Japanese – Yokai
Futakuchi-onna – The Two-Mouthed Woman
Futakuchi onna appear as regular women until their terrible secret is revealed: in the back of their skulls—buried beneath long, thick hair—is a second mouth, full of teeth and with large, fat lips. This second mouth is ravenous, and uses long strands of its hair-like tentacles to gorge itself on any food it can find.
One story of this spirit is about a man who met a woman who didn’t eat anything, he immediately married her, he was happy thinking he saved money but he realised his food supply decreasing. Since his wife never ate, he suspected her. Pretending to leave for work, he waited to spy and in doing so, he watched as his wife revealed a second mouth on the back of her head with teeth. It began eating the rice balls. His wife already knowing his plan trapped him and carried him to the mountains. He managed to escape and hide within heavily scented lily marsh.
- In the folk tales of Japan’s eastern regions, futakuchi onna are most often thought to be shape-changed yama uba posing as young women.
- In each story, this yōkai is used as a punishment upon a greedy man or woman for wickedness and extreme parsimony.
- Translation: two-mouthed woman
- Habitat: usually occurs in married women
- Diet: as a normal person, only twice as much
Kuchisake Onna – The slit mouth women is a urban legend of a spirit with a surgical mask who asks passer-by’s “Am I pretty?”.
- If answered ‘no’ she attacks.
- If answered ‘yes’ she takes off her mask, revealing a mouth slit from ear to ear and attacks you.
- Apparently the only way to survive is if you answer with “so-so” which confuses the spirit enough to let you run away.
It is said the slit mouth women originated in the Edo period of Japan, where she lived with a samurai man in a small village. She was someone with beauty, often asking in the day if she’s pretty. Then she had a affair, which her husband heard about, furious at her infidelity, he mutilated her face taking away the beauty she so coveted. Kuchisake-Onna was left horribly scarred and became overcome with depression before committing suicide, with her spirit remaining as a warning. – https://medium.com/the-nocturnal-report/the-horror-of-kuchisake-onna-b7a228e801d8
Kitsune
Translation: fox
Alternate names: unique names exist in many individual instances
Habitat: found throughout Japan
Diet: omnivorous; fond of fried tofu
Appearance: Their appearance are like a normal fox found in the word except they have magical abilities.
Behaviour: There are two major variations of kitsune…
- Holy foxes: These foxes are servants of the Shinto deity Inari. They act as the messengers of the gods. They protect humans, provide good luck, ward evil spirits away and protect places. These shrines serving the deity Inari often have statues of these foxes.
- Wild foxes: These foxes often trick of possess humans. However they often keep promises and remember friendships.
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