Japan Toy Museum, Toy museum in Himeji, Japan
The Japan Toy Museum is a toy museum in Himeji that holds toys and dolls from around 160 countries, spread across six traditional white-walled dozō-style storage buildings. The buildings are made of thick clay walls and stand side by side on a grounds visitors can walk through on foot.
The museum opened in November 1974 inside a group of dozō storage buildings that had already been used as warehouses for decades before. The choice to repurpose these structures for a museum helped keep alive a style of construction that has become increasingly rare in Japanese towns.
The collection features regional Japanese dolls such as Hakata dolls from Fukuoka and wooden kokeshi dolls, each representing a craft tradition from a different part of Japan. Walking through the rooms, visitors can directly compare the shapes, materials, and painting styles that set each regional type apart.
The museum sits in central Himeji and is easy to reach on foot from other parts of the city. Allow enough time to walk through all six buildings, as each one focuses on a different part of the collection.
Two of the six buildings show rotating displays of traditional toys such as kites, kendama, and mechanical dolls that change with the seasons. This means a second visit can feel noticeably different from the first.
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