Seifu Shimizu, a Tokyo trading company director and leading toy collector, published the ten-volume Unai no tomo between 1891 and 1923, with woodblock prints of traditional toys. The objects include shuttlecock and battledore sets, paper lions, hobbyhorses, popguns and clay sumo figures. Many toys came from amulets and talismans linked to Shinto shrines and folk belief. Travellers often brought them home as miyage, souvenirs for children after pilgrimages. The American ethnologist Stewart Culin later bought originals for the Brooklyn Museum, helping preserve them.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.