A bizarre spate of monkey attacks left 42 people injured when people including children were scratched and bitten.
The animal is often considered a pest as it is so common and it is not unusual for them to be seen invading homes.
In one horrifying incident, a mum discovered a monkey attempting to snatch her baby.
She told local media: "I was vacuuming when I heard my child crying, so I turned around and saw the monkey had grabbed her by the legs while she was playing on the floor.
"It looked like it was trying to drag her outside."
Several other incidents have been reported including a four-year-old girl scratched after a macaque opened the screen door of her apartment and one invading a kindergarten.
A dad reported to the Mainichi Shimbun daily he heard "crying coming from the ground floor" and went downstairs to discover "a monkey hunching over my child".
The Japanese macaque monkeys are native to Japan and were involved in the unusual incidents in Yamaguchi on Honshu island.
The animals are common in the area as "All of Yamaguchi" is surrounded by mountains and it's not rare to see monkeys," according to a city official.
They told AFP: "It's rare to see this many attacks in a short period of time."
With attacks usually much rarer, there is some confusion over why so many have taken place in a short period of time.
Japanese authorities are now working to find out if the incursions are the responsibility of one particularly aggressive monkey, or the work of a group.
As a result, local police remain on high alert and flyers have been sent out to locals. Even with 40 monkey sightings since May, however, no animal has yet been caught.
Recent monkey mayhem has not been limited to Japan and a shocking incident in which an escaped monkey from a Moscow zoo left a Ukrainian war refugee girl in intensive care, while a macaque reportedly killed a baby boy in India last week by throwing him off a roof.
In Japan, it is believed that a dwindling habitat is one possible reason behind the odd ambushes as this has forced the animals further into cities.
Bear sightings rose by 321 in 2021 and there was an incident of a wild boar injuring around six people in Hiroshima before it was eventually shot.
