Is Tokyo’s Odaiba, once one of its trendiest neighborhoods, becoming a ghost town? [Photos]

We check to see whether or not the rumors of Odaiba’s death have been greatly exaggerated .

Odaiba is a man-made island in Tokyo Bay , but is it also a ghost town? Over the past few years, a number of entertainment complexes and sightseeing attractions in the neighborhood have closed down. ● Oedo Onsen Monogatari hot spring bathhouse (closed September 2021) ● Giant Sky Wheel Ferris wheel (closed August 2022) ● Venus Fort shopping center (closed March 2022) ● Megaweb Toyota History Garage (closed December 2021) ● Immersive Fort Tokyo indoor theme park (closed February 2026) In addition, broadcaster Fuji TV , whose headquarters is located in Odaiba, is still reeling from a 2024 sexual harassment scandal, and has been keeping a lower profile and scaling down fan events hosted at the facility.

And while Odaiba shopping center Diver City isn’t closing down, it is just about to lose its full-size Unicorn Gundam statue , which is going to be dismantled at the end of this month .

So yes, the Odaiba district, as well as the Aomi neighborhood it blends into, have lost some points of appeal, and recently many people online have been voicing their opinion that the area’s days as a fun place to spend the day are over .

Curious to see if it’s already deserted, we hopped on the train and rode to Tokyo Teleport Station on the Yurikamome Line, Odaiba’s most centrally located rail stop… … and right away saw a whole lot of people .

Heading up out of the subterranean station, we observed a steady stream of pedestrian traffic heading towards Diver City, plus the shoreline blocks where the Aqua City entertainment complex and Joypolis video game arcade are located.

Looking in the opposite direction, though, things were much less lively .

That there is the empty husk of the building that used to contain Venus Fort, the Megaweb Toyota History Garage, and the Giant Sky Wheel.

Actually, it’s also the building that used to contain Immersive Fort Tokyo, as it moved into Venus Fort’s old location.

Unfortunately, the concept of an amusement park dedicated to large-scale walk-through immersive mystery and horror experiences turned out to be either too narrow in appeal, too high in operating costs, or some combination of the two, and after opening in March of 2024, Immersive Fort Tokyo failed to make it to its second birthday before permanently shutting down.

In the six months since then, there hasn’t been any announcement as to what the building’s fate will be, and even from the outside, you can feel a sense of emptiness while looking at it.

However, while no one, of course, was going into the building, there were a whole lot of people walking past it, and in the opposite direction from those headed to Diver City and Aqua City .