A new, family-friendly attraction for Harry Potter fans when visiting Japan – with fun activities, themed food and lots of props and behind the scenes information.
Review by Claire Davill
If you’re travelling to Japan with kids, there’s plenty of Harry Potter themed experiences on offer. The Warner Bros Studio Tour was opened in 2023 and is a great alternative for families if the expense, crowds and rides at Universal Studios are too much for younger children.
Although this is not a theme park with rides, it’s a great outing for even the youngest kids. There’s displays of props and sets from the Harry Potter movies and interactive activities that you can capture photos and videos of to take home.
There are statues and photo points in the gardens before entering, and a huge dragon above you in the lobby.
Kids are given a passport with details of each area, quiz questions and a scavenger hunt. You’ll get to walk through the great hall, platform 9 3/4, the forbidden forest, the ministry of magic and Diagon alley. There are sets showing different areas of Hogwarts too – the potions classroom is particularly fun to walk through.
Interactive opportunities include the chance to film yourself as a moving portrait, riding on a broomstick, and acting in a quidditch match as a spectator. You can also have your photo taken as a wanted poster, and film your family using floo powder to enter a fireplace. All these activities are saved under a personal QR code so you can download them later, although there’s also the option of printing some pictures on site as well.
Outdoors, there’s the chance to play wizards chess, board the knight bus and walk through the Dursley’s house.
There are food and drink options too, with a cafe situated half way through the tour, where you can order themed cakes and meals. We ate mandrake pudding and Hedwig cakes when we visited, and they are almost too cute to eat! There’s also a butterbeer bar, and you can take home your tankard as a souvenir. They’ve even helpfully provided sinks, towels and plastic bags so you can clean and package your cups to bring home.
A large food hall sits at the entrance and is great for lunch or dinner. Lots of the food here is also themed, you can sit down to a proper English roast, English style fish and chips (with mushy peas) or an all day breakfast fry up. Service is quick, even when busy.
There are, of course, lots of souvenir shops too. You can choose your own wand, or buy diaries, robes, scarves and ties for all houses. These can be pricey, but the quality is excellent and you can also have your diaries and robes embossed and embroidered with your name or initials.
There’s plenty of behind the scenes information regarding how scenes were filmed and how props were made, and all of this information is in English as well as Japanese. It’s very comprehensive and there is so much to see and do – they recommend allowing 4 to 5 hours to see everything and we certainly spent that long on site.
Its recommended to book tickets in advance, this is done easily on the website.
The studio tour is located in Nerima City, in the north western outskirts of Tokyo. (1 Chome-1-7 Kasugacho, Nerima City, Tokyo 179-0074, Japan).
Allow an hour to travel from central Tokyo via train, with the closest train station to the facility being Toshimaen station.
For more information and all enquiries please visit the Studio Tour website
At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.
As per all our Play & Go reviews, this is not a sponsored post and our review is done completely independently.
Image Source: all photos by Play & Go Adelaide
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