weltschmerz. wanderlust. wasak

The last time I bawled this long and hard was when I watched The Elephant Man on DVD. I first heard of this unique story from totalfilm.com’s feature story on Ultimate Tearjerker movies. The trailer moved me so much that when I happened to see a DVD copy of it on sale a month ago, I quickly bought a copy of it.  But I didn’t watch it right away. I love a good tearjerker, but I was a bit hesitant to watch this movie right away because well, this movie didn’t really get a lot of buzz here, and well, I might just end up disappointed because the trailer was way better than the movie itself.

After putting it off watching it for so long, I finally popped it in the DVD player, with high hopes.

…well I cried my eyes out, and cried some more long after the film was finished. The fact that Hachiko wasn’t just some drummed-up attempt by Hollywood, but based on the true story of Hachi-ko, the Akita Inu.

The real story is as heart-wrenching as the Hollywood remake of the 1984 Japanese film Hachiko Monogatari. Below is the condensed version of the story of Hachiko: 

Hachikō (November 10, 1923–March 8, 1935) was an Akita dog born on a farm near the city of Ōdate, Akita Prefecture, remembered for his loyalty to his owner, many years after his owner’s death.

Hachikō was brought to Tokyo by his owner, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo in 1924. During his owner’s life Hachikō saw him out from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925, when Professor Ueno did not return on the usual train one evening. The professor had suffered a heart attack at the university that day. He died and never returned to the train station where his friend was waiting. 

So every day, for the next 11 years, Hachiko waited, sitting there amongst the town’s folk, looking for the familiar face of his master amidst the eddy of travelers exiting Shibuya station.

Others at the station initially thought it was waiting for something else or roaming around but later ealized it was waiting for its dead master. So the vendors there used to give some bits of food and water for its unwavering loyalty. But others doubted it and said the dog might have come because of the food the vendors gave for it. If so, then the dog could have come at other times also, but appeared only in the evening time, precisely when the train was due at the station.

One of the professor’s students was able to document the reason for the dog coming to the station for its master. And the student returned several times over the years and saw the dog appear precisely when the train was due at the station in the evening. He published this fact in one of the Tokyo’s largest newspaper after which the dog became a national figure and everyone were impressed with the loyalty shown by the dog and used it as an example for their children and students to follow.

Soon after a well known artist did a sculpture of the dog which was erected at Shibuya Station and Hachikō himself was present at its unveiling. The statue had to be recycled later for World War II. However, they did the sculpture again, and the original artist’s son made the statue of the dog in 1948. This statue has become a popular meeting spot in Japan.

Hachikō died on the steps that he waited for his master outside the station on March 8, 1935. His stuffed and mounted remains are kept at the National Science Museum of Japan in Ueno, Tokyo.