The Chinese catchphrase on the movie poster says it all: “I’ll wait for you, no matter how long it is.”
It tells the true story of Hachiko, the faithful dog who continued to wait for his master at a train station in Japan long after the man’s death.
The cream-white Akita Inu, who was born almost 100 years ago, has been remembered in every way.
From books and movies to the sci-fi cartoon series Futurama.
And the Chinese film that can be seen these days in the country, the third after a 1987 Japanese version and the one starring Richard Gere in 2009, is a box office success.
There have been stories of other devoted hounds like Greyfriars Bobby, but none with the global impact of Hachiko.
There is even a bronze statue of him in front of Shibuya station in Tokyo, where he waited in vain for his owner for a decade.
The statue was first erected in 1934 before being recycled for warfare during World War II.
Japanese schoolchildren are taught the story of Chuken Hachiko, or the loyal dog Hachiko, as an example of devotion and fidelity.
Hachiko represents the “ideal Japanese citizen” with his “unquestioning devotion,” says University of Hawaii professor Christine Yano: “loyal, trustworthy, obedient to an owner, and understanding his place in the larger scheme of things without relying on for it of rationality”.
Hachiko’s story
Hachiko was born in November 1923 in the city of Odate in Akita Prefecture, the original home of the Akitas dog breed.
The Akita is a large Japanese dog and one of the oldest and most popular breeds in the country.
Designated by the Japanese government as a national icon in 1931, they were once trained to hunt animals such as wild boar and elk.
“Akita dogs are calm, sincere, intelligent and courageous. They are also obedient to their masters,” says Eietsu Sakuraba, author of a children’s book in English about Hachiko.
“They also have a stubborn personality and are wary of anyone who is not their owner.”
The year Hachiko was born, Hidesaburo Ueno, a renowned agriculture professor and dog lover, asked a student to find him an Akita puppy.
After an exhausting train journey, the cub arrived at the Ueno residence in the Shibuya district on January 15, 1924.
At first it was thought that he was dead.
According to Hachiko’s biographer, Professor Mayumi Itoh, Ueno and his wife Yae nursed him back to health over the next six months.
Ueno called it Hachi, Japanese for “eight.” The suffix Ko is a tribute from the students of Ueno.
the long wait
Ueno took a train to work several times a week.
He was accompanied to the Shibuya station by his three dogs, including Hachiko, who would stay there until his return at night.
On May 21, 1925, Ueno, then 53 years old, died of a brain hemorrhage.
Hachiko had been with him for only 16 months.
“While people were attending the wake, Hachi smelled his owner from the house and entered the living room. He crawled under the coffin and refused to move,” Prof Itoh writes.
Hachiko spent the next several months with different families outside of Shibuya, but finally, in the summer of 1925, ended up with Ueno’s gardener, Kobayashi Kikusaburo.
Having returned to the area where his late master lived, Hachiko soon resumed his daily commute to the station. It didn’t matter if it was sunny or it was raining to seas.
“At night, Hachi would stand at the front door and look at each passenger as if looking for someone,” Itoh writes.
At first, the station employees found it a nuisance. Yakitori vendors would throw water at him, and small children would bully and beat him.
However, after the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Asahi Shimbun wrote about it in October 1932, Hachi gained national attention.
The station received food donations for Hachiko every day, while tourists came from far and wide to see him.
Poems and haikus were written about him.
According to news reports, the 1934 fundraiser to dedicate a statue to him drew a crowd of 3,000.
Hachiko’s death on March 8, 1935 made the front page of many newspapers.
At his funeral, Buddhist monks offered prayers for him and various authorities and dignitaries read eulogies.
Thousands of people visited his statue in the days that followed.
In impoverished post-war Japan, a fundraising drive for a new statue of Hachiko even raised 800,000 yen, a huge sum at the time.
It would be worth $28 million today.
“In retrospect, I think he knew that Ueno wouldn’t come back, but he kept waiting. Hachiko taught us the value of keeping faith in someone,” Takeshi Okamoto wrote in a newspaper article in 1982.
When he was a high school student, he saw Hachiko at the station every day.
Remembering Hachiko
A memorial service for Hachiko is held outside Shibuya Station every year on April 8.
His statue is often decorated with scarves, Santa hats, and more recently, a surgical mask.
His mount is on display at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo.
Some of his remains are buried in the Aoyama Cemetery, along with Ueno and Yae.
Statues of him have also been cast in Odate, Ueno’s hometown, Hisai, the University of Tokyo and Rhode Island, the American setting for the 2009 film.
Odate also has a series of events scheduled this year, when it would be 100 years old.
Will the world’s most loyal dog still be celebrated a century from now?
Professor Yano says yes because she believes that “Hachiko heroism” is not defined by any particular period, but instead is timeless.
Sakuraba is equally optimistic. “Even 100 years from now, this unconditional and devoted love will remain unchanged, and Hachiko’s story will live forever.”
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See original article on BBC