Emily Chan
If you’re wondering which country has the scariest urban legends, Japan takes the cake. Japanese folklore is teeming with tales of vengeful spirits and malevolent creatures that will send shivers down your spine.
For centuries, the imagination of the Japanese people has been haunted by one figure in particular—the legend of kuchisake onna, the slit-mouthed woman.
According to the eerie legend, kuchisake onna shows up when people are walking alone at night. She always appears as a young, pretty woman covering the bottom half of her face with a fan or a mask.
She will approach her victim and ask them if she is beautiful. If the victim says yes, she will expose her entire face, which features a bleeding mouth that stretches from ear to ear. Then, she will ask the question again.
If the victim says no or screams in fear, she will slash their mouth to make it look like hers. If the victim responds with a yes, she may leave them alone or follow them home and murder them.
So, it seems that either way, the answer you give is a gamble. Is there any surefire way to survive an encounter with the kuchisake onna? And how on earth did such a creepy tale even come about?
The origins of the kuchisake onna are believed to be traced back to the Heian period, which lasted from 794 C.E. to 1185 C.E. It is said that she may have been a samurai’s wife, but he mutilated her after she was caught being unfaithful.
Other interpretations are that a woman attacked her out of jealousy for her beauty, her mouth is full of razor-sharp teeth, or that her bleeding mouth is the result of a medical procedure gone wrong.
Eventually, she became a ghost that was out for revenge, which is known as an onryō. The word kuchi means mouth, while sake means to tear or split. And, onna is a woman.
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