The Kuchisake-onna Panic — Japan's Slit-Mouthed Woman Terrorizes Nagasaki (1979)

In the spring of 1979, a wave of mass hysteria swept across Japan centered on the urban legend of Kuchisake-onna — the Slit-Mouthed Woman. According to the legend, a beautiful woman wearing a surgical mask (common in Japan for cold prevention) approaches victims and asks 'Am I pretty?' (Watashi kirei?). If the victim answers yes, she removes the mask to reveal a mouth slit from ear to ear and asks again. Any answer leads to the victim being mutilated or killed with a pair of scissors. The panic originated in Nagasaki Prefecture and spread rapidly across the country through word of mouth among schoolchildren. The hysteria reached such intensity that some schools organized group escorts for students walking home, while police in several cities increased patrols around schools. The legend drew on older Edo-period tales of disfigured female ghosts and the broader Japanese folk tradition of onryō — vengeful spirits of wronged women. The 1979 panic is studied by folklorists as one of the most dramatic examples of a modern urban legend generating real-world behavioral changes across an entire nation.