Japanese World Cup Soccer Team

Thanks to MaxMom, we have Soccer World Cup fever.
 I have agreed to highlight the SWC team from Japan to help celebrate Unity in Diversity.

I know very little about soccer and even less about the Japanese team, but I have traveled to Japan so I consider myself somewhat of an expert, chuckle!

Do you enjoy cheering for the underdogs?

If so, The Sumarai Blue, as affectionately called in Japan, is definitely the team for you! Japan is the lowest ranked team in their group.

Former team captain, Hidetoshi Nakata said, "The team has not had the best of years but it can only go up.”

Midfielder, Keisuke Honda said that persistent criticism from the national press has convinced the defiant Japanese squad they have "nothing to lose at the World Cup finals."

I have to admit, I lost interest quickly, but thank goodness, MaxMom said our post doesn't have to be solely about the team.

Soooo, guess what I'm going to discuss?

You betcha',

dogs in Japan.

But not just any dog. I want to share the story of a very special dog named Hachiko.

Perhaps the most well known animal in Japan is Hachiko, an Akita that died in 1935 and is now stuffed and displayed at Japan's National Science Museum. "Chu-ken Hachinko, or "faithful dog Hachiko,"was the pet of a Tokyo University professor, Hidesaburo Ueno. Every morning the professor and Hachinko would walk together to the Shibuya station, where the professor would take the train to work and each afternoon at 3:00pm when the professor came home his dog was waiting at the platform to meet him.

Then one day in 1925 the professor suddenly died from a stroke at work. Hachinko waited at the station that afternoon but her master didn't return. She waited again the next afternoon. And the next and the next and kept coming back to the station, every afternoon for the next 10 years.


Efforts to give Hachiko to adopted owners failed. He continued to go to the station and spend his nights sleeping on the steps of the late professor’s house. Even when he was old and lame he continued to show up at 3:00pm at the station. He was cared for by the professor’s gardener and a stationmaster at the station, often begging for food from the numerous street vendors in the area.


Hachiko's devotion caught the imagination of the world. Articles were written about him inside and outside Japan. The Los Angeles Friends of Animals was so moved it raised money for a statue of the faithful dog that was erected in Shibuya Station in 1934, a year before Hachiko died. Replicas of the statue were given to schools all over Japan. Though his body was put on display at the National Science Museum near Ueno Station in Tokyo his bones were interred with those if hit master in Aoyama cemetery.

Hachiko Legacy

Everyone in Japan knows Hachiko. Children are read bedtime stories about the faithful dog and teenagers in Tokyo often say "Hachiko mae de!" ("Let's meet at Hachiko"), a reference to the teenage hangout and entertainment district of Shibuya, where the dog used to meet his master.

In 1936 the Hachiko story was included in the moral education textbooks for primary school as an illustration of loyalty and fealty to a master, encouraging loyalty to Emperor Hirohito. During World War II, Japan's military dictators made Hachiko's story mandatory reading in school even though they ordered her statues melted down so the metal could be used in shipbuilding.


Jesse Glass, a professor at Meikai University in Chiba, told the Daily Yomiuri: “The story of Hachiko is particularly appealing to the Japanese because the high value that Japanese culture traditionally places on fealty to the group, boss or master—eve if the mast master is absent in death.” Cynics speculate that maybe it was handouts from yakitori vendors not loyalty to his master that may have kept of Hachiko coming back—a number of wooden skewers were found in his stomach after he died.

 Today Japanese can choose from hundreds of books, movies, compact discs, statues and plaques honoring Hachiko. He has been commemorated on a postage stamp. Department stores sell a $50 Hachiko necktie with "Wan Wan" printed on it and a $58 wristwatch with the English message on the dial: "The most heartful and Japanese, a dog. He goes to station to meet” In 1994, the Year of the Dog on the Chinese lunar calendar, the Culture Broadcasting Network broadcast a newly discovered recording of Hachinko's bark. (Source: Factsanddetails.com)

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Updated 2:53 EST:

Japan won the game with a score of 1:0!

Congrats, Sumarai Blue!