A Japanese manga artist’s apocalyptic vision has fueled superstitions about travel to the East Asian country this summer—but not everyone is buying into it, as one expert told Newsweek, “Perhaps [Ryo] Tatsuki’s manga resonates with people outside Japan who have amorphous worries about the future, and this manga is a way to debate or focus on anxiety.”
Why It Matters
Japan is situated along the circum-Pacific seismic belt—commonly known as the “Ring of Fire”—which encircles the Pacific Ocean and is responsible for approximately 81 percent of the world’s largest earthquakes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
A Flourish data visualizationWhat To Know
Manga artist Ryo Tatsuki’s The Future I Saw has sparked fear over a natural disaster occurring on July 5, 2025.
The manga, first published in 1999 and revisited in a 2021 edition, forecasts a catastrophic event striking Japan this summer. The newer edition features a prediction that a crack will emerge under the seabed between Japan and the Philippines, sending waves ashore three times taller than those from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, CNN reported.
Tatsuki’s reputation stems in part from previous predictions that appeared to align with real-world events. In The Future I Saw, she is said to have forecast the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami—events that killed nearly 20,000 people and triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster. She is also believed by some to have foreseen the deaths of Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, as reported by CNN.
The forecast prompted a slew of social media posts regarding the potential calamity.
According to Bloomberg Intelligence analysis cited by The Daily Mail, weekly arrival bookings from Hong Kong for late June to early July dropped by more than 80 percent compared to the previous year. Airline bookings from Taiwan and South Korea also fell since April, the outlet reported.
But some Japanese officials have urged people to disregard the warnings.
“It would be a major problem if the spread of unscientific rumors on social media had an effect on tourism,” said Yoshihiro Murai, governor of Miyagi prefecture, according to The New York Post. “There is no reason to worry because Japanese are not fleeing abroad … I hope people will ignore the rumors and visit.”
CNN reported that the East Asian nation remains a popular tourist destination.
Citing the Japan National Tourism Organization, it reported that in the first three months of 2025, Japan saw its number of visitors reach a record-breaking 10.5 million.
Some 2.36 million mainland Chinese travelers visited Japan in the first quarter of this year—a 78 percent increase from 2024, it added.
What People Are Saying
Laura Miller, professor of Japanese studies at the University of Missouri told Newsweek: “I do not think that the majority of people in Japan ‘believe’ in predictions by popular writers such as Tatsuki. They already know that earthquakes are recurring events, and scientists themselves are always predicting them. Let’s not forget that international travel suffered a bit in 2012 when people all over the world thought that the ‘Mayan calendar’ predicted an apocalypse. Some scholars might view these cases as displacement of anxiety about the future.”
Miller added: “Divination and forecasts about the future are present in all forms of popular culture, including hundreds of other manga. But this case is still worth noticing. One reason scholars study popular culture is because it allows us to track cultural worries and anxieties, and manga is media consumed by more than half the population in East Asia. Perhaps Tatsuki’s manga resonates with people outside Japan who have amorphous worries about the future, and this manga is a way to debate or focus on anxiety.”
What Happens Next
For her part, Tatsuki has urged readers not to panic. “It’s important not to be unnecessarily influenced… and to listen to the opinions of experts,” she told Japanese media in a recent interview, as quoted in the New York Post.
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https://www.newsweek.com/july-2025-mega-tsunami-predicted-japanese-manga-what-know-2083394