Tobu Zoo Trip Report (Non Covid-19 related)

[Gazza]

Tobu Zoo is right on the northern fringe of Tokyo.

https://www.parkz.com.au/parks/JP/Miyashiro/Tobu_Zoo

It took about an hour to get there via the Tobu Skytree Line (Which starts near the Skytree!). The park is owned by the train company.

https://www.tobu.co.jp/foreign/en/

The park is meh, and ever since Regina closed the only reason to go there is to ride Kawasemi, the Intamin Megalite.

The park is quite spread out, almost 2km walk from one end to the other because it is so linear. (Sea World is a mere 700m from end to end!)

One end is very amusement park feeling, though they appear to be upgrading some of the themed areas, though others look a bit crap.

 

The other end is the zoo, which is fairy crap overall.

Just on the Zoo, I don’t think there are any specific animal welfare issues, its just that all the concrete and paint is weathered, which makes it look drab and depressing. I don’t think the animals themselves would care about the appearance of the grounds, but come on, they should do better.

But, onto the rides.

They had a zierer ladybug coaster like the Steel Mini Coaster in RCT1 called Tentomushi.

To at least ameliorate some of the walking they had this thing called the sky fish express, which was like a skyway, but the vehicles were individually motorised rather than on a cable.

 

They also had a japanese built version of a Dragon Wagon.

It was in a cute, but utterly shade lacking kiddy area called heartful town.

There was a weird ride I've never seen which was basically a curved school bus with wonky wheels that would go around in circles, limping along bumping up and down.

Right next to it was Heartful Farm, which had this absurd giant ferris wheel themed like a windmill with wheels of cheese you sat in. What made it bizzare is that it had a narrated story line with a high pitched female voice seemingly crying and screaming about being at such height!

But the main event is Kawasemi, an intamin Mega Lite that has received rave reviews. So how is it?

Imagine if you took Superman escape after the top hat, and then added the 2nd half of DC Rivals...Thats basically how the ride played out, except the airtime on the first couple of hills wasn't as strong as Superman.

So the first drop leads into a low turn with strong gs, then a twisting airtime hill, followed by a straight "pure" airtime hill. Next comes a turnaround, then a couple of quick twisting hills like the ones on DC rivals after the helix, followed by another turn, then a couple more small bunny hops like the ones at the end of DC rivals. the final turn is quite wide and the train actually loses a bit of speed as you cruise around to the final brakes.

Was it good? Definitley! Was it mind blowing...I think once upon a time this Intamin stuff was the best we had, but then RMC waltzed in and crazied everything up, so a lot of this stuff from Intamin that literally was the world best has been outdone.

The queue was non existent so I did 7 laps.

That's basically all I have to say about Tobu. Would I recommend it? Only if you are dead interested in Kawasemi, and to be fair, it is a bit of a rite of passage to seek out Intamins isn't it? Just dont expect much from the rest of the park!

Edited March 19, 2020 by Gazza