Paranormal record / 1978
December 1978. Gifu Prefecture, Japan. An elderly farmer's wife reportedly saw a figure near her outdoor toilet and collapsed from fear. Within months, schoolchildren across Japan were trading stories of a woman. Tall. Pale. Beautiful. A large surgical mask over her lower face. She stopped children on dark streets and asked one question. "Am I pretty?" Then she pulled the mask down. Her mouth was slit from ear to ear. By June 1979 the story had reached every region "from Aomori to Kagoshima." Police sent out patrol cars. Schools sent children home in groups. In Himeji, a woman was arrested in costume with a kitchen knife. Then, in August, the summer holidays began. And the panic stopped.
Japan, the late 1970s. Nuclear families and dual-income households were becoming the norm, and many children spent their afternoons unsupervised. After school, pupils from different districts met at evening cram schools. That is where a story began to travel.