The year is 1954, and the first public phone boxes made of steel appear. The result of a nationwide prize competition to design public phone booths, the new facility features a cream-colored body with a rounded red roof and is dubbed the "red cap" style. The modern "red cap" is immediately standardized and adds color to street corners throughout Japan. At the same time, telephone poles made from logs of cryptomeria wood are gradually being replaced by concrete telephone poles as Japanese streets complete the transition to a post-war mood. It is an era of dramatic changes in the daily lives of Japanese, symbolized by the frequently-heard phrase "This is no longer the post-war era!".

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