Hebi Onna (へび女, transl. “Snake Woman”), published in English under the title Reptilia, is a Japanese horror manga trilogy written and illustrated by Kazuo Umezu. It is composed of three series – Scared of Mama, The Spotted Girl, and Reptilia – which were originally serialized in the shōjo manga (girls’ comics) magazine Shūkan Shōjo Friend from 1965 to 1966. The individual series were not originally conceived as an ongoing story, but were later revised to form a connected trilogy, which was published as a single volume by Shogakukan in 1986. An English-language translation of the trilogy was published by IDW Publishing in 2007.

The trilogy follows a monstrous woman who is able to transform into a snake-like being. Umezu drew inspiration for the series from Japanese folklore, particularly stories about yōkai (supernatural beings), and conceived of a story about a monstrous mother figure as a critical response to the recurring motif of loving mother-daughter relationships common in shōjo manga of the 1960s. The series was Umezu’s first major critical and commercial success, and is credited with provoking a boom in the production of horror manga in the late 1960s. Two of the three stories in the trilogy have been adapted into live-action films.

Synopsis

The trilogy is composed of three series:

Scared of Mama (ママがこわい, Mama ga Kowai)

Yumiko, a young girl living in Tokyo, visits her hospitalized mother. Her mother discusses rumors among the patients of an institutionalized woman in the hospital who believes that she is a snake, which Yumiko investigates. Yumiko discovers the rumored patient, who transforms into a snake-like being and breaks out of confinement after Yumiko obliges her request to show her a picture of a frog. The snake-woman usurps the place of Yumiko’s mother, though Yumiko is ultimately able to expose her deception, and the snake-woman is re-institutionalized.

The Spotted Girl (まだらの少女, Madara no Shōjo)

A sequel to The Spotted Girl. The snake-woman escapes from the hospital and pursues Yumiko, who is on vacation in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture with her cousin Kyōko. Kyoko and her family are transformed into snake-people, though Yumiko is ultimately able to defeat the snake-woman at the conclusion of the story.

Reptilia

A prequel to Scared of Mama. In 1907, a man encounters a snake-woman in a swamp while hunting. He flees after shooting her in the eye, but turns manic and dies shortly thereafter. Decades later, the snake-woman seeks revenge on the hunter’s granddaughter Yoko by killing Yoko’s caretaker aunt, adopting the newly-orphaned girl, and transforming Yoko into a snake-girl by feeding her one of her scales. The transformation is witnessed by Yoko’s best friend Satsuki; they pursue Satsuki, but Yoko turns on her mother and both are washed away in flooding from a heavy rain. The story concludes in the hospital from Scared of Mama, where doctors discuss an institutionalized patient who was recovered from a river twenty years prior, and who believes that she is a snake.

Context

As a child, manga artist Kazuo Umezu‘s father told him horror stories from Japanese folklore. The story he found most terrifying was Okameike Densetsu (お亀池伝説, lit. “The Legend of the Turtle Pond”), which tells the story of a woman who goes to the Okameike Moor in Soni, Nara and is transformed into a snake. The story significantly influenced Umezu, and snake-women became a recurring motif in Umezu’s manga beginning with Kuchi ga Mimi Made Sakeru Toki (口が耳までさける時, lit. “The Moment The Mouth Tears to Ears”) in 1961.

During the 1960s, shōjo manga was typically published either in manga magazines, or in books offered at kashi-hon (book rental stores); horror stories were popular in kashi-hon books, but were not published in manga magazines. Umezu, who had already created several shōjo stories, stated that he “harbored suspicion” toward the recurring motif of close mother-daughter relationships in shōjo manga of the era, explaining that “mothers often think of their daughters as their own possessions, which is a scary thought”. He sought to create a story that subverted this motif by depicting a mother as a monstrous rather than loving figure, drawing inspiration from the snake-woman of Okameike Densetsu.

Reptilia
Cover to Scared of Mama
へび女 (Hebi Onna)
Genre	Horror
Created by	Kazuo Umezu
Manga
Written by	Kazuo Umezu
Published by	Kodansha, Shogakukan
English publisher	NA IDW Publishing
Magazine	Shūkan Shōjo Friend
Demographic	Shōjo
Original run	Scared of Mama August 10, 1965 – September 7 , 1965 The Spotted Girl September 14, 1965 – November 9, 1965 Reptilia (Hebi Shōjo) March 15, 1966 – June 21 , 1966
Adaptations
The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (film, 1968) Kazuo Umezu’s Horror Theater: The Harlequin Girl (film, 2005)