Abandoned Kansai

Finally a real abandoned bowling alley in Japan – with some neat photo opportunities!

Who would have thought that it would be that tough to find and explore a decent bowling alley in Japan after the legendary Toyo Bowl Nagoya and Toyo Bowl Kanagawa were demolished before or just after I picked up urbex as a hobby – and explored locally as the name Abandoned Kansai implied. But bowling places tend to be big and near where people live, so closed ones tended to be converted to storage facilities (like the *Tohoku Bowling* I explored not so long ago) or supermarkets, but I guess most of them still get demolished to make space for new developments.
More than 120,000 bowling lanes were installed between 1960 and 1972 during the big bowling boom in Japan – in 1968 there were 14,000 bowling lanes in Japan, in 1970 there were 63,000, and in 1972 the number passed 124,000 at almost 3,700 bowling establishments; second in the world only to the United States (130,000 lanes at the time), which delivered most of the equipment to Japan, like bowling pins by the Vulcan Corporation and bowling balls by the Brunswick Corporation. The Tokyo World Lanes Bowling Center became the biggest bowling center in the world, with between 252 and 512 (!) lanes, depending on the source. Unfortunately this record wasn’t surpassed, but the Tokyo World Lanes downsized to 28 lanes (!) after an owner change and finally got closed for good. A general trend of course, as the popularity of bowling diminished almost as fast as it rose – by the 1980s there were only 23,000 active lanes left and since then the number keeps going up and down by a few thousand, making it a somewhat popular spare time activity, but not the hype mass sport it was for about a decade. Nowadays the Nagoya Grand Bowl is the biggest bowling center in Japan with 156 lanes on three floors – making the 20 lanes of the Countryside Bowling Alley look tiny! (Fun fact: For a couple of weeks it looked like pre-video game Nintendo could benefit from the bowling fad when they started to sell the so-called Laser Clay Shooting System to failing bowling alleys starting in early 1973 (developed by the Nintendo legends Gunpei “Mr. Game Boy” Yokoi, Masayuki “Mr. NES” Uemura, and Genyo “Mr. Wii” Takeda!). Before it could even become a fad the 1973 oil crisis hit Japan and stopped Nintendo and their expensive system in its tracks, leaving the company with billions of Yen in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy. A smaller and cheaper version called Mini Laser Clay was sold to arcades from 1974 successfully and included Wild Gunman, which became a launch title for the NES Zapper 11 years later.)

But enough about the past! Exploring the Countryside Bowling Center was a bit nerve-wrecking as it was a solo exploration on a gloomy day, and the building made quite a few sounds – screeching metal, probably a few birds, though I never saw any. The main entrance was barricaded, implying that somebody took care of it to some degree even after metal thieves, vandals and probably some urbexers and airsoft players considered it abandoned. Was it still managed? Not properly, that’s for sure, but there were other signs that at least parts of the vast premises were still used… When I finally found a side-entrance I felt like The Hulk or The Rock, because when I grabbed the door knob, I basically held the whole metal clad door in my hand. Of course I didn’t rip it out myself, but whoever broke in there didn’t bother picking a lock, that’s for sure! Inside I quickly found another (open) exit, which provided some peace of mind as I now had two possible escape routes in case somebody would show up – but of course nobody did, so I spent about two hours taking photos are my first real abandoned bowling center. Lighting was a bit iffy, but I really enjoyed the new photo opportunities, especially the seating area, the monitors, and the dissolving bowling shoes. In addition to the 20 lanes the center also featured a couple of karaoke rooms and an amusement game corner with some not really vintage machines like a love fortune tester and some UFO catcher type thing – probably from the late 90s, early 00s, so I assume this really rural bowling center was the result of yet another bad real estate bubble investment.
Despite (or maybe because?) its rather remote location, the Countryside Bowling Center showed all kinds of signs of vandalism – graffiti, smashed (and covered) entry doors, bowling balls used to damage or destroy everything from monitors to arcade machines to trophies, to… you name it. Sure, the condition of the building could have been much worse, but also could have been quite a bit better. Nevertheless an awesome, smooth solo exploration with a couple of photos that could make it to my all-time favorites.

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