A Japanese urban legend about a woman wearing a mask who asks "Am I pretty?" The legend caused mass panic across Japan in 1979, with schools issuing warnings and children walking home in groups.
Kuchisake-onna is one of Japan's most iconic urban legends. A young woman concealing her mouth with a mask approaches passersby — especially children — and asks, "Am I pretty?" If the answer is "yes," she removes the mask to reveal a mouth slit from ear to ear and asks again, "How about now?" No answer is said to guarantee safety, striking terror in children across the country.
From spring to summer of 1979, "sightings" of Kuchisake-onna spread nationwide, beginning in Gifu Prefecture. The story was covered by newspapers and television. Some schools organized group walks home for children. Police patrols were increased in certain areas, and the phenomenon escalated into a full-blown social panic. The legend also spread to South Korea, becoming an East Asian-scale urban legend.
Tales of a woman with a slit mouth may exist in Edo-period ghost stories, though direct connections remain unclear. The 1979 version added the backstory of a botched cosmetic surgery causing the disfigurement, reflecting contemporary anxieties about the growing popularity of plastic surgery.
Credibility 3/10 — No credibility as a supernatural entity. However, the 1979 panic itself was a real social phenomenon and remains an important case study for research on the interaction between media and mass psychology. It can be considered the starting point of Japanese urban legend studies.
