
The highly awaited live action adaptation of massively popular anime phenomenon Shingeki no Kyojin has revealed Hashima Island as one of its prime filming locations, now rather famously known as Battleship Island (“Gunkan-jima”) for its ruinous silhouette, along with svelte star Haruma Miura as oEren Yeager.
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Japanese lovers of desolate and abandoned places have once again sought out the most forlorn and forsaken ruins amidst city and country that the land of the rising sun can offer.
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Urban explorers have descended upon the abandoned ruins of Nara Dreamland, revealing in some detail the spectacle of a celebrated amusement park descending into ruin.
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Yet another visitor to Japan’s multitude of abandoned mountain places provides a haunting photographic record of a village as it is slowly reclaimed by the forest from which it was hewn.
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An intrepid 2ch inhabitant has paid a visit to a long abandoned Japanese village deep in the mountains, sharing some fascinating images of its battle with nature, a battle which seems to be going quite badly at times.
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- Author: Artefact
- Categories: Japan, News
- Date: Apr 16, 2011 20:21 JST
- Tags: Abandoned Places, Animals, Earthquakes, Food, Fukushima, Guro, Neko, Pets, Video Gallery

The plight of Japanese refugees evacuated from disaster areas is well known, but less well known is the plight of abandoned animals, now starving and reduced to cannibalism.
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The exploration of Japan’s forgotten places continues below, with the intrepid urban explorer from the previous gallery returning to share more of his expeditions.
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- Author: Artefact
- Categories: Galleries, Japan
- Date: Jan 8, 2011 07:35 JST
- Tags: 2ch, Abandoned Places, Bizarre, Buildings, Gifu, Image Gallery, Kanagawa, Niigata, Shizuoka


An anonymous urban explorer has been sharing photographs of the many abandoned places he has been investigating throughout Japan with 2ch – the photographs hauntingly depict some of the most quintessentially Japanese of places, such as faddish theme parks and love hotels, ravaged by abandon and neglect, and in many cases still housing strange oddities – in one case a stuffed mammoth…
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2ch’s renowned population of architectural critics have assembled an impressive collection of buildings which in their collective estimation qualify as “creepy” – an appraisal few are likely to find fault with.
Japan in particular is no slouch in providing examples of ill-advised architecture…
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Japan’s “shōtengai,” or shopping arcades, typically a covered approach to a station lined by small shops, as well as its high streets, have increasingly come to resemble deserted avenues lined by shutters, especially in the nation’s increasingly depopulated and geriatric regional cities.
Dubbed “shutter-dōri,” or “shutter streets,” these streets have become a potent symbol of urban decay and the demographic and economic collapse Japan faces.
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