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Lapis member John Q has been researching the fascinating subject of Japanese legends. He has found a wealth of material, so much in fact that we couldn’t get through it all in one meeting.

We were introduced to the Kuchisake-onna (slit- mouthed woman) , the Teke Teke and the tragedies of Aokigahara , also known as the suicide forest.

The Kuchisake-Onna is a woman who wears a medical mask and asks young people if she's pretty. She is, so they say yes. That's when she removes her mask and reveals that her mouth has been slit open on both sides. At this point, she asks if the child thinks she's pretty now. If the child says no, she cuts them in half. If they say yes, she slits their mouth exactly like hers. The only way to escape is to give a neutral answer, “you’re OK, about average” which will confuse her and give enough time to escape, or to throw sweets at her feet. She will stop to pick them up, again giving her intended victim time to make their escape.

The earliest versions of this story go back as far as the Edo period in Japanese history, between 1603 and 1868.

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In the late 1970s there was a genuine scare that the Kuchisake-Onna was real and was about about, to the point where teachers were escorting children home from school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchisake-onna

Teke Teke is more of an urban legend than a regular myth, as it's reasonably new. She's the spirit of a girl who tripped on some train tracks and was cut in half by an oncoming train. Now she crawls around looking for other people to share her fate, which she facilitates by cutting them in half with a scythe.

There's a variant of the Teke Teke myth about a girl named Reiko Kashima, who was also cut in half by a train; now she wanders toilets and asks people who are on the toilet if they know where her legs are. If people don't answer with "The Meishin Railway," she cuts off their legs, which is bad at the best of times, let alone when you're sitting on the loo!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teke_Teke

The Aokigahara forest lies at the base of Mount Fuji, less than 100 miles west of Tokyo. Locally, it is also known under the name of Jukai ("Sea of Trees") because of its very high density of trees.

It is also very sought-after by tourists because there are two caves located here, The Ice Cave and the Wind Cave.

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It is a unique forest in many ways; there is barely any wildlife in here, thus it is very quiet, making it a popular destination among locals. However, this quietness hides a more macabre side of it as the Aokigahara is the number one suicide spot for Japanese.
 

Called “the perfect place to die,”it has the unfortunate distinction of the world’s second most popular place to take one’s life. (The first is the Golden Gate Bridge.) Since the 1950s, Japanese businessmen have wandered in, and at least 500 of them haven’t wandered out, at an increasing rate of between 10 and 30 per year. Recently these numbers have increased even more, with 78 suicides in 2002 and 105 in 2003.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/aokigahara-suicide-forest

As urban legends go these are, I’m sure you will agree that these are pretty gruesome. However there are parallels in western culture, with the tales serving as warnings not to engage in dangerous behaviour – don’t wander off the main road and talk to strangers and never, ever venture on to the train tracks and be careful not to trip. Good advice really isn’t it?

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