I'll probably post about it more in the future, but i thought i was going to an amusement park, go on rides and see the sights. We have La Ronde in montreal, and it's mostly a bunch of rides. There are carnival games here and there, but overall you go there to enjoy the rides.
USJ is a facade, capitalism masquerading as joy beneath a thin veneer of themeparkery. They must love having six or seven "themed zones" because all of them can have 1~3 themed restaurants and five shops. There are great distances to walk through, but you'll only walk through crowds and ways to spend money.
Each zone having one or two rides really shows that it's an afterthought. Everything is well made, but it certainly doesn't feel like you would need more than a day to really do the things you wanted. Otherwise it's just 7$ coffees.
The mario area is exemplary of this, in my opinion. A beautiful themed zone, extremely well crafted and imaginative, but with only two rides and some minigames connected to achievement grinding that pads your experience so much because of all the lines you have to wait in. It wouldn't stand on its own, going to USJ only for the mario stuff is an exercise in squeezing fun out of a mushroom-shaped stone, in my opinion.
They had an hour long wait line for lunch for wario's sake