What happened
In late 1978 a story began circulating among children in Gifu Prefecture about a tall woman with long hair and a surgical mask over her face. She stops lone passers-by, especially children walking home from school, and asks: “Am I pretty?” If they answer “yes,” she removes the mask to reveal a mouth slit from ear to ear and asks: “How about now?” The wrong answer means death or mutilation with scissors. On 26 January 1979 the newspaper “Gifu Nichi Nichi Shimbun” wrote about the rumour; in spring national weeklies picked it up, and within months the story had spread throughout Japan. Schools stepped up supervision, parents and teachers walked children home in groups, and in some towns the police sent out patrols. In Himeji a person dressed as the phantom and carrying a knife was arrested. The panic faded in summer with the school holidays.
Witnesses
Pupils and teachers across Japan; the panic was documented by “Gifu Nichi Nichi Shimbun,” “Shūkan Asahi” and “Shūkan Shinchō,” and later studied by folklorist Iikura Yoshiyuki among others.
Explanations and hypotheses
Kuchisake-onna is a classic urban legend whose spread in 1979 has been well described by folklorists and sociologists. The rumour was driven by schoolyard storytelling, the press and television, and its themes – school pressure, fear of strangers, botched plastic surgery – reflected the anxieties of the time. No attack by a “real” Kuchisake-onna was ever confirmed. Some authors trace the figure to older Edo-period ghost stories, but the modern version emerged in the late 1970s.
Explained The phenomenon has a widely accepted, down-to-earth explanation.
Sources
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