Japanese haunted house has its own league. Created by well-known artists, with exciting missions and depth lore, it could be the scariest haunted house you will ever experience.
Fun fact, while western countries tend to celebrate Halloween in October, summer is the season of spook in Japan. Japanese people go to haunted houses when it’s hot outside for fun. But the haunted houses are open all season for locals and tourists.
We would recommend three popular and tourist-friendly haunted houses: Labyrinth of Fear in Fuji-Q Highland, Escape from the Haunted Manor by Real Escape Game in Asakusa, and Onryou Zashiki at Tokyo Dome City.
Here are some tips, information, and all you need to know if you want to have fun and spooked in one of these Japanese haunted houses.
Labyrinth of Fear in Fuji-Q Highland
Image Source: Pop J Neo
Labyrinth of Fear is known as the longest haunted house in the world, it estimated for 50 minutes long to escape the terror of the haunted hospital. It’s a part of Fuji-Q Highland amusement park in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, where you can also ride several world-record rollercoasters.
Not only the largest but it is also approved that the haunted hospital of Fuji-Q Highland is the scariest, created by the famous Japanese haunted house producer, Gomi Hirofumi. The building is a 900-meter maze to explore. Initially, the hospital used to run an unethical experiment on their patients led by a mad doctor.
As visitors explored deeper into the maze, the myth started to prove to be real, and the spook tricks would get intense as the visitor neared to end. You would not get any mission or objective entering the haunted hospital, therefore, it is foreign tourist-friendly.
Image Source: Kiji.Life
📍 Location
Operation Hours: 9.00 am – 8.00 pm
Admission Fee: 4.000 yen if you have a 1-day pass, 8.000 yen if you don’t. Each price is for up to 4 people per group.
⚠️ Tips & Cautions:
- There will be several escape doors if you are too scared to continue, as it’s long and would only get scarier.
- Some actors play as ghosts inside the hospital that might chase you at a certain point, but they wouldn’t actually grab or catch you.
- You won’t lost in the maze because the direction is pretty clear to follow.
- The line is long, you’ll probably need to wait for 1-2 hours to get into the haunted hospital.
Onryou Zashiki at Tokyo Dome City
Image Source: Murayama
Onryou Zashiki (Tatami Room of Apparitions) is another Japanese haunted house created by Gomi Hirofumi. Still applying depth of horror lore into the experience, the haunted house that is presented in Tokyo Dome City combined folklore with modern digital visual effect presentation. The stories would change over time, but mostly about domestic horror where a woman murdered and became a vengeful spirit.
The story narration inside the haunted house is available in various languages including Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean.
Not as long as Labyrinth of Fear, it is only estimated to last for at least 15 minutes. That is probably the only downside of this haunted house. Despite the short duration, it has an interesting production that almost feels like Hirofumi attempted to be a ‘video game’ experience. There are many cool digital effects and jumpscares, that are both amazing and scary.
It is more of a story-based, exploring-based haunted house but, visitors would be given one mission to complete. It’s not like you can’t leave the haunted if you cannot complete it, but based on the story, you will be haunted by the vengeful spirit.
Image Source: Alternative Hakudo
📍 Location
Operation Hours: 10.00 am – 8.00 pm (Monday – Thursday), 10.00 am – 9.00 pm (Friday – Sunday)
Admission Fee: 1.050 yen/ per person, 1 group up to 4 people.
⚠️ Tips & Cautions:
- Seizure Warning. The haunted house contains flashing lights, digital effects, and other intense light stimulations that may induce epileptic seizures in certain individuals.
- We’re not sure of any present of actors, but some of the mannequins do look very realistic. But nothing to worry about any chasing or grabbing acts.
- After you finish the haunted house, don’t forget to get a photo in the automatic photo booth.
- For harder and scarier mode, visit Onryou Zashiki during summer evenings (which is only available in summer).
Escape from the Haunted Manor by Real Escape Game in Asakusa
Image Source: Japan Travel
Real Escape Game is an Escape Room venue in Sumida, only a 4-minute walk from Asakusa Station. It has various theme of escape room themes you can try, including the scary Haunted Manor created by SCRAP, collaborating with the one and only, Gomi Hirofumi.
In this Japanese haunted house, visitors will play as an investigators. It is rumored that once you enter the house, you will never get out. Like most of Escape Room, you will need to solve some puzzles to escape from the haunted house.
The puzzle level could be classified as intermediate. Ideally, your group would need 40 minutes to finish it. The friendly staff is mostly understand English, and all the puzzles and clues in the escape room also available in English.
Image by Real Escape Game
📍 Location
Operation Hours: 10.00 am – 9.00 pm (Tuesday – Friday), 8.30 am – 10.00 pm (Saturday – Monday)
Admission Fee: General tickets are from 3.200 yen, group tickets are from 17.400 yen. Min. 2 people, Max. 6 people.
⚠️ Tips & Cautions:
- The maximum number of people in a group is 6 people, but we recommend entering with 4 people in your group (3 people are ideal). The reason is the escape room isn’t really spacious. It is also an ideal number of groups to solve the puzzle.
- There will part where the group would play hide and seek with the ‘ghost’, played by an actor. It could be a little thrilling because the visitor would need to interact with the actor nonverbally. But it’s not as scary as you might think, sometimes it could be funny when they break character due to unpredictable interaction.
- It could be too dark and claustrophobic if those elements terrify you.