I have a huge interest in ghost stories especially ones that are actually frighten and scare me to the point that I have trouble sleeping. On a late night a few weeks ago I was browsing urban legends online and I stumbled across a picture that scare me and haunted me to the bone. This picture is from a movie I believe but I am unable to find an English version so I am unable to find the film. This urban legend is mainly a Japanese urban legend but I have found it under other names such as the slit mouth woman/girl and it is a rather interesting story which, like any other good urban legend, has many variations and originations. The bottom line of it is that it is a rather terrifying urban legend and with a few pictures it really adds to the spookiness of the legend.
Here is one version. There are many different versions, but this is the one I read. I will try to include pictures where I can and links to videos and any other relevant web pages.
In my belief the most common version of this legend, is said to originate hundreds of years ago in Japan in the Heian period which was a time in Japanese history that was between the years of 794 to 1185, so as you can tell this would be a very dated version of this urban legend. It is said that she was married or very involved with 1 man who was a Samurai who was very jealous and had doubts about her infidelity. The Samurai had his suspicions confirmed
and confronted Kuchisake-onna. He slashed her from ear to ear (my belief is not ear to ear but a upward slashing motion from her left to the right across her mouth) while saying “who will find you beautiful now?” She is said to roam the streets usually on foggy nights asking if you find her beautiful and at an answer of yes she would take off her mask and ask you again if she was beautiful. This time if you answered no she would take a very large pair if scissors and cut your face to resemble hers. If you were to answer yes it is said that she will follow you home and then slays you at your doorway to your residence. I have read that in Japanese the words used for “pretty” is very close Homophone for the word for “to cut” so there may be some confusion when the legend was translated. That is not where the legend ends; escape is not possible, if she finds you and asks you if she is beautiful there is no way to escape the end of getting disfigured or worse yet killed. The legend adds that she has superhuman speed so there is no way to run and she will always be in front of you no matter which way you turn, however, with an urban addition to the legend saying “your average” or “so-so” would confuse her giving you the ability to escape. That is the version of this urban legend that I first read and the one that has stuck with me these past few weeks, along with the pictures and the odd trailer which is in Japanese.
One thing that makes me wonder is how if she has a mask that people are not aware that she is someone that you want to stay away from? It’s not uncommon in Japan to see a fair majority of people wearing a surgical mask while walking around the street due to the amount of people in Japan and not wanting to catch the flu.
I also read another version where she prayed on children which when I read that I thought to myself how I could have been so frightened of this story but every time I saw a picture of her it scared me which is when I realized its not the legend it’s self but the picture.