Haikyo – Electronics Factory (Original Find)

The same day that Andrew and I explored the fish farm we also made another original discovery when we spotted this overgrown, red, building across the fields.

Making our way over, it was easy to get inside through a missing window and it was soon obvious that this had been some kind of light industrial production facility. The first room was a large open space with work benches, shelves, scattered tools and boxes of old components.

This space took about half of the ground floor, with a similar sized area divided into two rooms on the other side. In the centre dividing the two parts was a pair of staircases to opposite sides of the upper floor. Behind the staircases a short cluttered corridor connected to a smaller annex building, and in front of them the was the derelict entrance area.

The light was already beginning to fade and this was clearly a bigger building than we’d originally suspected so we tried to get through the whole place as quickly as possible.

However, apart from a few shots (like the window below) that suited the light conditions, it was difficult to get nice pictures.

As a result I didn’t manage to document much, although the exploration was interesting; upstairs we found locker rooms, and a lounge complete with trophies won by the companies bowling team, then in the annex there were the shower and toilet facilities.

So I was very happy when the following week, quite by chance, a kids nature appreciation walk I’d agreed to help out with turned out to end about five minutes away from this site making a return visit very easy indeed. This time it was much easier to get better shots of everything. Here are a few key rooms.

The last of those pictures was a room we’d noticed, but not gone into, the first time. The doorway was very cluttered and we were pressed for time, from the cabinets and the posters it had looked like a workers tea room and we’d left it, but this time we went inside and quickly noticed that the posters were actually much newer than the rest of the building – someone had put them up within the last few months.

Opening the fridge turned up another surprise –

it was stacked full of porno video cassettes and DVDs, somebody had been keeping their private collection here.

Digging around a bit more we found that one of the kitchen drawers was also packed full of magazines (censored like all Japanese porn).

This find really amused me and made me laugh every time I thought about it for the next few days; it’s just so odd that somebody could keep their private stash in a place like that?

I had actually been hoping that the pin up posters would help to date the building, but being new additions they were no help. I never found any clear indication of when this place was in business, but a few things pointed towards late 80s or early 90s as the last time it was in operation.

Though this is mostly based on my Japanese fiancée’s opinions about the prices of the drinks in the vending machine outside, and the brand of sweets found in one of the lockers.

Overall this was a great find which eventually took three trips to fully explore and get all the  photographs I wanted, but that third time I even got a nice phone shot.

To see a slightly fuller gallery from his site click here.

Well that’s all for today, still quite a few more haikyo to come including a few more original finds.

Advertisement