Recontextualizing Disney: Tokyo Disney Resort as a Kingdom of Dreams and Magic

Yukio Toyoda

Social Science Japan Journal, 2014, vol. 17, issue 2, 207-226

Abstract: Tokyo Disney Resort (TDR), after 30 years from its opening as Tokyo Disneyland, has attracted more than 500 million visitors altogether. Although most theme parks that were established following the success of TDR have gone bankrupt after the bursting of Japan’s bubble economy, TDR alone has enjoyed continued success. The analysis of profiles of visitors to TDR reveals that TDR’s success can be explained by the existence of frequent visitors, who are mostly young women living in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. TDR succeeds in attracting these frequent visitors by offering them an immersive fantasy space marked by images of non-ordinariness. Although Disneyland and Disney World in US attract American visitors by offering images of ideal America, Disney culture has been recontextualized in Japan to be a ‘non-ordinary world’, by virtue of being non-Japanese. Although TDR’s success is the product of many factors, the author argues that TDR’s success lies mostly in its meaning as ‘a non-ordinary world’ for Japanese by being seen as ‘non-Japanese’.

Date: 2014
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