Public address systems are not uncommon in Japan and are regularly used. Whether it is a notice about a lost purse in the Harajuku District of Tokyo, or a fire in a rural community on Kyushu, public address systems are used often. In rural Kyushu I have even been awakened at 6 a.m. to the sound of an announcement which, as I later discovered, had little immediate import. Anyway, the public address systems in Japan are not just decorative.
For the 2017 launches of North Korean missiles which flew over parts of Japan (particularly the northern island of Hokkaido), the public address systems were again put to good use. I find these warnings very eerie, but then again these were morning launches and people were just waking.
We can only pray that apart from the announced tests for Tokyo in 2018 (see below), these sirens are again most frequently used for lost pets and other personal items.
