Last night I watched a DVD called Hachi-ko....
I cried so many times in the movie and I loved the background aspects of the Japanese life of the time, as well.
I felt moved to seek further information and found this.............
found at http://smt.blogs.com/mari_diary/2005/04/a_royal_dog_in_.html
.............I will tell about Hachiko today. Hachi was born in Akita pref. in 1923. Because of his bent ears, people sometimes get wrong impression that he was a mixed dog, but he was a purebred Akita dog. His owner was a professor of Tokyo university. His house was big and located around area where Tokyu department store is now. He already had a pointer dog named John and another dog S when Hachi came to live his house. John, S and Hachi went to Shibuya station evade to see their owner off in the morning and were there every evening meet him. It seemed the happiest days for dogs. Unfortunately the owner died one year later and his wife and dogs had to leave home to make ends meet. The dogs were taken to different homes with different owners. Mr. Saito who was a member of the Japanese dog Preservation Association, saw Hachiko sometimes and he remembered him as a faithful dog. By the time he discovered poor Hachiko in Shibuya Station, he was already sad shape, dirty pitiful but still waiting for his ex owner. Mr.Saito detailed Hachiko's plight in the newspaper and suddenly Hachiko had became a famous dog in Japan. While he was still alive, his statue was erected and his story was told in primary school textbook. Ha ha Hachiko's tale itself was a pretty good, loyal dog story. But some people's reaction to Hachiko seems a little bit over-the-top actually. Anyway like I wrote in eddoko topic, my grand mom met Hachiko in her school days. Yeah, she said it was a dirty dog. :-). First Hachiko statue was melted once during ww2 to make armaments. The 2nd Hachiko in Shibuya station was recast again after ww2. Ah you can meet real Hachiko in the National Science museum with another famous dog Taro and Jiro.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LakIEfEOQSE
and the above clip showing a Spanish person traveling the steps of Hachi to the statue.
