The story of a terrifying “slit-mouthed woman” who approached children in the late 1970s kickstarted Japan’s modern urban legends. A woman wearing a face mask asks a passing child, “Am I pretty?” If the frightened youngster says she is, she asks, “Even like this?” and removes her mask to reveal a face slit from the corners of her mouth to each ear. No matter their age, almost everyone in Japan has heard the story of the kuchisake onna, or “slit-mouthed woman,” and it has become increasingly well known around the world.
A New Monster on Japan’s Streets
Iikura offers one theory of origin for this particular legend. Around the end of 1978, a rumor circulated that an old woman in a farming family in the town of Yaotsu in Gifu Prefecture spotted a woman with the now notorious slit mouth standing in the corner of the garden. The local newspaper printed an article about the story and the legend spread and grew through repetition among the children of the area. “There were all these different variations, like they might say that she wore a mask or a red coat, or that she carried a sickle. Or they’d say that she could run a hundred meters in six seconds, that she hated hair pomade, or that if you gave her bekkōame hard candy, then you could get away . . .”
Six months later, the rumor had spread nationwide. “This was a time when the number of children going to cram schools was increasing. Before, it was rare for rumors to cross over to another school district. But cram schools brought children from different areas together, and they took the stories they heard about other schools to share them at their own. As they passed them on further to relatives and other contacts by telephone and so on, other newspapers and television stations picked up the story.”
As well as being a scary tale, for children the kuchisake onna represented the kind of characters they might encounter. “Cram schools started in the evening, and when they ended children came out in groups onto the night streets. They saw adults they had never seen before, like women going out to their nightlife entertainment jobs or drunks on their way home from the bars.” As Iikura notes, this boosted anxiety among the young students about the possible presence of people who could hurt them—an anxiety projected in the kuchisake onna.
“At first, teachers and parents were also worried, conducting patrols and arranging for children to return home in groups. The rumors died down around the start of the summer holidays in 1979. But the powerful image of the slit-mouthed woman lingered in everyone’s memories, establishing itself as another monstrous figure.”
