The Horror
First, a note on the name. People searching for “Takakanonuma Greenpia” or “Takakanonuma Amusement Park” are looking for the park that English-language sources call Takakonuma Greenland (高子沼グリーンランド), beside Lake Takakonuma in Fukushima Prefecture. None of the sources consulted for this page uses the name “Greenpia”. “Greenpia” is the name of a separate group of resorts elsewhere in Japan, and nothing found links it to this park; the name may be a mix-up. The spelling “Takakanonuma” is a common English variant of the place name.
The documented story is much less lurid than the legend, and it is mostly a story of money.
The park opened in 1973 as Takakonuma Family Land, on a hill between the Abukuma River and the lake. At the time the site belonged to the town of Hobara; on January 1, 2006 Hobara merged with four other towns to form Date city, which is why modern sources place it in Date. Japanese Wikipedia, however, gives an address in Fukushima City, so the municipality depends on which source you read.
It did not last. English Wikipedia says only that it closed after a few years, and the popular accounts say two. Japanese Wikipedia records that in 1982 a company called Nankai Kogyo took the park over because of financial difficulties and reopened it as Takakonuma Greenland. English Wikipedia gives the reopening date as April 2, 1982, citing a contemporary Fukushima business magazine, Zaikai Fukushima. Several English travel articles say 1986 instead. The 1982 date is the one tied to a contemporary source, and the 1986 version is not backed by one.
In May 1988 the operating rights passed to Sagawa Refrigeration, a company later renamed Koriyama Skate Center and now trading as KSC Co., Ltd. Japanese Wikipedia has the full takeover in 1992 and English Wikipedia says July 1992, but the Japanese article gives no source for that entry, so treat the year as provisional.
By the standards of a regional park it was well equipped. The attractions listed include a Ferris wheel, two steel roller coasters (the Adventure Coaster and a small TOGO-built coaster called Bobster), go-karts, a merry-go-round, a haunted house, a miniature railway, an ice rink, a petting zoo and an insect museum. Japanese Wikipedia records a ¥500 adult entry fee after the 1982 reopening.
The park closed permanently in October 1999. The reason given is unglamorous: falling attendance and ageing facilities. Nobody died to close it.
The Legend
The popular story is that Takakonuma Greenland was cursed, that people were killed on the rides, and that the park’s first closure was a cover-up. All of it is unsourced. The most widely repeated English version says the first closure was blamed either on disappointing ticket sales “or” on locals who claim several people died accidentally on the rides. Those locals have no name, no date and no newspaper behind them.
The documentary evidence points the other way. Japanese Wikipedia states that a rumour of a fatal accident exists, and that there is no report of a death occurring while the park was operating. English Wikipedia is equally careful, describing the fatality claims as creepypasta that the article does not verify. A search for contemporary Japanese reporting turned up no record of a death at the park. That is an absence of evidence in an online search and not proof, since the local press archives were not checked for this draft. A fatal accident would normally leave a trace in a local paper, and the thing to do if you want to settle it is search those archives, not repeat the rumour.
What the legend does have behind it is atmosphere. English Wikipedia attributes the urban-legend status to the park’s isolation and to the mist that often hangs around it. No specific ghost, named or unnamed, is attached to the park in any source consulted here. What circulates is a mood, along with the fatality rumour and a few fictions that borrowed the setting.
The Modern Relic
For about seven years the park sat abandoned. Its photogenic decay, a rusting Ferris wheel and coasters consumed by weeds, made it a staple of Japanese ruin magazines and then of English-language “abandoned places” lists. Japanese Wikipedia lists appearances in the film Kamen Rider 555: Paradise Lost (2003), the 2006 video game SIREN 2 (a ruined Ferris wheel) and the opening footage of the 2006 animation FREEDOM.
English Wikipedia says the park was demolished after 2006, and Japanese Wikipedia says the rides were removed in late 2006. Japanese Wikipedia adds that solar panels were installed on the site in 2014, citing street-level imagery, and that little of the amusement park remained visible by then. This is the opposite of the picture most “creepy abandoned park” articles still paint, since many of them were written years after the rides had gone.
The practical conclusion for anyone drawn to the place by those articles is that the rusting coasters in the photographs belong to the years between 1999 and 2006. The site is now, by the best available account, a solar installation. The present state and access were not verified for this draft, and this page does not encourage trespass on private land.
The real ruin, then, is not a haunted one. It is a leisure business that was rescued from financial difficulty once, changed hands, lost its customers and was cleared. The ghost story fills the gap that a company closure leaves, because a quiet commercial failure is a less satisfying thing to explain than a death.
