Japanese culture is full of ghosts, and Kuchisake Onna is one of its most popular legends. Discover her origins and history.
Who is Kuchisake Onna?
Kuchisake Onna is a malevolent figure that appears in Japanese ghost stories, possibly dating back to the Edo period. She takes the form of a masked woman who approaches people and asks them if they think she is beautiful. If they say “no,” she takes the person to her own home and stabs them. If they say “yes,” she removes her mask and asks again. If they say “yes” again, she will leave them alone. If they scream or say “yes” nervously, she will cut the victim to match her scar, and they will bleed to death.
But if they say “no,” she will stab them with scissors. There are ways to trick her; for example, when she asks “Am I pretty?”, saying “average” or “you’re average” will confuse her, giving you a chance to run away. But if you say you don’t have time when she asks if she’s pretty, she will apologize and leave. You can also say, “Am I pretty?” or drop some candy, and if she bends down to pick it up, you can run away while you can. You might be able to escape, but it’s a very low probability.
1. The Story Behind Kuchisake Onna
Legend has it that long ago she was the wife of a samurai. She was a very beautiful woman, so beautiful that over the years she became obsessed with her beauty and turned quite vain. One day, the samurai suspected that she was cheating on him and flew into a jealous rage, attacking her and cutting her mouth from ear to ear, saying, “Who will think you’re beautiful now?”
Image of a Japanese woman in a kimono representing the woman who became Kuchisake Onna, the woman with the broken mouth. The woman died and returned as Kuchisake Onna, an angry spirit who has haunted roads and paths ever since. In the old days, it was said that she wore a kimono and hid her face with the long end of the sleeve, but today she wears a brown raincoat and uses a surgeon’s mask to cover her mouth.
The legend of the Short-Mouthed Woman remained in the shadows for generations until 1979, when sightings of Kuchisake Onna began to occur everywhere and she became an example of an urban legend that ran wild. The police feared that it was a madwoman dressed as Kuchisake Onna and chasing children, but the source of it all seems to be the stories of Kuchisake Onna that schoolchildren told each other.
The hysteria reached its peak in late 1979 and then mysteriously stopped, with the fear retreating back into the shadows once again.
2. Kuchisake Onna
Every night, on their way home from school, they carefully watched the bottom of every telephone pole lining the road. They tried to hurry as fast as they could, hoping not to see a woman standing there with long black hair hanging down to her waist and wearing a surgical mask.
Surgical masks are commonly worn in Japan during the cold and flu season to help protect people from germs, but that year, a woman wearing that type of mask could mean something different—it could mean she was an angry ghost called Kuchisake Onna, the slit-mouthed woman.
After a while, children began traveling in groups for safety, then teachers got involved and took the children to their classrooms. But that didn’t work, and such panic ensued that even the police got involved, setting up patrols to watch for the woman in the surgical mask who was known to be waiting in the shadows at the bottom of telephone poles.
3. Do you think I’m beautiful?
Imagine Kuchisake Onna asking dangerous questions to children. The police thought she was a dangerous psychopath, but the schoolchildren thought differently; they saw her as a spirit they had to avoid at all costs.
The thing is, if you walked near Kuchisake Onna, she would come out of the shadows and suddenly appear right in front of you.
“Do you think I’m beautiful?” she would ask.
It’s a strange and unexpected question… but hey, it seems innocent enough, right? But how you answered the question would determine your fate.
If you answered “No” to her question, she would pull out a kitchen knife and kill you on the spot. If you said “Yes,” she would rip off her surgical mask to reveal that her mouth was cut from ear to ear and then say:
“How about now?”
At this point, you might get really scared and try to run away, but it’s no use. Kuchisake Onna is an incredibly fast runner and will always get in front of you to ask the question over and over again.
If you answered “No” this time, she would cut you in half, and if you answered “Yes,” she would cut your mouth from ear to ear and make it look like hers. Now you can see why schoolchildren were looking at the bottom of telephone poles so intently.
4. Mythology
She is a woman who was mutilated by her husband and returns as a malicious spirit. When rumors of alleged sightings began to spread in 1979 around Nagasaki Prefecture, they spread throughout Japan and caused panic in many cities.
There are even reports of schools allowing children to go home only in groups, accompanied by teachers for their safety, and of the police increasing their patrols. Recent sightings include many reports in South Korea in 2004 of a woman wearing a mask, often seen chasing children, and in October 2007, a medical examiner found some old records from the late 1970s about a woman who was chasing small children.
Although some stories describe her as a former patient in a mental asylum, a more common story describes that during the Heian period, her husband discovered that she was having an affair with another samurai. He used a sword to cut her mouth from ear to ear and asked her, “Who will think you are beautiful now?”
5. The original legend
According to legend, she covers her mouth with a cloth mask. The woman will ask a potential victim, “Am I pretty?” and if the person answers “yes,” Kuchisake Onna will remove her mask and ask them again. If the potential victim answers “yes” or screams, she will cut the victim from ear to ear to make them look like her.
If they answer “no,” she will leave, only to follow her victim home and brutally murder them that night. If they answer no before she removes her mask, she will take out her long pair of scissors and murder the victim with them or cut their mouth from ear to ear.
To avoid this fate, several people during the Edo period claimed that they gave her confusing answers such as “average” or something similar, or threw money or hard candy at her, giving her time to flee and lose her.
6. Modern legend
The woman will ask a potential victim, “Am I pretty?” If they answer no, she will kill them with a pair of scissors or cut off their smile with a Glasgow smile, which she carries in her pocket. If they answer yes, she will remove her mask, revealing that her mouth is cut from ear to ear, and ask, “How about now?” If they answer no, she will cut her unfortunate victim in half.
If the person answers yes, she will cut their mouth to look like hers. It is impossible to escape her, as she will simply reappear in front of the victim.
When the legend resurfaced in the 1970s, rumors also emerged about how to escape. Some sources say that she can also be confused by victims who respond to her question with ambiguous answers, such as “You’re average” or “I lost.”
Another method is to direct your questions toward her, such as asking her, “Do you think I’m pretty?” Not knowing what to do, she will give you enough time to escape while she is lost in her thoughts. Another escape route is to tell her that you have a prior commitment; she will forgive your manners and excuse herself.
In some variations of the story, you can distract her by throwing coins or candy at her, which she will then pick up, giving the victim a chance to run away. Even if you escape, she will come after you and eventually kill you. If you have the chance, you can catch her off guard and run while she is looking at another potential victim.
7. Later story
Kuchisake Onna, as she is commonly known, was a beautiful young woman who lived in a village in Japan. She would wander around the village and ask people, “Am I pretty?” They would respond with an enthusiastic “yes.” This made her feel very confident, and since she was married to an intelligent samurai, she believed she would be able to get away with a noble soldier.
But her husband found out and, angry, asked the soldier, “Why her? Why my lady instead of all the other women in the village?” To which he replied, “Because she is the most beautiful woman in the village, I can’t pass up this opportunity.” The samurai loved his honesty and recognized that he had the correct answer and was right.
The soldier was poor after all, and had not had many positive things in his life. Although the soldier had his own intentions, the samurai’s wife did not. She was the most beautiful woman in the village, and without that, she would be nothing. The angry samurai went to the kitchen, took a pair of scissors, and held them to her face, cutting her mouth severely from ear to ear, making her no longer beautiful.
Shortly after, she killed herself with a weapon and fell off the bridge, and after she died, her soul was banished to eternity to avenge her own pain, possess a body, and make it look like her, and now, she can travel everywhere without anyone knowing where she is.
The angry samurai went to the kitchen, took a pair of scissors, and put them to her face, cutting her mouth severely from ear to ear, making her no longer beautiful. Shortly after, she killed herself with a weapon and fell off the bridge, and after she died, her soul was banished to eternity to avenge her own pain, possess a body, and make it look like her, and now she can travel everywhere without anyone knowing where she is.
8. In popular culture
This mythological character has become very popular today, starring in many literary works, films, and anime. Here are some of them:
Literary works
- Kuchisake Onna, directed by Teruyoshi Ishii (1996)
- The Slit-Mouthed Woman aka Kuchisake, directed by Takaaki Hashiguchi (2005)
- Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman, also known as Kuchisake Onna, directed by Kōji Shiraishi (2007)
- Kaiki toshi-densetsu – Kuchisake Onna, directed by Toru Furukawa (2008)
- Carving 2: The Scissors Massacre, also known as The Slit-Mouthed Woman 2, also known as Kuchisake Onna 2, directed by Kotaro Terauchi (2008)
- The Slit-Mouthed Woman 0: The Beginning, also known as Kuchisake Onna 0: Biginingu, directed by Kazuto Kodama (2008)
- Uwasa no Shinso! Kuchisake Onna, directed by Koji Shiraishi (2008)
Manga and anime
- Kuchi-sake Onna
- Kuchisake Onna Densetsu
- Kanojo wa Rokurokubi (as Yotchy)
- Yokaiden
Online – The comic
- Ghost Stories
- Her Special Seat
- Mob Psycho 100 II
Other appearances
Kuchisake Onna also makes an appearance in:
- Battle Fever J, in episode 29
- Constantino, in episode 5, “Danse Vaudou”
- Darr Sabko Lagta Hai, in episode 10, “Selfie”
- More beautiful, a spin-off of the comic Fables – Kuchisake Onna is called Mayumi and acts as Tomoko’s right-hand woman.
- Franken Fran: includes a brief parody of the Kuchisake Onna legend in an extra in Volume 2
- Hanako and the terror of allegory, in chapter 2
- Master of Hell Cloud
- Horror of Kuchisake Onna by Arabella Wyatt: this shows Kuchisake Onna as a central figure, using the urban legend to explore domestic abuse and social conformity.
- Mob Psycho 100
- Toshi Densetsu
- Urban Legend in Limbo as the urban legend attributed to Hata no Kokoro
- Zekkyou Gakkyuu, in Chapter 21
- Love Tyrant, in Episode 6
- Poputepipikku in Volume 1, Chapter 12
Kuchisake Onna was planned to appear in episode 5 of Ghost Stories, but was banned after several complaints that her disfigurement looked too much like a cleft palate.
There have also been several references and mentions of Kuchisake Onna, and even multiple inspirations:
- In the Sherlock series, episode 3 of season 3: “The Abominable Bride,” after returning from the dead, a bride asks her ex-husband, “Am I beautiful?” and proceeds to shoot him dead.
- The Kuchisake Onna was mentioned in an episode of Detective Conan.
- Kuchisake Onna is also mentioned in the Japanese visual novel Rewrite.
- Perhaps unintentional, but Mortal Kombat’s character Mileena is possibly based on Kuchisake Onna. She even wanted to be beautiful in some of the games, just like the spirit.
- In Danganronpa, the split personality of the character Touko Fukawa, the genocider Syo, the serial killer who wields scissors, was probably inspired by Kuchisake Onna.
- The character Kayo Sudou from The Evillious Chronicles is inspired by Kuchisake Onna.
