Ninja Kingdom Ise

Hi,

I'm considering going to Ise during my second travel to Japan in April 2020, notably for Ise-Jingu, and I was wondering if the Ninja Kingdom Ise amusement park is worth a stop? Is the park full Japanese, or are there audioguides available to foreigners, for example during representations? I don't speak Japanese, so I'm afraid the shows will loose most of their interest if it's only Japanese.

Thanks

Hi!

I have not personally been, but based on the fact I don't think a lot of foreigners go there and my experience with doing ninja training at 48 Falls in Mie-ken, I suspect there is little English language support. However depending on the show you might still be able to figure out what is going on and get a lot out of it. I don't know if Toei Uzumasa has changed since I last went close to two decades ago, but at the time there was very little English support and yet I could still enjoy the ninja show and follow it, because, well the plot was fairly obvious.

48 Falls ninja training did not have a lot of English but again what you were supposed to do was fairly obvious for the most part, just really really hard unless you are in great shape. If you want to try learning to BE a ninja I would highly recommend it. If you left early enough from Ise you could definitely go as Akameguchi Station is right off the Kintetsu line.

Good luck!

Thank you for your reply!
I've heard of 48 Falls Ninja (watched videos about it too!), so I know what to expect physically-wise. I was more looking for a fun amusement park type like, that transports you back in time and offers shows/demonstration to watch. I heard about Nikko Edomura, and read great reviews about it, but it's too far from where I'll be travelling.

I have a child and they wanted to see Mommy attempt to be a ninja and attempt to be a ninja themselves. My child was pretty good at it, I was not. Water walking is much harder than it looks. I fell in the river 3x.

Have you thought about Toei Eigamura in Kyoto then?

http://www.toei-eigamura.com/global/en/

I last went in '01 and in '01 there was not a lot of English, but that was a REALLY long time ago and Kyoto sees tons of foreigners now. I would expect they actually have some English support now just because of where they are located. In general, places that have more foreign tourists have more English.

Good luck!

For fun amusement type stuff, why not go to Iga Ueno and visit the ninja museum?
They have a really good display of stuff, with a good deal of English commentary.
There’s also the option of doing some shiruken tryouts, and an amusing ninja show.
Downside is it’s a bit awkward to get to. We’ve done it as a day trip from Kyoto, but that involves at least one local train (probably two). We’ve also done it in a car, coming from Koyasan.