Hachikō: The Akita Who Waited Nine Years at Shibuya Station

Most famous dogs earned their fame doing something. Hachikō became legendary for doing nothing at all except showing up — for almost a decade, at a train station, for a man who was never coming back.

Hachikō leads our roundup of the most loyal dog breeds, with the real famous dogs behind each breed’s reputation.

Who Hachikō was

Hachikō was an Akita born in November 1923 on a farm near Ōdate in Akita Prefecture, Japan. In 1924 he went to live in Tokyo with Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor of agriculture at what is now the University of Tokyo. Ueno commuted daily from Shibuya Station, and Hachikō developed a routine: he walked with Ueno to the station each morning and returned alone each evening to meet his train.

The wait that made him famous

On May 21, 1925, Ueno suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage while at work and never came home. Hachikō went to Shibuya Station that evening anyway. He kept going back — most days, for close to nine years — until he died on March 8, 1935. Commuters and station staff who watched him wait, day after day, began feeding him and sharing his story, and it eventually reached national newspapers.

The statue and the legacy

A bronze statue of Hachikō was installed at Shibuya Station in April 1934, while he was still alive to see it dedicated. The wartime government melted it down for metal in 1944, but it was rebuilt after World War II and remains one of Tokyo’s best-known meeting points — commuters still say “meet me at Hachikō.” A second statue, showing an overjoyed Hachikō leaping to greet Ueno, was unveiled at the University of Tokyo in 2015 on the 80th anniversary of his death.

Hachikō’s story is part of our guide to the internet’s most famous dogs, in the company of the other legends who were famous before there was an internet to make them so.

Frequently asked questions

What breed was Hachikō?

Hachikō was a Japanese Akita, born in November 1923 near Ōdate, Akita Prefecture.

Why is Hachikō famous?

Hachikō met his owner, Professor Hidesaburō Ueno, at Shibuya Station every evening. After Ueno died suddenly in 1925, Hachikō kept returning to the station to wait for him almost daily for nearly ten years, until his own death in 1935.

Is the Hachikō statue still there?

Yes. The original 1934 statue was melted down for the WWII war effort but was rebuilt afterward and still stands outside Shibuya Station, where it remains one of Tokyo’s most famous meeting spots.