Deco Hachikō: The Other Shibuya’s Best-Dressed Dog
The dog wore a collar of macarons. Above it, long eyelashes curled away from a pink face, and a small hat piled with imitation pastries sat at an angle between the ears. Below the collar, the decorations continued almost to the floor.
This was Deco Hachikō, a lavishly decorated version of the dog commemorated outside Tokyo’s Shibuya Station. The upright posture was still there, beneath a considerable quantity of dessert. None of it was edible.
It sat in a building beside Kōza-Shibuya Station in Yamato, Kanagawa Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo. There was another Shibuya, and its dog had dressed up.
A famous dog, a shared name
The original Hachikō was an Akita who kept returning to Shibuya Station after his owner’s death. His bronze memorial became one of Tokyo’s best-known meeting places. The story is about loyalty; the statue generally leaves the accessories to the people posing beside it.
Kōza-Shibuya shares the name, if not the crowds. Outside its low station building, a taxi stood by and a sign asked people to walk their bicycles. Nothing on the forecourt suggested a pink dog.
From phone to dog
The work was made for Champions, a TV Tokyo programme broadcast in August 2009. A specialist in decorating mobile phones applied the craft to a Hachikō figure. Known as deco, this style covers everyday objects with sparkling stones, miniature sweets and very little unused space.
A dog offered rather more room than a phone.
Seen from behind, its white, cream-textured coat was studded with tiny biscuits, doughnuts, chocolate pieces and slices of fruit. Small coloured ice-cream cones ran down the back.
The pink surface was built up from closely set rhinestones. Even the curled tail had its own patch of piped cream.
A dog with an address
After the broadcast, the work was donated to Yamato because its Kōza-Shibuya Station shared the Shibuya name. It was displayed first at City Hall, then moved in February 2010 to its present home: the city’s Shibuya Learning Centre, in the IKOZA building.
Even the learning centre was called Shibuya.
A sign below the display case handled the introductions: “Hachikō’s alter ego appears! ‘I’m Deco Hachikō. Nice to meet you!’”
The original is remembered for waiting. This one had introduced itself.
From the front, a red heart served as the nose, and an H hung at the centre of the macaron collar. Pink bows were tied around the forelegs, and the head was held high beneath the tilted hat. The expression was remarkably composed.
In 2015, the dog was lent out for the first time, to Kokugakuin University Museum in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, for SHIBUYA, an exhibition on the area’s history.
Tokyo’s Shibuya had borrowed a Hachikō from the other one.
Location
Place
Deco Hachikō (デコハチ公)
Ground-floor entrance lobby, about 2 minutes on foot from the west exit of Kōza-Shibuya Station (Odakyu Enoshima Line)
IKOZA, 5-22 Shibuya, Yamato, Kanagawa 242-0023, Japan
Practical Information
- Display location
- Ground-floor entrance lobby; the learning centre’s main reception is on the third floor
- Official website
- Shibuya Learning Centre
Information last checked: September 28, 2026location and access
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