S T A G E D
Kuchisake-Onna (Slit-mouthed Woman)
A child walking home from school is approached by a strange woman wearing a long, beige, trench coat. The woman asks, "Do you think I'm beautiful?"
Although her mouth is covered with an oversized surgical mask, the woman has attractive eyes, a well-formed nose, and a shapely face. So the child replies, "Yes, I think you're beautiful."
"Even if I look like this?" says the woman, taking off her mask and revealing a ghastly red mouth, which is slit from ear to ear. While the child is too stunned to move, the woman takse out a scythe from inside her coat and hacks the child to death.
Slit-mouthed woman is one of the most famosu of Japanese urban legends. Her victims are almost always children (anyone under the age of 18).
What the Kuchisake-Onna does is, while you're outside walking alone, she will appear in front of you, and ask, "Am I beautiful?" or something like that.
Should you say no, she'll take out her giant pair of scissors and either slice your body in two, or chop your head off.
So you must be thinking, "Ah! So I'll say yes!" Well lucky, lucky, you, you get to see what's behind that huge surgical mask. Turns out, her mouth is slit from ear to ear, and commonly reported to be all red and bloody. "Even if I look like this?" She asks.
If you don't say anything, she kills you. If you say no, she'll still kill you. If, for some reason, you still say yes, she'll slit your face so that you look beautiful just like her. "So I'll run away!" Have fun friend, she'll chase you down and slice you in half right in front of your home. Some women just can't be satisfied.
Ways to avoid getting killed by Slit-mouthed Woman
・Your best bet would be giving a neutral or ambiguous answers like, "So-so", "Average", "Normal", right off the bat. The woman will be puzzled over the answer and it'll give you just enough time to run as if all ten hellhounds from the underworld was chasing you. Or in this case, a crazy homocidal woman with giant scissors.
・Sugar candy is the woman's favourite sweets. Throw it at her and run away while she drools over it. Konpeito works best.
・Chanting the word "Pomade" three times would petrify her and buy her time for you to run away.
Why "Pomade?"
The usual explanation given for the woman's disfigurement is that it is the result of a plastic surgery gone awry. The surgeon who operated on her was wearing pomade, and the odour of it was so strong that it made her sick; for that reason, chanting "Pomade" to herwould remind her of that traumatic experience; hence her reaction. Instead of chanting the word, you can also throw an atual jar of pomade at her, which is a more effective form of defense. Smearing pomade into your hair is thought to have an effect on her too.
Her Appearance
She is commonly seen wearing a long, beige, trench coat, but sightings have been reported to seen a crimson coat as well, to hide the splatters of blood she gets from her victims. She is thin and pale-skinned, and around 20 years of age. She is always wearing a surgical mask, which is not unusual in Asia, where some people wear masks to avoid passing their cold onto others. Under her mask, her mouth is blood-covered
Trivia
・She can run 100 m in 3 seconds.
・She has two sisters.
・She likes the number 3. She often appears in places which have "3" in their names.
・How she got her slit mouth differentiates from story to story. Most often, it's told as plastic surgery gone wrong. Others say she was run over by a car.
・Slit-mouthed Woman used to be a folk tale. They said, way way long ago, back when time was told in eras, Kuchisake-Onna was a very beautiful, but very vain woman. Because of that, her jealous husband accused her of cheating, and slit her face from ear to ear with a sword, saying, "Who will want you now that you look like this?"
・A few years ago in Korea, a record was found on a woman who chased children around, but was hit by a car and had her mouth slit from ear to ear.