[Episode 17: What Fades, What Doesn’t] Heian-kaku. [Trailer]

This is the trailer for Episode 17, “What Fades, What Doesn’t.” It covers the abandoned wedding hall “Heian-kaku” in Kasama, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Heian-kaku was a real wedding hall in Kasama, and burn marks believed to be from a fire remain inside. We could not confirm public records of exactly when it operated. After it closed, the building was left untouched and became known as a ruin. The rumors told about the banquet hall and the wedding aisle arise from that history.

The trailer introduces the investigation here. The main episode is released as a single video. The building appears to be collapsing and entering involves danger, so this site does not recommend visiting.

What to Watch For

Before the trailer, note the building’s history. An overseas ruin-introduction site describes Heian-kaku as having a church-like exterior and wide decorated rooms built to handle large banquets. The same site says a fire destroyed the main hall and forced the closure, with photos dated 2010 and 2018. But the source is limited to a personal site, and we have found no public record of the fire’s timing or cause.

Our Take

Abandoned wedding halls exist in large numbers across the country. In our understanding, there was an era when many people held weddings at halls, and as the forms of marriage and celebration diversified, some large halls became hard to maintain. We do not know the specific circumstances of Heian-kaku’s closure, but placed in that flow of time, the ruin looks less like “a scary place” than “a building that witnessed how celebrations changed.”