I blogged about “Hachi: A Dog’s Story,” back in 2009, but actually caught part of the movie on the Hallmark channel a couple of weeks ago.
Tokyo residents built a statue of Hachiko in front of the Shibuya station, where he waited patiently for years. (Itsuo Inouye / Associated Press archive)
The film, starring Richard Gere and Joan Allen, is a remake of an 1987 Japanese movie based on the story of Hachiko. The Akita supposedly waited every day for its master, a professor at the University of Tokyo, to come home from work. After the professor died, Hachiko continued to wait for his master every day for 10 years, until he died in 1935. (Bandit’s mom was kind of a mess toward the end, when an old and infirm Hachi is shown limping his way toward the station.)
Apparently, the cause of Hachiko’s death had been a mystery until now. Legend had it that the dog swallowed a chicken skewer that ruptured his stomach. But University of Tokyo veterinarians, after examining his preserved organs, now say that Hachiko had terminal cancer and an infection of worms.
Four yakitori sticks remained in Hachiko’s stomach, but they did not damage his stomach or cause death, said Kazuyuki Uchida, one of veterinarians.
“Hachiko certainly had yakitori given by a street vendor at Shibuya,” he said. “But the sticks were unrelated to his death, and the rumor is groundless.”
