History
Akita faces the Sea of Japan rather than the Pacific, which historically put it on a different trade and travel route than Tohoku’s eastern prefectures — closer, in some periods, to shipping routes running up to Hokkaido and across to the Asian mainland than to Tokyo overland.
Akita and the wider world
Akita’s best-known international export has four legs. The Akita Inu, a sturdy spitz-type dog bred here for centuries as a hunting and guard dog, became a global name through Hachiko — an Akita who continued waiting at Tokyo’s Shibuya Station for his deceased owner every day for nearly a decade in the 1920s-30s, a story that inspired statues, a Japanese film, and the 2009 Hollywood film “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale” starring Richard Gere. The breed’s American profile was independently boosted even earlier: in 1937, Helen Keller was given an Akita puppy named Kamikaze-go during a visit to Japan — when he died of distemper shortly after, the Japanese government sent her another, Kenzan-go, and Keller is widely credited as the person who first brought the breed to the United States.
Neighbors: Akita and the rest of Tohoku
Akita’s Sea of Japan coastline sets it apart from Pacific-facing Iwate and Miyagi, both geographically and in how directly it was affected by the 2011 tsunami (comparatively little, versus the devastating impact on the Pacific coast). Within Tohoku’s shared festival culture, Akita’s Kanto Festival is grouped with Aomori’s Nebuta and Sendai’s Tanabata as the region’s “three great festivals.”
Getting there and getting around
Akita Airport and Akita Station (a Shinkansen terminus via the Akita Shinkansen line) are the main gateways, roughly 4 hours from Tokyo by rail. Kakunodate and Lake Tazawa are both reachable by local train, though a rental car opens up the more remote Oga Peninsula and onsen areas.
