This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/ethanschoonover on 2025-07-09 19:12:12+00:00.
tl;dr: Having just gone to both over the past couple weeks I have a strong opinion that if you can only go to one, make it Borderless.
Our family went to both Borderless and Planets at high attendance times. We definitely enjoyed them but I came away with some specific thoughts based on the current state of the exhibits/experiences. (I researched this on reddit prior to our trip and wanted to provide this report based on our current 2025 comparison):
Borderless
- Despite high attendance, Borderless overall felt manageable, spacious, and not cramped. We waited almost no time to enter with our timed ticket (and even if we had the wait would have been indoors).
- Borderless felt clean despite the huge number of people cycling through. No small feat.
- At least one exhibit in Borderless was being repaired and thus was off limits. No idea which one it was and we didn't feel a lack (there was such a huge variety of rooms and experiences there vs Planets which really has just the four main sections).
- The video projection experience at Borderless felt better than planets. Newer? More projectors? Different video stitching tech? There were fewer occlusions/shadows based on where people were standing and the alignment of multiple projectors never felt misaligned.
- Tea room was slow to get into and while fun was the least important part of the experience. Felt the most gimmicky and while it was a nice way to end the experience I don't think you are missing much if you don't do it. If you can, sure, but not sure it warranted the wait.
- Overall Borderless gave us more of the experience of being in a cohesive, endless space of "things to be discovered and puzzled over."
- Hallways were the biggest bottlenecks but even then I never really felt like I was stuck waiting for others or constrained by other guests. I would have preferred 20% fewer attendees but even with the capacity we experienced it was fine. We never had to jostle for space.
Planets
- We had a timed ticket for entry just like with Borderless but we ended up waiting about 20-30 minutes outside in the queue for entry. Given the heat right now it was a pretty brutal way to start the experience.
- In general Planets suffers more from the "high traffic, high touch" problem many interactive museums have: it often felt much grimier than Borderless. A lot of the flooring materials had been patched with duct tape in places, for example. Not a big detraction from the overall experience but it just felt a lot more worn out at times than Borderless.
- In this vein, some of the non touch aspects also felt a little off. One of the aquarium rooms (draw creatures, they come to life) had video stitching that was out of alignment. It's trivial but it breaks the immersion experience significantly.
- The water experience was one of the best parts and obviously shared conceptual/executional DNA with the tea room at Borderless but was much more enjoyable. People were well behaved in the water room and it was also the most peaceful part of the Planets experience for us.
- I wish that we'd been able to take our shoes off just once and store them and our small personal bags in lockers and be done with it at the start (Borderless has a single bag check in comparison). However planets has you remove and store your shoes/bags in lockers multiple times and given the high number of attendees (many of whom were not practiced at shoes on/off, etc.) it was a serious bottleneck.
- We saw a lot more staff coming and going into back rooms which sort of broke the immersion experience. We'd be in a cool endless corridor and then suddenly a door would open with cardboard boxes stacked up on the other brightly lit side. Again, minor, but as a comparison Borderless just nailed more of this kind of thing.
- In comparison to Borderless the staff presence and sheep-dogging at Planets was a LOT more active/present. It was obviously necessary due to the design of the exhibits and how poorly people can behave in places like this, but it gave the experience more of a policed vibe which took just a bit of the spontaneous fun out at times. A "tragedy of the commons" problem that is hard to overcome in high touch exhibits but I ended up enjoying Borderless more as a result.
Our fav parts of Planets? Water room and flower immersion room.
Our fav parts of Borderless? Lily room, sphere/cube rooms, marching parade of weird creatures, overall sense of being in a real organic, dynamic, magical place.
Our least fav parts of both? People who didn't heed the briefing to try and be calm/quiet/keep-some-control-over-their-kids. Inevitable but selfish travelers are the worst.