Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo: Where an Amusement Park Became a Wizarding World
For ninety-four years, children rode roller coasters and splashed through water slides at Toshimaen, one of Tokyo's oldest amusement parks. When it closed on August 31, 2020, neighborhood residents mourned the end of an era that stretched back to 1926. Three years later, a different kind of magic took its place. The Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo opened on June 16, 2023, transforming the Nerima site into the world's largest indoor Harry Potter attraction -- not a theme park with thrill rides, but a walk-through experience that pulls back the curtain on how eight films conjured a wizarding world from plywood, paint, and digital sorcery. Even the local train station got the treatment: Seibu Railway redesigned Toshimaen Station with a platform modeled after King's Cross, complete with the kind of architectural details that make arriving feel like the first act of the story.
Ninety-Four Years of Fun, Then Something New
Toshimaen Amusement Park opened in 1926 on land in Nerima, a residential ward in northwest Tokyo. For nearly a century, it was a fixture of local life -- a place where generations of Tokyo families spent summer afternoons and school holidays. When the Tokyo Metropolitan Government finalized plans in 2020 to acquire the majority of the Toshimaen land for a new public park, the remaining portion was earmarked for something unprecedented in Asia. A consortium of Warner Bros. Studio Tour, Warner Bros. Japan, Seibu Railway, Itochu Corporation, and Fuyo General Lease came together to build the second Warner Bros. Studio Tour in the world, after the original in Leavesden, England. The announcement came in August 2020, the same month Toshimaen held its final ride. One chapter closed; another opened.
Behind the Curtain, Not on the Ride
The Studio Tour is deliberately not a theme park. There are no roller coasters, no spinning teacups, no queues for simulated broom flights. Instead, visitors walk through authentic sets recreated by the original filmmakers from the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts series. The Great Hall at Hogwarts stretches out in full scale, its long tables set as if students just left. Platform 9 3/4 leads to the actual Hogwarts Express. The Forbidden Forest fills with fabricated trees and animatronic creatures. Outside on the Backlot, the Dursleys' house on Privet Drive stands in tidy suburban detail, and the triple-decker Knight Bus leans at its signature angle. The point is not to ride through a fantasy but to understand how one was built -- to see the seams, the brushstrokes, the engineering that made cinematic illusion possible.
Tokyo's Own Wizarding Secrets
While the London facility established the template, Tokyo added exclusive elements that draw visitors from across Asia. The centerpiece is a massive, full-scale recreation of the Ministry of Magic Atrium -- a set piece that exists only in Tokyo. Interactive green screen stations let visitors insert themselves into the wizarding world: appearing in a moving portrait on the Grand Staircase, or cheering from the stands during a Quidditch match. The world's largest Butterbeer Bar serves the franchise's signature drink alongside themed food, and the world's largest dedicated Harry Potter shop stocks Tokyo-exclusive merchandise. These are not small claims -- the Tokyo facility was promoted from the outset as the largest indoor Harry Potter attraction on Earth, and the scale of its retail and dining spaces reinforces that ambition.
A Station Fit for Platform 9 3/4
One of the quieter transformations happened at the doorstep. Seibu Railway, which operates the line serving the area, renovated its station to match the attraction's theme. Toshimaen Station was renamed Toshimaen-mae Station and redesigned with architectural details inspired by London's King's Cross railway station. A specially branded Studio Tour Express now runs on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line, carrying passengers from central Tokyo to the attraction in a train wrapped in wizarding imagery. The effect is deliberate: the journey begins before you arrive. From Ikebukuro, one of Tokyo's busiest transit hubs, the ride takes about seventeen minutes -- just long enough to shift from the concrete intensity of metropolitan Tokyo into the curated fantasy of the Studio Tour.
From the Air
Located at 35.75°N, 139.65°E in Nerima, northwest Tokyo. The facility occupies the former Toshimaen Amusement Park grounds, visible as a large complex near Toshimaen-mae Station on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line. From altitude, look for the distinctive building northwest of central Tokyo, set among the dense residential grid of Nerima ward. Tokyo Haneda Airport (RJTT) lies approximately 20 nautical miles to the south. Narita International Airport (RJAA) is about 45 nautical miles to the east-northeast. The Seibu rail corridor running northwest from Ikebukuro provides a useful ground reference.