Light shows and pirate rides helped Hideo Sawada pull a bankrupt theme park in Kyushu back to profitability.
Now he wants robots to finish the turnaround.
Five years after buying Huis Ten Bosch, a replica Dutch village that had bled money for more than a decade, Sawada has improved attendance enough that it now accounts for almost half the profit at H.I.S. Co., Japan's largest listed travel agent. Now he plans to build a hotel on the site attended by fembot receptionists and other miracles of automation.