Creepy Japanese Urban Legends

This legend is about a very famous spirit in Japan, known as Kuchisake-onna. Although she may seem pretty at first, looks can be quite deceiving.

Kuchisake-onna is a woman with a slit mouth that is said to walk around at night, wearing a surgical mask. Legend has it she was mutilated by her husband, and has now returned as a malicious spirit, out to cause havoc and chaos. This caused so much panic in Japan that there were even reports of schools allowing kids to go home only in groups, with teachers escorting them for safety.

She is considered a Yōkai, like many other Japanese urban legends out there. Yōkai are a class of supernatural monsters, demons, and spirits in Japanese folklore. Although I don"t mention the word much later on in this book, it can easily describe half of the Japanese urban legends out there.

There are some other origin stories that people have theorized, although they are far less popular. One of them is that she was once a former patient of a mental asylum, and that she slit her mouth open due to insanity. There is also the one where she was the wife of a samurai, and when he found out she was cheating on him, he cut her mouth from ear to ear and asked, "Who will think you are beautiful now?"

In the legend, if someone sees her, the woman will ask a potential victim "Am I pretty?" If they answer no, she will pull out a pair of scissors in her pocket and stab them viciously until they are dead. If they answer yes, she will pull away the mask, revealing her slit mouth. Then, she will ask, "How about now?"

If they answer no, she will cut her unfortunate victim in half. If the person answers yes, then she will slit his/her mouth so it resembles her own scarred mouth. It is impossible to run away from her, as she will simply reappear in front of the victim.

Even though it seems like every answer leads to death, there have been rumors that there are ways to escape. Some sources say she can be confused by the victim by answering her question with odd answers, such as "You are average" or "So-so". Another method is to flip her questions towards her, such as asking her "Do you think I"m pretty?" Unsure of what to do, she will ponder the reply for a couple seconds. It gives the person just enough time to escape while she is lost in thought. In some variations of the tale, she can be distracted by things like fruit or candy thrown at her, which she will then pick up, thus giving the victim a chance to run.

The most easiest escape route, however, is to tell her that they have somewhere to be; she will pardon her manners and excuse herself.

This is probably not true, due to the fact that there aren"t any accounts of seeing her with enough evidence. But, either way, you may as well be polite to everyone- even if their face is cut open.

Hanako-san is an urban legend about the spirit of a young girl who haunts school bathrooms. Her origins vary from different sources, some saying that she is the ghost of a girl killed during an air raid in World War II, while others say that she was murdered by a psychotic parent or stranger.

According to the legend, a person who goes to the third stall in the girls" bathroom on the third floor can have a chance of meeting Hanako-san. They are suppose to knocks three times before asking "Are you there, Hanako-san?" Then they will hear a voice answer, "I"m here." If the person chooses to enter the stall, there will be a small girl with bobbed hair in a red skirt.

Fortunately, she is relatively harmless, and only has her goal set on scaring people. She might scream loudly, or open and close doors extremely fast while throwing around toilet paper, but that"s about it. The worst thing that has happened in some variations of the story is that she shoves the victim"s head in the toilet.

In other words, she"s basically the Japanese version of Bloody Mary, with very few exceptions. Hanako-san is a popular and widespread urban legend in Japan, and school children play it often as a rite of courage. Sometimes students will even dare each other to do it in the middle of the school day.

Many people have written first person stories about Hanako-San to make them look like eye-witness reports, even though they are mostly entirely made up. This kind of writing is similar to reports written about Slenderman and Kunekune, where they write stories to make it seem realistic and terrifying.

So maybe if you see Japanese children in shows or a book or something like that playing this game, now you know what they"re actually doing. Maybe if you"re still in school, you can even play Hanako-San yourself.

Have you ever met a person who never seems to eat anything? Well, according to a Japanese urban legend, they may secretly be a Futakuchi-onna.

Futakuchi-onna means "two-mouthed woman" in Japanese, which fits the description of one perfectly. They appear to be a normal woman, until their secret is revealed. The woman has a tiny mouth, but on the back of her head is a huge second mouth hidden in her hair. The woman"s skull splits apart, revealing lips, teeth, and a tongue. Although she appears to never eat, the mouth on the back of her head is always hungry for food.

It is said that the mouths also have a mind of their own, and will whisper horrible things to the woman. It will threaten her, harass her, and demand food frequently; it screeches and causes the woman an unbearable amount of pain until it is fed. The mouth can also control her hair, and make the hair wrap around food to shovel it into the mouth. This lets the mouth help itself to the woman"s meals, and consume twice the amount the woman would.

The origin of a Futakuchi-onna"s second mouth is often linked to how little a woman eats. In many stories, the soon-to-be Futakuchi-onna is a wife of a miser and rarely eats. A miser is a person that hoards money, and rarely spends money in fear of losing wealth. Many people believe that this is the true origin. To counteract this, a second mouth mysteriously appears on the back of the woman"s head.

To get a better look on the origins and behavior of a Futakuchi-onna, we can look at Japanese folklore and mythology involving one.

In one story, an extra mouth is formed when a stingy woman is accidentally hit in the back of the head by her husband"s axe. In another, a mother lets her one child die or starvation, and the child"s spirit lodges itself to form a mouth on the back of her head to get revenge.

The most famous story with a Futakuchi-onna in it goes like this:

An old miser lived by himself in a small village. He never got married since he hated spending money, and believed that if he took in a wife, he would have to give up a lot of money for her. He couldn"t bear the idea of parting with his wealth to pay for his wife"s food and housing.

But one day, he came across a young woman who didn"t eat a thing. The more he accompanied her, the more he realized that she seemed to eat nothing at all. This thrilled him, and thought he had found the woman of his dreams. Of course, he"d have to pay for housing, but he couldn"t care less. Food was expensive back then, and so as long as she ate nothing, he could stay rich. They soon got married, and became a very happy couple together.

As time went on, however, the man noticed that his rice storage was steadily decreasing, even though he barely touched it at all. He wondered if someone was sneaking into the storage and eating it while he was gone. Determined to catch the culprit, the man devised a plan.

The next day, the old man pretended to go to work, but instead stayed behind to spy on his new wife. He watched her walk into the storage room, and crept along into the room as well. To his horror, he saw his wife"s hair part on the back of her head to reveal that her skull was split open, forming a gaping, deformed mouth. Her hair reached out like tentacles, grasping handfuls of rice and throwing it into the mouth.

When the woman saw that her husband discovered her deep secret, the woman panicked and tried to strangle him. The old man managed to get away from her, and ran off into the mountains. Weeks later, he finally worked up the courage to return to his household, only to be stricken with grief. His wife was nowhere in sight, and all of his food had been eaten by the monstrous mouth. Devastated, the old man never married again and died poor.

Futakuchi-onnas have been featured in television shows, as well as anime, video games, and a comic book. Not many people actually believe in them, but rather admire their deceiving looks, and make art pieces of them. Many paintings and sculptures have been made inspired by them.

So maybe if you ever meet a girl with unusual eating habits, then be sure to protect your rice.