Kuchisake-onna, or the slit-mouthed woman. A vicious spirit with her face covered with
a mask. She stared back at young Shiro from the book of Japanese folk tales and legends,
and he wanted to know more. Who was she? Why was she full of rage?
And what was under the mask?
Shiro’s mother Hina was a devout woman who believed in the old ways,
and she tried to pass them on to her son through stories. A strong believer in the spirits,
she always warned Shiro to tread carefully if he encountered the supernatural.
Shiro’s father Kenichi was another story. He only believed in one spirit - sake. He
would frequently come home drunk and insult his wife, and he burst through the door just
as Shiro asked his mother to tell him the story of the slit-mouthed woman.
“Are you filling that boy’s head with those foolish stories again?”
“They’re not foolish! They’re - “
As his father flung the book across the room,
Shiro retreated to his bedroom. He knew what it was like when his father was in a mood,
and listened to the shouting between his parents until he heard the telltale sound of a door slam.
His father was no doubt out to get drunk at the tavern again, and wouldn’t be back until late. He
didn’t care what his father said - he knew the spirits his mother warned him about were real,
and he hoped his father wouldn’t encounter any on his way to the watering hole.
It was late and the moon was high in the sky when Kenichi wandered back from the tavern.
He knew it would be another argument as soon as he got home, and he walked slowly,
careful not to stumble. He’d had more than his fill, and the forest path between the
tavern and home looked more winding and shadowy than normal. As he approached,
he saw the faint outline of a woman in the moonlight, blocking his path.
“Hina? That you? Couldn’t even wait till I got home to yell at me?”
There was no response from the woman as Kenichi walked forward,
and through his Sake-blurred eyes he could slowly see that this wasn’t his
wife. It was a dark-haired woman, her face covered with a mask, and she was holding
what looked like an unusually long pair of scissors. He couldn’t see her face clearly,
but he bet she was beautiful under the mask, and suddenly he was in no hurry to get home.
“Am I beautiful?” The woman asked softly as Kenichi walked closer.
“Yes, you are.” He said with a smirk. “Are you looking to - “
The woman slowly reached up, removing her mask,
and Kenichi blanched in horror. Beneath the cloth, her face was horribly mutilated,
her moth split from ear to ear in a twisted, unnaturally wide grin.
“Am I beautiful?”
Kenichi screamed in horror, turning to run. But the slit-mouthed woman
moved unnaturally fast. In a second, she was on him, her scissors in her hand,
stabbing him repeatedly. Kenichi’s screams echoed through the forest,
but no one was around to hear or see him as the vengeful spirit dragged him away.
Well, almost no one. Shiro had been watching from the window, wondering when his father would come
back. He saw him approach the end of the path, his way blocked by a woman. He saw his father
turn and run, the flash of large scissors in the moonlight, and he knew his father would not be
returning home. He tried to tell his mother what had happened, but she brushed him off. Kenichi
was notoriously unreliable, and she insisted he would make his way home eventually. But as
days went by with no sign of the man, their home was soon filled with aunts and cousins offering
their sympathies. Clearly Hina’s unreliable drunk husband had run off and abandoned the family. Any
time Shiro tried to bring up what he had seen, he was told to be quiet and not upset his mother.
But he knew. The slit-mouthed woman was out there,
and she had taken his father away. And Shiro was determined to solve the mystery.
Years passed, and Shiro grew from a boy into a young man. Although he was busy with school,
he always made time to research the legend of the creature that had taken his father.
He never got any closer to finding out the truth, but it was clear that he was far from
the only person interested in the legend. It was hard to distinguish real reports of the
creature from all the people making up stories about her. She had appeared in manga, anime,
video games, and animated movies. There had even been a series of horror movies about her,
titled Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman. But few people seemed to believe she
was anything more than a scary story to be told at summer camp or on internet forums.
Shiro put out a post on the internet asking for people who had encountered
the spirit - and was shocked when he got one response back.
It was an old man, living about an hour away. After school,
he told his mother he was going to the library to study, and instead took the
bus to the old man’s town. He had been told to meet him in the library, and when he arrived
the librarian told him the man was waiting for him in the quiet study room. The room was dark,
and the old man was busy reading a book. He didn’t even turn around to greet Shiro.
“You’re the boy looking into spirits?”
“Yes, sir. The slit-mouthed woman.”
Shiro could swear he saw the man shiver as he began to talk. “You encountered her?”
“No. My father did, and I think she killed him.”
“Not surprised. She does that to most people who say the wrong thing to her. I was barely older
than you when I encountered her, and she asked me the same question she asks everyone - Am I
beautiful? She’s a horror under that mask, and if you let her know you think that,
there’s no getting away alive. Me, I’d heard the stories. I knew what to say, or so I thought.
I stared her right in her face, that horrible grin, and I told her I thought she was beautiful.”
“And you survived.” Shiro breathed a sigh of relief. There was a way to escape.
“Yes.” The old man said with a pause.
“But she wanted to know if I meant it. So she left me with a memory of our encounter.”
The old man put his book down and slowly turned around. On his cheeks
were two long-healed scars marking his face, splitting his cheeks from
ear to ear. The slit-mouthed woman had marked the old man just like her face.
Shiro quickly thanked the old man for his time and beat a hasty retreat from the library.
Who was this woman and what did she want? Would she just kill or maim anyone she encountered,
no matter what they said? He needed the answers, and he kept on researching. He
needed to know her origin, but he soon found out there wasn’t just one origin - there were many.
Everyone seemed to think the slit-mouthed woman was the spirit of a woman who had been horribly
maimed in life and was seeking her revenge, but no one could agree on what had happened to her.
The old man confirmed that she had been haunting Japan for decades,
but there were legends dating back to the Edo period - the 17th century!
Some versions of the legend said she was the wife or concubine of a cruel samurai who mutilated her
when she had an affair. Others said she was the victim of a dentist or doctor who botched
a procedure on her face, or that she had been cut by a romantic rival who was jealous of her beauty.
Others said she wasn’t the spirit of a mutilated woman at all. They said she was a Yokai,
or supernatural creature, and that the slits weren’t a cut. They were her natural mouth,
and it was full of hundreds of sharp teeth that she used to consume anyone who crossed her path.
Years went on, and Shiro never found the answers he was looking for. There
were too many stories about the creature, all different, and no one was sure how to
survive an experience with her unscathed. Some said you had to give her a gift,
others said that even if she let someone pass she would return and kill them later.
Soon Shiro met a girl, Sakura, and they married and had children of their own.
Life was busy, and Shiro rarely had time to dwell on those horrible memories from his childhood.
With one exception - the anniversary of his father’s death each year.
As the day approached, he found himself becoming increasingly obsessed with the
slit-mouth woman. He would pore over the books of folklore, looking for clues.
His mother had told him to let the past go, to not let the spirits haunt him, but he was obsessed.
His children would come and ask their father to play with them, but he would shoo them away,
saying he was busy. Sakura came to try to pull him out of his study, and they quarreled. Soon,
he decided to take a walk to clear his head. Maybe he would get a drink, just to take the edge off…
The night was crisp and clear as Shiro walked home from the tavern,
and he was glad he had only had one drink. He knew Sakura meant well, and he couldn’t wait to
get home to talk things out with her. In fact, was that her waiting for him at the end of the path?
It wasn’t.
Shiro’s blood ran cold as he recognized the figure blocking his path home.
It was the same woman he had seen all those years earlier, waiting for his father. The same
white dress. The same black hair. The same mask over the face. The same scissors in the hand.
And now, her eyes were fixed firmly on him.
One way or another, he was about to get the answers he was looking for.
“Am I beautiful?”
Shiro knew no one survived saying no to the slit-mouthed woman, and he answered yes.
He braced himself as she reached up and took off her mask, revealing the horribly mutilated
face underneath. He kept a steady face, not reacting. The wrong reaction could spell death.
“Am I beautiful?” She repeated in the same haunted, dispassionate tone.
“You look...fine? Average.” Shiro responded, hoping this would have an impact. Maybe
she didn’t want people to lie, but she didn’t want them to acknowledge her deformity at all?
The slit-faced woman didn’t respond, just looked at him quizzically. This obviously
wasn’t a response she was prepared for, but she didn’t move. She was waiting for something more.
Shiro reached into his pocket...and barely contained a laugh. His favorite
hard candies. His daughter must have slipped them into his pocket before he stormed out,
in case he was hungry. He took them out and put the small sweets on the ground as an offering.
The slit-faced woman tilted her head towards the candy, then quickly moved forward and gathered
them. That gave Shiro the opportunity he needed to quickly move around her,
towards the end of the path and into the clearing. He heard rustling behind him,
but he didn’t look back until he was safely to his front door. When he finally turned around,
the slit-faced woman was nowhere to be seen, and he had a feeling he had seen the last of her.
As Shiro entered his home and embraced his wife and children, he made a promise. He would remember
what his mother taught him. He would pass down the stories of the spirits to his children,
and make sure they knew how to escape them. After all, the slit-faced woman was still out there.
For another terrifying creature that may be lurking in the woods,
check out “Siren Head - EXPLAINED”, or why not watch this video instead?