It's easy to get lost in Shibuya, practically a city in its own right.

This district is the fashion heart of Tokyo, where you come to see and be seen, to shop

and hang out.

So if you're meeting up with a friend, often you pick a specific place or a landmark.

In Shibuya, your friends will often text or tell you, meet me at Hachiko.

Just out of exit 5 of the Shibuya train station, there's a courtyard.

In the middle of that courtyard is a bronze statue of a curly-tailed dog.

Perched on top of a six-foot cement pedestal, this dog sits on its back legs.

Front legs straight as if sitting in full attention with one folded bronze ear.

This is Hachiko.

Hachiko was a perfectly normal golden Akita dog, born a hundred years ago.

But in his lifetime, Hachiko became a nationwide sensation.

I'm Annie Ubank, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

Today, the story of Hachiko, heartbreak, inspiration, and a touch of Hollywood.

That's all right after this.

Sit, stay, good listener.

One day in 1924, a professor from Shibuya, Japan traveled to a rural farm.

This professor, Ueno Hideyasa-Wuro, was an elegant-looking gentleman, a little balding, and he loved dogs.

That day, he picked up a squirmy two-month-old puppy, an Akita, a Japanese dog, once bred for hunting.

He named this particular Akita Hachi, eight in Japanese, a lucky number.

The co, which means sir, or lord, was tacked on later.

...