Slightly into the forests and outskirts of Okayama City 岡山市 is an abandoned factory known as the Bengara Factory, or the Red Factory. The word Bengara is the color of an ancient red created from pigments discovered back in the stone age. In Japanese, it could be katakana ベンガラ or kanji 弁柄. This factory both mined and refined raw materials to create the color.
People call this the Bengara Factory 弁柄工場 because of the color it once made, but over the decades and decades of its usage, the factory buildings have been burnt from the harsh sun, rusting the buildings into the color it once created. The real name is the Waki Factory 和気工場.
Lately, I had been searching around online for various abandoned buildings to explore and with my friends, Fishy and Chaos, visiting, the Red Factory popped up as a good place to explore. We arrived in the afternoon on our drive to Hiroshima.
We only stayed for about 30 minutes. There were a few mini-trucks on site, which made it seem like there may have been other people present in the factory. We went up the road, and went into cabin at the top. The cabin was full of dirty magazines, high school textbooks, and a couple other personal items. While the overall rule for hiking and spelunking is "take only photos, leave only footprints," we did bend this rule.
We did not push further into any of the actual factory buildings.
Recent Update: According to sources on the Internet, the Red Factory is still there as of this post. I don't think I'll ever have the chance to return there, but let me know if you do. :)
Note: This post was made in Apr 2025 and back-dated to the time of the events
