RUMOR: Speculation for a Pokémon dark ride at Universal Studios Japan grows

Right now the IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) conference is going down in Singapore. This conference is a place for theme park ride manufacturers to show of their latest tech in hopes of landing deals with companies or to show off what projects they are currently working on. Basically, Theme Park E3.

Chris Nilghe of TDRExplorer (A Japanese theme park blog) posted the below tweet showing off a ride vehicle for an unannounced new trackless dark-ride created by Sansei Technologies, a company that has worked with both Universal Studios and Disney in the past.

While the vehicle itself is very generic, Chris speculates this was intentionally done to keep the theme of the ride a secret. Chris then goes on to speculate that this might be the vehicle for a rumored Pokémon replacement for Universal Studios Japan’s Spider-Man ride.

While that may seem out of nowhere, Pokémon replacing Spider-Man at Universal Japan has been a rumor circulating in the theme park community for a while now though it was unknown if the plans fell through or not.

We do know that Universal Japan are collaborating with the Pokémon company to create “entertainment projects to immerse you in the world of Pokémon” and it would make sense that a Pokémon ride would be one of these collaborations.

Considering how big Pokémon is, especially in it’s home country of Japan, t’s not that surprising that USJ would want to get Pikachu and pals into a ride as soon as possible.

This is again, just speculation based on rumors so take everything here with a Garganacl-sized piece of salt. And even if it is true, it doesn’t necessarily mean this specific ride will make it’s way to the American Universal Parks