Japan Places|函館空港 もしもしコーナー — The Pillars Used in Ito

At Hakodate the last conversation after security is numbered.

Phones 5 and 6 stand on either side of the glass that splits the second-floor departure lobby from the boarding lounge.

The airport put them in when the new domestic terminal opened in 2005. Staff later said the point was to keep a voice available until the last call, even though mobile phones were already common.

In 2020 the film Ito used those same pillars. On one side of the glass, Masaki Suda. On the other, Nana Komatsu. Stills from the scene are still taped to the column, so a traveler can match the frame without a map.

The handsets are analog. You lift yours. Someone on the far side lifts the twin. You see the face. You hear the voice. You do not cross the pane.

Hakodate sits a short drive from the city, which is why people still come all the way in to say goodbye instead of turning around at the station.

The booths are free. Children use them. So do people who have already sent the same words by text.

What the film kept, and what the airport kept, is the same small interval: a few minutes after the trays and before the jet bridge.

Photo: Check-in hall, Hakodate Airport, 1 September 2024. MaedaAkihiko, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.