Case file · Folklore / legend
Kuchisake-onna
A Japanese urban legend of a masked woman with a slit mouth who asks children if she is beautiful, with deadly results for the wrong answer.
1979 CE · 35.42, 136.76 · status: legend
The account
The modern story is traced to Gifu Prefecture in 1978 and spread nationally in the summer of 1979 through newspapers and magazines, so that adults walked children home from school in groups.
The sceptical view
It is a classic rumour panic spread by newspapers, magazines and schoolyards.