One iconic feature of anime is its preoccupation with power lines and power poles. In my experience this goes back to
Evangelion with its lingering shots of poles and wires. As the Tokyo Olympics looms, however, those poles may be a thing of the past. The Japanese government intends to put all the overhead cables in Tokyo underground by 2020 and is forcing the utilities like TEPCO, NTT, and DoCoMo to pony up a share of the costs.
Only seven percent of Tokyo's power lines are underground with an even smaller share in Osaka. For Jakarta and Seoul the figure is 35-40 percent; in London and Paris, 100 percent.
When I'd see these shots of power poles in anime, I thought the rapid postwar development of Japan after World War II was one likely reason. It was faster and cheaper to put up poles and wires if you're trying to expand utility services as quickly as possible. The video in the Bloomberg article below makes that same point.
The governor of Tokyo, Koike Yuriko, has been a particularly outspoken critic of the Japanese power grid, less for its unsightly appearance and more for the threat it poses should a major earthquake hit her city.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...task-for-tepco