Tokyo police have arrested Yuki Horiguchi, a burglar nicknamed the Ame-zing Spider-Man, who is suspected of some 50 break-ins across the Greater Tokyo Area in the past year, SoraNews24 reported.
The nickname is a pun. The Japanese word for rain is ame (ah-may), and Horiguchi's method was to strike on rainy days in particular.
He is suspected of relying on the fact that people tend not to look up when it is raining. Horiguchi used outside emergency stairs to reach building roofs, then rappelled down to a window.
He broke through the window to get inside and burglarize the building. The approach let him reach upper floors that residents assume are out of a ground-level intruder's reach.
A head spa on the sixth floor
One such break-in came on a rainy day in December 2025. Horiguchi climbed down a rope to the sixth-floor balcony of a head spa in Taito Ward and got in.
He stole a portable safe and a wallet. He then moved to an adjacent building and took about 110,000 yen (US$690) in cash.
Police had already picked up Horiguchi in 2019 for similar burglaries on rainy days. That record helped them link the recent spate of incidents to him.
Tokyo had been troubled by the wall-climbing bandit for nearly a decade. He took whatever cash or valuables he could carry off.
Readers object to the name
Many readers of the news online objected to a criminal being given the honorable name of Spider-Man.
“He should apologize to the real Spider-Man!”an online reader
“Giving him a name like that shows a complete lack of sincerity towards the victims.”another reader
“The cop who came up with 'Ame-zing Spider-Man' should be arrested too.”a third reader
Others questioned the payoff. One reader wrote that it seemed like a lot of effort and risk for 110,000 yen.
Another compared him to Lupin III, the gentleman thief of manga and anime, rather than to a superhero. One simply called him a bad Daredevil.