Ahoy all muggles, half-bloods, purebloods in Asia... here's some exciting news for you. Warner Bros. is creating a permanent Harry Potter tour park in Tokyo and it will be complete by 2023. Spread across a 30,000-square-meter area in the what's now the Toshimaen Amusement Park, it will be the second such attraction after the original one in London.
The half-day tour will take visitors through an indoor 'sound stage' and an outdoor 'backlot' area. Visitors can check out the actual costumes and props used in the films and hang out for photo-ops at recreated sets of important scenes. Major attractions will include the sets of the Great Hall inside Hogwarts, the Forbidden Forest, and Diagon Alley. Tokyo&rsquos park will also highlight the Fantastic Beasts spin-off films, which are not seen in the London version. The latter, however, will remain the bigger attraction with sets of Dumbledore's office, Gryffindor Common Room, Hagrid's Hut and a 124 scale model of Hogwarts Castle itself.
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The Potter park will be a huge boost for Tokyo's tourism sector as the London version of the tour has received more than 14 million visitors since its opening in 2012.
Incidentally, next year will be the 20th anniversary of the first Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher&rsquos Stone.
Meanwhile, for some in Japan, this may come as bad news. The new tour park means that the historic Toshimaen Amusement Park will be closed down after it celebrates its 94th anniversary in August. Located at a 45-minute train ride from central Tokyo, the park was famous for its century-old carousel, one of the oldest in the world.
