But don’t worry, the Hachiko alternative has moved into a new spot in the neighborhood.

In Tokyo, there’s no section of the city that seems to be in a more consistent state of change than Shibuya. The neighborhood is both a leader in and at the mercy of youthful trends, and so as fads in food, fashion, and other aspects of life come and go, so too do the shops, restaurants, and other parts of Shibuya switch in and out.

An obvious exception to this, of course, is the statue of faithful dog Hachiko, which has been standing in the plaza on the northwest side of JR Shibuya Station since 1934, becoming a local landmark popular meet-up place for friends or lovers with plans in the neighborhood. However, there’s a problem with saying “I’ll meet you next to that world-famous tourist attraction,” which is that the huge crowds can make it hard to spot the person you’re rendezvousing with.

Luckily Shibuya Station has another landmark meeting point that’s also easy to find but less crowded: the Shibuya moyai statue. Installed in 1980 in a plaza on the southwest side of the station, the moyai has long been the choice of savvy Tokyoites who need a place to meet up in Shibuya, but don’t want to have to wade through the massive tourist crowds that regularly surround Hachiko.

▼ The Shibuya Moyai statue, seen just outside the southwest exit of Shibuya Station

However, now if you head to the spot where the Moyai head proudly stood for 45 years, instead of the statue you’ll find a bunch of temporary walls.

That’s because as part of the ongoing redevelopment of JR Shibuya Station and its immediate surroundings, the Moyai statue has been removed. However, they didn’t break it into pieces and chuck them in the trash. Instead, the statue has been relocated, and it’s still in Shibuya. As a matter of fact, a notice posted on the wall invites you to “Search for MOYAI Statue!”, and there’s even a map showing its new home.

Since “do what construction site posters tell you” has long been one of our guiding life policies (“safety first” and “watch for falling overhead items” have both served us well), we decided to go pay the Moyai statue a visit in its new digs. Starting from its original location on the southwest side of JR Shibuya Station, the first thing to do is to cross the street to the west heading in the direction of Keio Shibuya Station. This should get you to in front of the Shibuya Fukuras shopping/restaurant complex, which has a Tokyu Plaza store on its first floor.

▼ 渋谷フクラス = Shibuya Fukuras

From here, we thought we could just scoot along the southern side of the building and walk along National Route 246 until we go to the Moyai statue’s new spot, but it turns out things aren’t quite that simple. There are several bus stops on the street between JR Shibuya Station and Shibuya Fukuras, and their layout gets priority over pedestrian access. So as we tried to make our way to the south side of the building, a bus service worker told us that the sidewalk headed in that direction is actually a dead-end.

So what you want to do is look for this passageway to the side of the escalators that go up to the second-floor entrance to Shibuya Fukuras.

Use this ground-floor walkway, and eventually…

…you can get back out to the street, walking along the north-side sidewalk of Route 246.

From here it’s just a short stroll to the Moyai statue’s new location in a plaza across a narrow side street that runs between it and Shibuya Fukuras.

They even brought the Moyai statue’s palm tree with it, which is a nice bit of continuity.

▼ The plaza, prior to the Moyai statue’s January 22 installation

For anyone who’d made the Shibuya Moyai their go-to meet-up spot, it’s nice to know that the statue has been preserved. However, while it’s not too terribly far from where it used to be, the new location is just removed enough from Shibuya’s primary entertainment clusters to make it pretty poorly suited for use as a gathering point before hitting the neighborhood’s shops, bars, or clubs. We suppose it might be kind of handy if you need a place to link up with friends before going someplace inside Shibuya Fukuras, but seeing as how you basically have to walk through or around Shibuya Fukuras to get here from the station, even then it’s not much of a convenience.

▼ New Shibuya Moyai location

Meanwhile, all of the myriad redevelopment plans for Shibuya have taken great care to leave the Hachiko statue exactly where it is, and it continues to draw huge crowds, which might be getting a little bigger now that the Moyai meet-up option has been effectively eliminated.

▼ A huge line of people waiting to take photos in front of Hachiko

So yes, Hachiko remains the top dog in Shibuya, while the Moyai’s second-fiddle status now represents and even larger gap. Still, it’s nice to see this piece of public art has been preserved, and maybe as Shibuya continues to change, one day it’ll be restored to a more prominent, and useful spot in the neighborhood.

Moyai at Shibuya Station photo: Wikipedia/Asanagi
All other photos ©SoraNews24
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