Beautifully Wicked Legend of Kuchisake-Onna

Kuchisake-Onna is a type of yōkai or evil spirit. Legend has it that a thousand years ago, she was a beautiful woman, the most beautiful in her village, and she married a powerful samurai. Her man went to war, leaving her alone for a long time. She grew lonely and began to have affairs with men around the town. When the samurai heard of this, he was outraged. As punishment for her infidelity, her husband made her bite down on his samurai sword, slicing the corners of her mouth from ear to ear.

You are walking along at night on a Japanese street. Maybe you're singing a little song, maybe there's a light drizzle, but you're taking in the lights and the smells of the shops. You turn down a street, and as you walk down it, the sounds of the city start to fade. No one is around… but this is Japan, so it should be fine.
You see a woman coming toward you in a trench coat and surgical mask. This is part of the everyday custom to prevent people from catching colds before COVID. She starts to walk toward you on the quiet street. You hear,
"Am I beautiful?"
You don't think you heard her right.
"Am I beautiful?"
She slowly takes off her mask, revealing that her mouth has been slit open from ear to ear, blood dripping from her elongated mouth. "Now, am I beautiful??"
She pulls out a pair of scissors and slices your mouth from ear to ear to match her scars. You lay on the street, bleeding to death because the wounds caused by Kuchisake-Onna can never be healed.

The Spread of the Legend

Around the end of 1978, a rumor circulated that an old woman 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 area's children. There were all these variations, such as they might say that she wore a mask or a red coat or carried a sickle.

Six months later, the rumor had spread nationwide. This was when the number of children attending cram schools was increasing. Before, it was rare for rumors to cross over to another school district. However, cram schools brought children from different areas together, and they took the stories they heard about other schools to share them on their own. As they passed them on to relatives and friends by telephone, other newspapers and television stations picked up the story.

The Impact on Children

As well as being a scary tale for children, the Kuchisake-Onna represented the characters they might encounter. Cram schools started in the evening, and children came out in groups onto the night streets when they ended. 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. 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.

How to Save Your Life

Here are some tips incase you run into this spirit on the street. If you answer the question "No," she will follow you home and stab you to death in your doorway. The trick is to say, "I don't have time," and she will apologize for bothering you. If you say "so-so," "average," or "yes and no," this confuses her, and you can run away. Legend also has it that you can distract her by giving or throwing money or hard candies (particularly the candy known as bekko ame, made of caramelized sugar) in her direction, as she will have to stop and pick them up.