy side of Tokyo from centuries gone by … well, perhaps that’s not for a family newspaper.
