Planning Your Visit to Harry Potter Studios Tour Tokyo

The very first thing we did on the very first day of our last trip to Tokyo was to visit the Warner Bros. Studio, The Making of Harry Potter tour.

This is because our youngest son is a HUGE Harry Potter fan, and we had actually booked him these tickets as a Christmas present – he just couldn’t wait any longer to get there!

We were travelling as a family of four. A 9 year old Harry Potter obsessive, dressed in full robes with Harry Potter glasses, scarf, and wand. A 12 year old who likes Harry Potter but wouldn’t class himself as a die-hard fan. 2 parents, who embrace Harry Potter for their boys, but otherwise have no real interest in the franchise!

With that context to our visit, here’s everything you need to know about the Warner Bros Studios Harry Potter experience in Tokyo:

1. Getting Tickets For The Harry Potter Studios Tour, Tokyo
2. When To Visit The Harry Potter Studios Tour in Tokyo
3. What To Eat At The Warner Bros Studios Tour Tokyo, The Making Of Harry Potter
4. The Experiences At The Harry Potter Studios Tour, Tokyo
5. What Language Is The Harry Potter Studios Tour Tokyo In?
6. How Does The Harry Potter Studios Tour in Tokyo Compare To The Harry Potter Studios Tour in London?
7. Getting To The Harry Potter Studios Tour In Tokyo
8. Conclusion

Getting Tickets For The Harry Potter Studios Tour, Tokyo

The Warner Bros. Studio, The Making of Harry Potter tour is, just like you would expect, incredibly popular. Harry Potter has really got a hold on the hearts of the Japanese people, and the fans of the franchise are really dedicated to it.

Tickets sell out fast, especially during peak periods such as the Spring Cherry Blossom season. For this reason, we booked our tickets for the tour as soon as they were released, which is 3 months in advance of the date you want to attend.

Tickets cost £ 36.99 per adult, and £22.19 per child under 11. Children aged between 12 – 17 can get a reduced youth ticket, which is priced at £30.65. We needed 2 adult tickets, one child ticket, and one youth ticket for our family of four, but this was still much cheaper than booking the Warner Bros. Studios tour in London.

We booked our Harry Potter Studios Tokyo tickets via Klook (I am a Klook affiliate) because we love the ease and convenience that they offer. They don’t give you e-tickets that you have to exchange on arrival like other companies: you get a QR code ticket that you can scan at the gate.

If you book via my affiliate link (here!) and use the promo code THATMUMTRAVELLIFEKLOOK5 then you will get an additional 5% off each ticket. This isn’t a huge amount, but every little helps when you’re planning a spendy Japan trip!

My top tip about the Harry Potter Studios Tokyo tickets is just to book them early. I don’t want anyone to wait and end up being disappointed!

When To Visit The Harry Potter Studios Tour in Tokyo

My advice would be to book the very first tour of the day, if possible. That’s why we booked our tickets as soon as they were available: because we know which time slot we were looking for!

There are lots of reasons why I think the earliest tour is the best one:

• If you’re the first ones to enter the building then it will never be as quiet as it is at that point. This means shorter queues for the best photo spots and all of the fun, interactive activities.
  
• You’ll be the first group to arrive at the cafe/restaurant area of the tour. This is around half way through the experience (it took us around 2.5 hours from entering the tour to get to this point). The themed food and themed dining areas are exceptional, but they can get SO BUSY throughout the day, so arriving early while things are still quiet is a huge plus point.
  
• You’ll also be the first to enter the shop, which is the biggest Harry Potter store I have ever seen, and which also gets painfully overcrowded as the day goes on.

If you don’t have the time in your Tokyo schedule to dedicate a day to visiting the Harry Potter Studios tour then they have also JUST started offering evening tour tickets. I think this would be such a fun night out idea, especially if you’re not travelling with kids. And would be another way to experience the attraction and beat the crowds without carving too much time out of your schedule.

On the subject of time, the Warner Bros Studio Tour Tokyo website states that you should allow around 4 hours for the experience. But if you want to eat in the restaurant and if you’re travelling with a real Harry Potter fan who is going to want to see everything and take part in all of the interactive experiences then I advise allowing longer. We spent just over 6 hours in total in the Harry Potter Studios Tour warehouse.

It’s also worth noting that most of the tour takes place inside but there are some outdoor elements. These include Privet drive, the night bus, and the wizard chess scene.

What To Eat At The Warner Bros Studios Tour Tokyo, The Making Of Harry Potter

One of the things that I (as a mere muggle) was really impressed with about this experience was the high quality of the food. They had a captive audience, so they could have just punched it in and served just about anything (like so many theme parks do) and people would have bought it because they were hungry.

But the food was delicious! High quality ingredients, plenty of options for everyone, and the themed options were excellent. We ordered both of the themed desserts (the mandrake chocolate cake and the hedwig vanilla cake) and they looked exactly like they did in the photos.

For our main courses, we all ordered the chicken kariagi, and it was some of the best chicken we ate in our three weeks in Japan, believe it or not! To drink, we washed it down with huge mugs of butterbeer.

You can’t actually buy butterbeer in the restaurant: there is a designated bar next door. But they were very happy for us to buy this from the bar and take it into the restaurant with us so we could get the full Harry Potter experience and eat all of the themed foods at the same time.

The butterbeer bar is covered, but it also offers outdoor seating, so this is a lovely place to sit when the sun’s shining. It reminded me a bit of the beer garden of a British pub on a hot summer’s day (it was a hot and sunny day when we visited).

When you buy the butterbeer, you get to keep the souvenir butterbeer mug, which I though was a nice touch. Another nice touch was that they had a themed sink next to the bar, and carrier bags designed to fit the mug, so that you could wash your mug and then carry it home with you in the most convenient way possible.

The Experiences At The Harry Potter Studios Tour, Tokyo

The sheer size and scale of the Harry Potter Studios Tour is mind boggling. Every aspect of life in Hogwarts, everything you see in the movies? You’ll find it here!

Some of the sets that we really loved were the Forbidden Forest (which has lots of interactive elements where you could beat dementors with your wand or choose your Patronus), the Great Hall which also included the costumes that the original actors wore in the movies, and the Hogwarts Express, which was an epic full-scale steam train.

The interactive experiences throughout meant that this was a great experience for visitors of all ages. We travelled by floo powder, acted as spectators in a Quidditch tournament (then watched the scene come to life thanks to the magic of green screen), and played in the potions room.

My favourite interactive element was at the moving staircase, where you could record a video of yourself (either individually or with your group) and these were sent to the picture frames that lined the hallway, turning you into the living artwork that this part of Hogwarts is famous for.

Another set that I really loved was Diagon Alley, because it felt just like you were walking down the street as it was laid out in the movie.

I will say that even as a non-Harry Potter fan (although I do my best to throw myself into it for the boys) I was incredibly impressed by the quality and the scale of the experience. It was also wonderfully educational, with plenty of exhibits exploring the secrets of film making, set design, prop construction, and even puppetry for the movies. If you’re home schooling then this would certainly make a great day out.

What Language Is The Harry Potter Studios Tour Tokyo In?

As we were in Japan we, of course, expected that the tour would be conducted in Japanese. And this seemed to be the case, when we were invited to watch an introduction video which was presented in Japanese with English subtitles.

But beyond this, everything was presented in both English and Japanese. Written prompts were shown in both languages. Where the majority of the cast and those working behind the scenes on the films were English, their videos were recorded in English and given Japanese subtitles. If someone choose to film in Japanese, this was given English subtitles.

All of the staff members we encountered at the interactive elements (such as the riding of the broomstick or the quidditch match) were all multi-lingual too, speaking in both English and Japanese.

English is, of course, our native language. And while we have very basic Japanese skills, we wouldn’t have been able to conduct the whole tour in Japanese. But both languages were catered to, and there weren’t any elements of the experience that we didn’t understand.

How Does The Harry Potter Studios Tour in Tokyo Compare To The Harry Potter Studios Tour in London?

If you’re a Harry Potter fan whose already been to the Studios Tour in London then you may be wondering if it’s worth repeating the experience in Tokyo. It’s true that some of the experiences in both of the tours are the same. The Great Halls are identical , for example, as is the interactive broom riding experience. But the Warner Bros Studios Tour the Making of Harry Potter experience is much bigger in Tokyo than it is in London. And there are some elements on the Tokyo experience that you won’t find anywhere else in the world.

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An example of this is the Ministry of Magic set. When we walked into this room I actually gasped! It is the most visually stunning of all the sets we experienced: and one that you won’t find anywhere else.

So if you LOVE the Harry Potter franchise then you should definitely visit the Tokyo set as well as the London set, and nerd out at the many differences. Not so big a fan? One studios tour is probably enough, and there are so many other amazing things to do in Tokyo that your time might be spent more wisely elsewhere.

Getting To The Harry Potter Studios Tour In Tokyo

The Harry Potter Studios Tour in Tokyo is very easy to access via public transport. The nearest metro station is Toshimaen Station. This is on two metro lines, depending on where you’re travelling from. The Seibu Ikebukuro line or the Toei Oedo line (this second option is the line we took, we were travelling from Tokyo Bay).

Once you get to the station, the Warner Bros. Studio is really close, around a 2 minute walk away. There is a Seven Eleven right by the station, so we stopped there for drinks and breakfast snack foods on our way in.

Conclusion

We loved every minute of the Harry Potter Studios Tour at the Warner Bros Studio in Tokyo. Our 9 year old Harry Potter mad son says it was the best day he’s ever had. And even as non-Harry Potter loving grown ups we had a great day, finding the experience interesting, educational, and well put together.

Make sure you book your Harry Potter Studios tour Tokyo tickets early, so that you can get the date and time that you want to visit.

Stop for lunch if you can, the food is worth taking time out of your day for. If you don’t have English or Japanese language skills you might find some of the educational elements more difficult to understand. But I think it would still be a visually enriching day out if you’re a fan of the franchise!

Have you been to the Harry Potter Studios tour in Tokyo? I’d love to hear your thoughts! And if you have any questions about the experience that I haven’t already answered then please pop them below, and i’ll try my best to help!

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