Surrounding one of Tokyo's largest railway stations, Shibuya Square is Japan's mecca for shopping, entertainment, and fashion: a massive commercial complex of stores and theaters that is home to the world's busiest Starbucks and eclipses even New York's Time Square in scale and candle power. At night, the square is aglow in the brilliant colors of animated signs and teems with enough people to fill a major airport. With three billboard-sized televisions erected high above and Carmina Burana thumping in the night air, wave upon wave of pedestrians flow into the famous seven-way scramble crossing featured prominently in 2003's Lost in Translation. Nestled anachronistically in this ultramodern setting is one of Japan's national treasures, a bronze statue of Hachiko the dog. Erected in 1948, the statue commemorates the purebred Akita that would greet his owner every day after work at Shibuya Station, and, when his owner died, kept vigil there in hopes of seeing his master again.
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