🎀 There are exactly two Sanrio theme parks in the world. Puroland, indoors, in Tama on the edge of Tokyo. And Harmonyland, outdoors, on a hill in Hiji, Oita Prefecture. The outdoor one is being rebuilt into a stay-and-play resort for tens of billions of yen. It's called the Sky Park plan, and it's the first resort development in Sanrio's history. In June 2026 the plan stopped being a drawing. They bought land. Almost four times the size of the park.

The Sky Park Plan

On December 8, 2025, Sanrio and Sanrio Entertainment announced the outline for turning Harmonyland into a resort. A siting ceremony was held the same day at the Oita prefectural government building, with Governor Kiichiro Sato and Hiji Mayor Tetsuya Abe present.

Initial investment: roughly 10 billion yen, about $62 million. Total investment runs to tens of billions, and completion is expected to take more than ten years.

The concept starts by inverting the site's weakness. Harmonyland sits on top of a mountain with steep elevation changes. That was a negative until now, says Aya Komaki, president of operator Sanrio Entertainment. So they turned it into the concept: sky.

For the outdoor park's real enemies, rain and heat, a large canopy goes over the central section. The entrance gate moves downhill from where it is now, and ropeways and electric mobility get added for moving around inside. Attractions get built and renovated. And on a rise nearby, a hotel with views over the park, the mountains and Beppu Bay. A day-trip park gets a place to sleep.

There are numbers. At the press conference in Oita, Komaki said the first goal is one million visitors a year, and that when every facility is in place in about a decade, the target is two million. Two million is roughly four times current attendance.

June 15: They Bought Land Four Times the Size of the Park

The day this stopped being an artist's impression was June 15, 2026.

Komaki returned to the prefectural building and announced the acquisition of about 30.85 hectares of development land around Harmonyland in the Fujiwara district of Hiji. The current park covers roughly 8 hectares. They have just secured 3.8 times that, next door. Combined, the site grows about fivefold.

Komaki called it the land that forms the foundation of the resort, and said the question of what scale they're building at had advanced substantially. Uses are still being worked out; ideas floated include areas built around the characters' world and facilities usable in a disaster. A plan for container-style eateries serving local Oita produce was announced at the same time.

Governor Sato's response: Harmonyland is an icon of Oita, and he wants people to come for Harmonyland and then use it as a base to travel around the prefecture.

Two months earlier, on April 26, the park held its 35th anniversary ceremony. Twenty-two characters including Hello Kitty appeared together for a special dance show, and Sanrio Entertainment and the prefecture launched a "local produce, local consumption" project.

Why Oita

Of Sanrio's two parks, the reason they picked this one is bluntly practical.

Puroland opened in 1990 and is fully indoors. Weatherproof, but the building's structure makes major expansion impossible. Harmonyland opened in 1991, is the only Sanrio park in Kyushu, and sprawls outdoors across a hillside. Meaning: there is room. The 30.85 hectares just proved it.

Location helps. Beppu Onsen is about 30 minutes away by car, Yufuin about an hour. Part of the point of the resort conversion is that the park becomes a hub pushing visitors out to the prefecture's other attractions. Kyushu also gets a lot of direct flights from South Korea, Taiwan, China and Southeast Asia. Komaki cites both the rise of Sanrio characters across Asia and the geographic advantage of being close to it.

The groundwork predates all this. In December 2024, Sanrio and Oita Prefecture signed a comprehensive partnership agreement that already included eventual resort development. Oita Airport getting the nickname "Oita Hello Kitty Airport" came out of that, as did the Harmony Liner, a direct wrapped bus linking the airport and Kitsuki Station to the park. Komaki says they've heard from Taiwanese and Korean tourists who came because of the Hello Kitty airport.

Not Customers. Residents.

The strangest thing about this project might be how they're building it.

Rather than handing over a finished facility, Sanrio says it wants fans and local residents involved from the concept stage, calling it co-creation. It is setting up a community, provisionally named the Harmonyland Future Co-Creation Office, open to anyone anywhere. Decoration design, merchandise, menus, transportation: all of it takes input. The stated concept is that visitors are welcomed not as customers but as residents living the same future.

The relationship with the town deepened too. On February 22, 2026, Sanrio Entertainment and Hiji signed a comprehensive partnership agreement on forming what they call Harmony Town. It runs to ten items, covering tourism infrastructure, circuit tourism and local sourcing, but also education, childcare, welfare, getting young people to move in and stay, promoting the participation of women and children, and tie-ups with universities and companies. It mentions resident wellbeing and civic pride. That's a broad remit for a theme park agreement.

Mayor Abe said he was confident that connecting Harmonyland's visitors to the town's sights and food would contribute to forming Harmony Town. At the announcement he also said that from next year, as an SDGs Future City, he wanted to work together on a town that leaves nobody behind.

This takes more than a decade. Sketches and land purchases are different stages of a project. The next question is what actually gets built on those 31 hectares.

Does anywhere near you build a theme park by pulling in the whole town? And honestly, would you go to a character resort that happens to sit next to hot springs?

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