Kyoto: Popular Haunted House Returns for This Summer Only, Providing Scares to Daimaru Visitors

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:41 JST, August 23, 2025

KYOTO — A haunted house that once had Kyoto residents screaming has been brought back for a limited time at Daimaru’s department store in the city.

The haunted house, called Hieizan Obakeyashiki, used to be a popular attraction at a now-defunct amusement park near the summit of Mt. Hiei, a mountain straddling Kyoto and Shiga prefectures associated with spiritual power. Staff working behind the scenes at the haunted house moved the puppets and lights manually, and they lent their own voices to the spectacle. The handmade sets and props were a hit with the attraction’s many visitors. When the amusement park closed in 1999, the haunted house shut down as well.

A Kyoto-based company manufacturing theater sets and props, which formerly designed and ran the haunted house, remade all the large items needed for the reopening. The realistic-looking sets include a graveyard and a ruin. Visitors will also encounter a torii gate, lanterns with LED lights and Reiko-chan, a spooky doll that was a crowd favorite at the old haunted house. Of course, there are also ghosts in white kimono and classic Japanese monsters, including the umbrella-shaped karakasa and the tsuchigumo spider.

“It’s even better than it was 26 years ago,” said Kenji Kinugawa, 52, who is supervising the project. “Come and enjoy a friendly kind of scare. Our ghosts are very kind to frightened children.”

The haunted house is open until Aug. 31. Admission is ¥1,500 per adult, ¥1,200 per high school and junior high school student and ¥500 per elementary school student.