Japanese Mythology & Urban Legends

Just curious to what urban legends or mythology based in Japan people know about. Examples: the scissor mouth lady, two tailed cats, kitsune, the grudge, etc...

I happened to read a thesis that compares Japanese mythology with Chinese mythology~I mean ancient ones.The similarities and the differences.. The emperor of Japan's, or rather 天皇/てんのう is regarded to be the direct descendant and incarnation of Amaterasu..the most famous goddess in Japan..

If you want to learn more about Japanese mythology, you might as well read 古事記~Difficult old language and Chinese characters...and weird mindsets of ancestors..

I've read some things but I don't remember all the names. Lots of things like animated objects, ghosts, giant skeletons, long neck people, women with a slit mouth, cats with two tails, women with a mouth behind their head, kappas, vampire ladies that suck your soul if you fall for their trap, etc. Reading all this made me realize that anime get inspiration from mythology and folklore. I mean, the long neck person is super random and you wonder why multiple animes have one ^^'

nekomata is so cute as a youkai!

@Enki Hmm, I don't know if I would be able to take the time to translate all those characters into English. Might be a good read, since I'm quite interested in mythology and other forms of anthologies as well.

@cupcakerin Yea, I do notice a lot of mythology in anime plots, but this isn't just for anime, but in other forms of media as well. And like Enki has said, there are cross references between different countries and their own myths and history.

I think the 9-tailed fox is quite well known across Asia, but I only ever learned about the Tanuki and Kappa when I started looking into Japanese myths.

i like oni's and the demons the different lore behind the different ones, and there ghosts are spookier because of the lore behind them and thats what makes jhorror the best horror

They're probably not alone but nine-tailed foxes are different in other asian countries, like in Korea they are called kumiho and they eat hearts but otherwise they are pretty much the same as a kitsune.