Oh, I can hear all you urban explorers cry in pain: “Maps? MAPS? Are you CRAZY?!” But don’t you worry, the maps published here won’t reveal any locations – unless you plan a trip to the Zone Of Alienation or to demolished places / official risk-free tourist spots. If you go to Chernobyl and Pripyat you can go wherever you want anyways – and if you really want to visit demolished places then… well… get a life! (And I know, I went to demolished places myself, it’s frustrating!) The Pripyat map I put up to make the pictures I’ve taken and the stories behind a little bit more real. And the map of demolished places is there as an “anti guide”, to prevent people from wasting time by going to places that are all over the internet, but in reality already long gone.
Demolished Places and Tourist Spots
Zone Of Alienation
Nara Dreamland
Ikeshima
North Korea
Abandoned Kansai 
That would be interesting to see maps of “still alive” haikyos though 🙂 I’m thinking about static maps here, with which you cannot zoom and can’t see the real locations at all, and that wouldn’t give any hints. An example here: http://i52.tinypic.com/14344fk.png ! I think it’s interesting to see, and not giving any information.
Publishing maps revealing abandoned places is a blessing and a curse at the same time – in books and online. Without them I wouldn’t have been able to go to some of the places I’ve been to, but they definitely affect the amount of vandalism. And since I really hate vandalism I don’t want to contribute by publishing maps like that. Static maps won’t do that much harm if zoomed out wide enough, but then there is no information value to them either. But you can’t please everybody anyways, so I guess in the end everybody has to decide for themselves…
The real question behind this is… who is trashing these places? Some unrespectful haikyoist? Japanese teenagers? Maybe even old people? That would make a big difference to know.
I really wonder if Nihon No Haikyo had any impact of the overall deterioration of the ruins. The famous Kenshin Hospital was already full of graffitis and the book wasn’t even published yet. The mine in which the brain “was stolen”, is still full of things, jars with weird stuff inside, video games… and at the same time the location is so easy to find. My guess is that haikyos within the cities are trashed by local residents most of the time; remote haikyos, even often easier to find (disclosed more easily), are almost “untouched”. Adventurers seem to have more respect for these places, and there are simply less or no “residents” around.
Of course, that’s not a reason for sharing on blogs and torrents precise maps and directions 🙂
I highly doubt that old people are trashing the places (most of them are quite supersticious and believe that abandoned places are haunted), more like local teenagers and disrespektful visitors – urban explorers or not… To be honest, I think pretty much everybody writing about urban exploration hurts the places s/he writes about unless they don’t give any hints at all about the name or location. People were giving hints to the Doctor’s Shack and after 40, 50 or 60 years of being untouched it’s pretty much a dump now. Doggyland and the Lost Subterranean Shrine on the other hand are still untouched.
So to me there are three levels of “evilness”:
Harmless: Publishing places without giving any usefull hints at all.
Potentially damaging: Publishing places revealing the name and / or giving hints about its location.
Damaging for sure: Publishing places with maps.
The only time I did the latter was because the place has an entry at Wikipedia including a GoogleMaps link anyways. All the other times I use English names for the locations, so far I’m even hesitating giving the Japanese names since more and more Japanese blogs put up maps…
For Toyo Bowl in Aichi:
35°11’45.10″N 136°44’3.18″E
If you use Google Earth, try the timeline/slide function, you can see the building on there back in 2006
Thanks a lot! I updated the map and included some more places I’ve already found. I know two more places that are getting demolished currently – once the process is finished I’ll put them up, too.
The old favourite Kouga Family Rand:
*coordinates deleted*
Hey Vic, since there are still some buildings left I didn’t publish it on the map and deleted the coordinates in your posting – I don’t reveal Sekigahara Menard Land for the same reason. It’s a “tricky” map anyways and I don’t wanna be blamed for revealing stuff, so I’ll only post places turned to rubble.
Gullivers Kingdom:
35°24’56.57″N 138°38’57.00″E
Once again in Google Earth try the timeslide function to catch a glimpse of Gulliver himself.
Thanks a lot! I missed that one by quite a few kilometers originally…
Hey F,
sorry, I didn’t know there were buildings left, I thought everything had gone. Greenland in Fukushima is blurred on Google maps, but still visible I think in Yahoo maps if you want the coordinates?
Hey Vic, no problem – the gift shop bungalow and the restaurant building are still there; nothing great, but actually better than most neighbourhood haikyo…
Fukushima Greenland is already on the map and this time I’m pretty sure that I got it right! But thanks a lot for your help – the more places we can put onto the map the less people will waste time.