The terrifying legend of Japan’s slit girl

Some men feel like it’s some kind of trap when a woman asks, “Am I beautiful?” Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happens when the problem comes from the paranormal Kou-na (The Rift Girl). monster The creature looks like an attractive-looking human with a surgical mask over its mouth. If you answer “no” to her question, she will stab you to death. If you answer “yes,” she takes off her mask, revealing a terrifying smile etched on her face that stretches from the corners of her mouth to her ears. Then she asked, “Do you still think I’m beautiful?”

If this interaction sounds equally scary frustratingthis may be because this legend was invented by Japanese children not long ago. They did a really good job, they actually got the police involved in the whole thing. This is what happens:

The Nagoya Times first reported on Kuchisake-onna on January 22, 1979

Who are you going to call? Apparently, the police

December 1978. Apparently, it was around that time that Japanese children first began to warn each other that a tall, pale woman was wandering around their neighborhood holding a pair of scissors, a knife, or a sickle, targeting the children and asking them questions that seemed to have no good answers. It’s just young people making up stories out of boredom because the Famicom/Famicom hasn’t been invented yet, right? really. But the adults took it seriously.

This was shortly after the 1976 execution of the widely publicized serial killer Kiyoshi Okubo, whose youngest victim was just 16 years old. So when Japanese parents in the late 1970s started overhearing their children talking about a strange grown man with a deadly weapon, maybe they remembered Okubo and decided it was better to be safe than sorry. Eventually, many decided to contact the police.

It’s not a nationwide panic or anything like that, but some places, like Koriyama and Hiratsuka City in Fukushima Prefecture, did Troops were dispatched specifically to look for the suspicious woman holding scissors, knives, and sickles. She might be wearing a red coat. Or maybe it’s yellow? And, she might actually be a man. It all hinges on the child giving police details of a story they heard from one friend, which in turn heard it from another friend, and so on. Needless to say, after months of investigation, police… actually Caught the Rift Girl? ! Well, sort of.

In June or July 1979, they arrested a 25-year-old resident of Himeji City, Hyogo Prefecture, for dressing up as a blowjob girl and walking around with a knife. Details are sparse, but it seems like she was just pulling the most ill-advised, non-YouTube-related prank in Japanese history. Newspapers declared that the “gap woman” scare was over, not realizing that it had only just begun. After all, telling children that their imaginations have truly come to fruition is not a way to kill a story. In fact, the urban legend of oral sex is still a staple of Japanese school gossip.

ancient origins

The myth of the blowjob girl actually originated during the Edo period (1603-1867). It’s just that the female monsters weren’t that bad back then. She still has the frighteningly cleft appearance – which in some myths does end up scaring someone to death – but much like in iaia myth we discussed beforeThe feudal slit girl is mainly used as a prank to scare people. In many legends, this figure is actually a Shapeshifting Magical Fox Dress up in disguise and find laughter on a boring night.

Back in 1978, specifically in Gifu, a child heard this story and it lit their hearts. Give it a little modern update, like surgical masks and the bloody smell of stabbing weapons (because Japanese kids Can’t get enough gore in their entertainment), an unknown child started a tradition that has continued for nearly half a century. what did your Has a child ever done this?

Are school and reading to blame?

Japan actually has a long tradition of inventing new ghost stories, possibly dating back to the 17th century. But at the time, New Yokai was created by the Literary Club and A gathering of horror fans Want to cool down on a hot summer night with some chilling stories. New monsters come and go, and only a few make it out of the original circle. But it took them a while to enter popular consciousness: News didn’t travel very fast in those days. This is the advantage of Japanese children in the 20th century.

Today, it is believed that the killer version of the Gap Girl legend spread mainly through cram schools, which brought together children from different parts of the city (and therefore from different schools), allowing the story to spread faster. The 20th century also had telephones and televisions, as well as magazines that not only lapped up the oral sex rumors, but may have inadvertently helped create them. Some researchers believe that the fascination with demonic women with disfigured faces is due to the beauty and fashion magazines of the 1970s that fostered internalized anxieties about one’s appearance.

No matter what happens, the killer blowjob girl seems to be here to stay. And, if you meet her, she’ll obviously be put off by vague responses to questions (“You look average/average”), like saying you’re late and just leaving, throwing candy or coins on the ground to distract her, shouting the word “pomade” three times, or tracing the Chinese character for “dog” on your palm. Again, this is a story entirely made up by kids; it doesn’t make much sense.

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