October Is Still Spookey Month: Everyone seems to love Kuchisake-onna!

Why? I'm not not sure. All I know is, this blog gets a lot of Google hits for "slit mouth woman" or "kuchisake-onna," and Youtube features a surprisingly large number of videos describing her legend. As it turns out, she's not only freaky, she's also incredibly popular.



I also find her very tragic, but that's not saying I particularly want to meet her.  One of the most disturbing and therefore effective aspects of a lot of these Japanese horror tales is the arbitrary victim selection.  Few of these people deserve their fates, unlike in most Western horror stories.  You know-- the philandering lover, the know-it-all jerk, the greedy relatives, the kids who willfully ignore societal mores and go skinnydipping in Crystal Lake all receive their comeuppance.



But what about the kid who's just hanging out at home when a ghost comes to call?  Or the young woman who finds herself running a little late and gets stuck in an elevator?  Or the poor woman with the coughing fit in the park, and her child?  When Kuchisake-onna catches up to you, it doesn't matter if you're a nice person or not. And speaking of nice, here's another performance by Toy Missile, outside Shinjuku Station. This is where I saw them way back in August, 2007. Their official website seems to have gone dark, so it may be they live now only in my memories. And on Youtube.