Though much of the news in the United States is surrounding the opening of California theme parks like Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood, it looks like across the sea Universal Studios Japan will be closing back down due to a state of emergency in the Osaka region that has been called due to an increase in COVID-19 variant cases. According to a press release, Universal Studios Japan will oficially be closing down on April 25th to prevent the spread of COVID-19. 

Unfortunately, this is not a huge surprise as Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura announced his intent to close theme parks as part of his State of Emergency request earlier this week. Right now theme parks in other areas of Japan, like Tokyo Disneyland in Chiba Prefecture, remain open for the time being. 

This will be the second closure for Universal Studios Japan, which initially shut down last year from February 29 through June 19, but has been able to operate uninterrupted since then, even opening the brand new Super Nintendo World earlier this year with strict capacity and safety requirements.  

No reopening target has been announced yet, but the expectation is that Universal Studios Japan will be able to reopen once the government lifts the state of emergency, hopefully in the near future.