The coffins are a better place to scream than at Japanese theme parks, which have encouraged visitors to keep their mouths shut on roller coasters to prevent virus transmission through droplets. (“Please scream inside your heart,” the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park suggested in June in a video demonstration by two of its executives, who inspired social media users to try the “serious face challenge” on their own roller coaster rides.)
Kenta Iwana, founder of Kowagarasetai, said he wanted to give people a way to express themselves without holding back.
“There are no places to scream,” Mr. Iwana, 25, told Agence France-Presse this summer as he introduced another one of his socially distanced productions, a drive-in haunted house. In addition to providing people with an emotional outlet, he said, his company creates job opportunities for performers who normally work at theme parks.
Japan, which has been fighting a resurgence of the virus in recent weeks, reported 740 new cases nationwide on Sunday, including 212 in Tokyo. The country has had a total of more than 63,000 cases and almost 1,200 deaths, according to a New York Times database.
Reporting was contributed by Gillian R. Brassil, Alexander Burns, Stephen Castle, Choe Sang-Hun, Sheri Fink, Mike Ives, Annie Karni, David Leonhardt, Jonathan Martin, Tiffany May, Amelia Nierenberg, Adam Pasick, Katie Thomas, Katherine J. Wu and Elaine Yu.