The now defunct and destroyed Nara Dreamland was built as a Japanese version of Disneyland in 1961, a lofty endeavor launched by Kunizu Matsuo who later helped Disney build Tokyo Disneyland.
But Nara Dreamland didn't have a cast of franchise characters to populate the park, and even though much of the park was built to look virtually identical to Anaheim Disneyland the park never had the same pull.
And when the real Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983 people stopped going to the imitation, which led to a steady decline until Tokyo DisneySea and Universal Studios Japan opened in 2001 and killed Kunizu's dream.
The park was abandoned in 2006 and demolished in 2016, but before it disappeared photographer Romain Veillon took a look around and shot some eerie photos that show what the death of a theme park dream looks like.
-Via Boing Boing