Out of interest, people may not realize that Japan has a very different addressing system than in the west. Streets do no generally have names (though there are a few that do). Instead a city is divided up into areas. I won't try to explain it (for fear of getting it wrong ;-) ): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system

Often foreigners get confused and see things that look like street signs, but which are actually signs for the chome (kind of a big block). They get very confused when they see another such sign on a different street going in a completely different direction :-)

Anyway, Japanese people generally don't put address numbers on their houses. Instead they will put their name. So if you want to find an address for someone you don't know (or a business) it is really hard. For businesses that have to deliver things, it's really important to be able to find the address. So the public database is really useful. These days everybody generally navigates by GPS. You put the address in and the GPS unit will take you to the right place. Most navigation units will even be able to navigate from a land line phone number (as the phone numbers are pre-assigned to the address).