‘Prophetic Manga' Predicts a Great Cataclysm Will Hit Japan in July 2025
Watashi ga Mita Mirai
(The Future That I Saw) based on some of the entries in it.
Legend goes that one day before the deadline, the author received a message in her dream that she then added to the cover. It read: 'March 2011, Great Disaster.' Some people interpret it today as a prediction of the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit the Tohoku region on March 11, 2011, known as 3.11. Now, though, Tatsuki is saying that Japan will experience an even bigger disaster in July 2025.
List of Contents:
A Claimed Career of Clairvoyance
From 3.11 to 7.2025
Airlines Among the First Victims of the 'July Cataclysm'
Prediction Fault Lines
Related Posts
A Claimed Career of Clairvoyance
According to a 2021 complete edition release of
Watashi ga Mita Mirai,
among the many things Tatsuki predicted was the passing of
Queen
frontman Freddie Mercury 15 years before it happened, and the death of Princess Diana five years before the tragic events in Paris in 1997.
Tatsuki seems to dream about death a lot. In one case, she was in some kind of cave with a girl she didn't know, only to later discover it was a WW2-era air-raid shelter at an unidentified park in Yokohama. Later, she heard on the news that a chopped-up body wearing the same clothes she saw in the dream was found in the man-made 'cave.'
Other times, death was even more veiled, like in the dream where she visited her family home in the countryside and came to a crossroad where instead of grapes, she saw a field of loquats (symbols of misfortune, according to the author). Tatsuki interprets this as premonitions about her uncle's later death.
Even when she isn't foreseeing death, Tatsuki rarely foretells anything good, including the time she reportedly predicted her friend being dumped with the phrase: 'I don't dislike you, but I don't love you.'
The tsunami-wreaked devastation in Tohoku after the 2011 earthquake.
From 3.11 to 7.2025
After the tragic events of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that resulted in over 20,000 deaths,
Watashi ga Mita Mirai
was rediscovered and quickly became known as the 'phantom prophetic manga.' It was out of print at the time so copies of it started being sold for over ¥100,000 at auction sites.
A re-release was all but guaranteed, and it was eventually slated for 2021. But just like in 1999, shortly before the deadline,Tatsuki received another premonition, this one telling her that the 'real disaster' will befall Japan in July 2025.
In the complete edition, the author clarifies that a giant tsunami dream she's been having since 1981 was not connected to the March 2011 Great Disaster premonition as many people thought throughout the years.
Tatsuki explains that, in her dreams, it was summer since she was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, while 3.11 happened in winter. Plus, the destructive wave she saw was three times larger than the one that hit Tohoku, where the tsunami reached over 40 meters in height.
The 2021 dream predicting a July 2025 cataclysm offered further details on the origins of the tsunami, which will apparently be the result of a massive explosion like a volcano or a bomb going off between Japan and the Philippines. The seabed will be pushed up and create new land masses while giant waves will consume a third to a quarter of Japan facing the Pacific Ocean.
Airlines Among the First Victims of the 'July Cataclysm'
Watashi ga Mita Mirai
became a hit in China, where fans are taking the 7.2025 prediction so seriously, they've canceled a bunch of flights to Japan around that time. Greater Bay Airlines actually had to cut summer flights from Hong Kong to Japan by three to four a week amid plummeting demand. Adding to the fear is a prominent Hong Kong feng shui master who foretold increased earthquake risks for Japan from June to August of 2025.
All in all, airline bookings from Hong Kong
fell by 30% this year
, especially to Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture (the city nearest to the 3.11 quake) and Tokushima Prefecture on the island of Shikoku, which would be one of the places hit first by a tsunami coming from the south. But it won't be.
Prediction Fault Lines
'Predicting' the death of Freddie Mercury could have been eerie if Tatsuki also put a date on it. Dreaming of Mercury's death 15 years before it happened means less than nothing especially for a person who, even before he first started exhibiting symptoms of HIV and AIDS, embodied the hard-partying, devil-may-care nature of rock and roll.
It wasn't weird for people to assume that, out of all the Queen members, Freddie would be the first to go someday. At least in her dream, Tatsuki actually saw a news bulletin saying 'Freddie Mercury has died.' Her dream of Princess Diana involved simply seeing her picture on the news under the name 'Dianna.'
As for the park killing, the story in the manga apparently changed a few details 'out of respect for the victim,' so it is difficult to verify it, especially given the disturbingly high number of murders in Japan where the victim was dismembered. Finally, getting 'death' from loquats feels like something that doesn't deserve commentary, but let's try it anyway.
Throughout the complete edition of
Watashi ga Mita Mirai,
Tatsuki is constantly hedging her predictions by saying that a lot of her dreams are symbolic, like the one telling her she will die in 2000, or the one about the metaphorical eruption of Mount Fuji. But she apparently can't tell which visions are literal and which aren't, so how are we to know that the 'July Cataclysm' won't be the latter?
She also uses words like 'maybe,' 'perhaps,' and 'I don't know, though' a lot. For someone who also claims to have been the daughter of the Indian spiritual leader Sathya Sai Baba in a previous life (Tatsuki is into spiritualism), she really should be more confident in her predictive powers.
Or not, since the other dates on the cover of her manga ranging from 1991 to 1999 don't seem to correspond to any major disasters. People have tried to link them to all sorts of events, including the COVID pandemic of all things, but it's all too vague and desperate to be taken seriously.
So, is the July 2025 prediction made up? Nobody knows. Plus, why would anyone do that? The complete edition release of
Watashi ga Mita Mirai
sold over 560,000 copies
. For legal reasons, the previous two sentences are completely unrelated.
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Japan Today
19 hours ago
- Japan Today
Authorities say latest quake not connected to viral manga prediction
A sales banner written by the store reading "Whether you believe it or not is up to you" is displayed next to the comic book titled "The Future I saw," authored by manga artist Ryo Tatsuki, on the shelf at the book store Village Vanguard in Tokyo on June 30. Japan's weather agency said an earthquake that rattled small islands in the nation's southwest on Saturday was in no way connected to a manga author's disaster prediction that went viral on social media. "It is absolutely a coincidence. There is no causal connection," Ayataka Ebita of the Japan Meteorological Agency told a press conference. Earlier in the day, a temblor with a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 struck off the Tokara island chain, the latest in a series of seismic events in the area. Speculation has spread that Japan will be hit by a major disaster in July -- specifically on Saturday, July 5 -- based on a prediction made in "The Future I Saw," a manga authored by Japanese artist Ryo Tatsuki. Tatsuki gained a profile after her prediction of a "major calamity" in March 2011 coincided with a catastrophic quake-tsunami that struck Japan's northeast and led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. Ebita said current science is unable to accurately predict earthquakes, and any that appear to fit the manga's prediction are purely coincidental. "In Japan, earthquakes can happen at any time. Please be prepared always," he added. The quake on Saturday occurred at 6:29 a.m. at a depth of about 19 kilometers, and no tsunami warning was issued. It measured upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7, the agency said. The magnitude and depth of the quake's focus were revised from 5.3 and 20 km, respectively. The number of quakes detected in the Tokara island chain area has exceeded 1,300 since June 21. A temblor with a magnitude of 5.5, measuring lower 6 of the Japanese scale, jolted the area Thursday. Around a dozen residents evacuated from Akuseki Island, which has experienced strong shaking throughout the period of instability, to Kagoshima on the main island of Kyushu via ferry on Friday. Akuseki Island has an area of less than 8 square kilometers and a population of 89, according to the local government. © KYODO
Japan Times
2 days ago
- Japan Times
A prophesied disaster (likely) won't strike Japan this weekend
Life as we know it will probably not come to an end in Japan this weekend. But what if it does? That's the question consuming a disaster-prone country ahead of a widely spread prediction of disaster that one comic book suggests will occur this Saturday. "Watashi ga Mita Mirai" ("The Future I Saw"), a manga by Ryo Tatsuki about her purported ability to see the future in dreams, was first published in 1999. It would have faded into obscurity but for the mention of a tsunami and the cover that read "Major disaster in March 2011.' Years later, when the most powerful earthquake ever to hit the country struck that very month, triggering a devastating tsunami and the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant meltdown, some hailed the author as a prophet. In 2021, she released an updated version that included a new prediction of disaster on July 5, 2025, involving a massive eruption in the Philippine Sea that triggers a tsunami striking Japan with waves three times the height of 2011. Such a disaster would obviously be devastating on a human level. But already, the comic has had an economic impact, with some tourists from Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia shunning trips out of fear. Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at the Nomura Research Institute, estimates that ¥560 billion ($3.9 billion) of economic damage could result if tourists continue to stay away due to this and other projections of doom. As July 5 approaches, it's becoming more talked about domestically; I've been asked about it in bars and overheard its mention in coffee shops. A series of hundreds of relatively small quakes off the southern island of Kyushu over the last two weeks has kept disaster in the headlines. The manga has sold over 1 million copies, while another book by Tatsuki is topping the charts. Get your facts straight, every day In a time of information overload and misinformation, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. Help us get the story right. For a limited time, we're offering a discounted subscription plan. Unlimited access US$30 US$18 /mo FOREVER subscribe NOW Of course, despite advances in tectonic science, earthquakes can't be predicted. The Meteorological Agency has taken to social media to caution that "any such predictions should be considered unreliable.' But that message is muddled by the fact that the agency and the government believe that harbingers of the dreaded Nankai Trough megaquake can be detected. That resulted in a chilling official announcement last year about the elevated risk of a disaster that is estimated to kill as many as 300,000 people. That episode briefly had much of the country on edge. The next day, the country's earthquake early warning alert was triggered, an automated signal that gives notice of an imminent big quake, piped straight to smartphones and trains. Sitting with colleagues in a bustling bar on Friday evening, the chill that went through the room was palpable as dozens of phones blared shrill messages of EARTHQUAKE! EARTHQUAKE! and we wondered if this was, indeed, the end. Nothing happened. The alert was a false alarm. There's something to be said for keeping people on their toes: While mercifully the Nankai quake did not hit last year, the threat remains undiminished. The government's alert prompted many (myself included) to prepare or restock disaster supplies, with Japan's rice shortage partly blamed on the spike in demand it caused. But caution quickly turns to complacency. The idea that we can predict the future is an attractive one, promising certainty in an uncertain world. That helps overcome the litany of failed prophecies, from Nostradamus's warnings in 1999 to the Maya doomsday theories in 2012. Some that do turn out to be true — think the 1988 Japanese animated movie "Akira's" prediction that Tokyo would host the 2020 Olympics — are just examples of survivor bias. We forget those that don't come to pass, remembering only those that do, presumably including Tatsuki's 2011 reference. But when it comes to Japan, past predictions of doom — such as a "hidden planet' Nibiru crashing into Earth, or a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center causing havoc — aren't good comparisons. A catastrophe not dissimilar to the one Tatsuki describes really could take place at any time — July 5, or any day before or after. Indeed, according to government estimates for the Nankai Trough quake, it's more likely than not to happen in our lifetimes. Nonetheless, even in Japan many are still taken by surprise. Media focus on major disasters such as a quake hitting directly under Tokyo can lure those elsewhere into a false sense of security. Few, including the operators of the Fukushima nuclear plant, were sufficiently prepared for a quake off the coast in 2011 — despite extensive records showing past disasters. On July 5, when nothing happens, what then? My guess is most will just shrug and move on, perhaps a little embarrassed for having believed it or a little better prepared than they otherwise would have been. People might turn on Tatsuki, who has already distanced herself from the exact date. She may pop up again with another prediction — or fade back into obscurity. Regardless, the message that we should prepare for disaster is one we should listen to. In all probability, the earthquake won't happen on July 5. But it will happen sometime. That's a warning we should all heed. Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan and the Koreas.
Japan Today
3 days ago
- Japan Today
Manga doomsday prediction spooks tourists to Japan
A staff member places the comic book titled 'The Future I Saw," authored by manga artist Ryo Tatsuki, on the shelf at Village Vanguard book store in Tokyo on Monday. By Tom Bateman, Kathleen Benoza and Joyce Zhou Viral rumors of impending disaster stemming from a comic book prediction have taken the sheen off Japan's tourism boom, with some airlines canceling flights from Hong Kong where passengers numbers have plunged. Japan has seen record numbers of visitors this year, with April setting an all-time monthly high of 3.9 million travelers. That dipped in May, however, with arrivals from Hong Kong - the superstitious Chinese-controlled city where the rumors have circulated widely - down 11% year-on-year, according to the latest data. Steve Huen of Hong Kong-based travel agency EGL Tours blamed a flurry of social media predictions tied to a manga that depicts a dream of a massive earthquake and tsunami hitting Japan and neighboring countries in July 2025. "The rumors have had a significant impact," said Huen, adding that his firm had seen its Japan-related business halve. Discounts and the introduction of earthquake insurance had "prevented Japan-bound travel from dropping to zero," he added. Hong Kong resident Branden Choi, 28, said he was a frequent traveler to Japan but was hesitant to visit the country during July and August due to the manga prediction. "If possible, I might delay my trip and go after September", he said. Ryo Tatsuki, the artist behind the manga titled 'The Future I Saw', first published in 1999 and then re-released in 2021, has tried to dampen the speculation, saying in a statement issued by her publisher that she was "not a prophet". The first edition of the manga warned of a major natural disaster in March 2011. That was the month and year when a massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster struck Japan's northeastern coast killing thousands. Some have interpreted the latest edition as predicting a catastrophic event would occur specifically on July 5, 2025, although Tatsuki has denied this. Situated within the Pacific Ocean's "Ring of Fire," Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. In recent days there have been more than 900 earthquakes, most of them small tremors, on islands off the southern tip of Kyushu. But Robert Geller, a professor at the University of Tokyo who has studied seismology since 1971, said even scientifically-based earthquake prediction was "impossible". "None of the predictions I've experienced in my scientific career have come close at all," he said. Nevertheless, low-cost carrier Greater Bay Airlines became the latest Hong Kong airline on Wednesday to cancel flights to Japan due to low demand, saying it would indefinitely suspend its service to Tokushima in western Japan from September. Serena Peng, 30, a visitor to Tokyo from Seattle, had initially tried to talk her husband out of visiting Japan after seeing the social media speculation. "I'm not super worried right now, but I was before," she said, speaking outside Tokyo's bustling Senso-ji temple. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
