A Japanese manga claims a natural disaster is imminent. Now, some tourists are canceling their trips
A Japanese comic book warns of a “real catastrophe.” A psychic predicts mass destruction. A feng shui master urges people to stay away.
This might sound like the plot of a disaster movie but for Japan’s tourism industry, a recent spate of so-called earthquake-related “predictions” like these has led to more superstitious travelers, particularly in East Asia, canceling or delaying their holidays.
Published by manga artist Ryo Tatsuki in 1999, “The Future I Saw” warned of a major disaster in March 2011, a date which turned out to coincide with the cataclysmic quake that struck Japan’s northern Tohoku region that month.
Her “complete version” released in 2021 claimed that the next big earthquake will hit this July.
At the same time, psychics from Japan and Hong Kong have shared similar warnings, triggering some unfounded panic online that has led to a flurry of cancelations of travel plans from destinations in the region.
CN Yuen, managing director of WWPKG, a travel agency based in Hong Kong, said bookings to Japan dropped by half during the Easter holiday and are expected to dip further in the coming two months.
The speculations have scared off mostly travelers from mainland China and Hong Kong, which are Japan’s second- and fourth-largest sources of tourists, respectively. But the fear has also spread to other markets such as Thailand and Vietnam, where social media platforms are overflowing with posts and videos warning people to think twice before traveling to Japan.
Anxieties provoked by these prophecies have, according to Yuen, become “ingrained.” He added that “people just say they want to hold off their trip for now.”
Tatsuki’s work has a significant following in East Asia and her fans often believe she can accurately see future events in her dreams.
She draws a cartoon version of herself in the manga, where she shares visions she gleans from her slumbers with other characters. Some of these dreams turn out to bear close resemblance to real-life events.
Her 2011 quake prediction — or coincidence — made Tatsuki famous not just in Japan but also in other parts of Asia like Thailand and China. The comic book has sold 900,000 copies, according to its publisher. It has also been published in Chinese.
Fans believed she also predicted the deaths of Princess Diana and singer Freddie Mercury, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic, however critics say her visions are too vague to be taken seriously.
The manga’s cover bears the words “massive disaster in March, 2011,” leading many to believe that she predicted the 9.0-magnitude earthquake more than a decade before it hit Tohoku.
In the latest edition, “The Future I Saw (Complete Version),” Tatsuki warned that on July 5 this year, a crack will open up under the seabed between Japan and the Philippines, sending ashore waves three times as tall as those from the Tohoku earthquake.
She’s not the only doomsayer.
Chinese media has been reporting the predictions of a self-proclaimed Japanese psychic who suggested a massive earthquake would strike the densely populated Tokyo Bay Area on April 26. Though the date passed without incident, the prediction triggered immense interest on Chinese social media.
Qi Xian Yu, a popular feng shui master and Hong Kong TV personality known as Master Seven, also urged people to stay away from Japan, starting in April.
Japan’s Cabinet Office took to X earlier this month to explain that modern technology has yet to be able to accurately predict an earthquake.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/19/trave...k-intl-hnk
A Japanese comic book warns of a “real catastrophe.” A psychic predicts mass destruction. A feng shui master urges people to stay away.
This might sound like the plot of a disaster movie but for Japan’s tourism industry, a recent spate of so-called earthquake-related “predictions” like these has led to more superstitious travelers, particularly in East Asia, canceling or delaying their holidays.
Published by manga artist Ryo Tatsuki in 1999, “The Future I Saw” warned of a major disaster in March 2011, a date which turned out to coincide with the cataclysmic quake that struck Japan’s northern Tohoku region that month.
Her “complete version” released in 2021 claimed that the next big earthquake will hit this July.
At the same time, psychics from Japan and Hong Kong have shared similar warnings, triggering some unfounded panic online that has led to a flurry of cancelations of travel plans from destinations in the region.
CN Yuen, managing director of WWPKG, a travel agency based in Hong Kong, said bookings to Japan dropped by half during the Easter holiday and are expected to dip further in the coming two months.
The speculations have scared off mostly travelers from mainland China and Hong Kong, which are Japan’s second- and fourth-largest sources of tourists, respectively. But the fear has also spread to other markets such as Thailand and Vietnam, where social media platforms are overflowing with posts and videos warning people to think twice before traveling to Japan.
Anxieties provoked by these prophecies have, according to Yuen, become “ingrained.” He added that “people just say they want to hold off their trip for now.”
Tatsuki’s work has a significant following in East Asia and her fans often believe she can accurately see future events in her dreams.
She draws a cartoon version of herself in the manga, where she shares visions she gleans from her slumbers with other characters. Some of these dreams turn out to bear close resemblance to real-life events.
Her 2011 quake prediction — or coincidence — made Tatsuki famous not just in Japan but also in other parts of Asia like Thailand and China. The comic book has sold 900,000 copies, according to its publisher. It has also been published in Chinese.
Fans believed she also predicted the deaths of Princess Diana and singer Freddie Mercury, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic, however critics say her visions are too vague to be taken seriously.
The manga’s cover bears the words “massive disaster in March, 2011,” leading many to believe that she predicted the 9.0-magnitude earthquake more than a decade before it hit Tohoku.
In the latest edition, “The Future I Saw (Complete Version),” Tatsuki warned that on July 5 this year, a crack will open up under the seabed between Japan and the Philippines, sending ashore waves three times as tall as those from the Tohoku earthquake.
She’s not the only doomsayer.
Chinese media has been reporting the predictions of a self-proclaimed Japanese psychic who suggested a massive earthquake would strike the densely populated Tokyo Bay Area on April 26. Though the date passed without incident, the prediction triggered immense interest on Chinese social media.
Qi Xian Yu, a popular feng shui master and Hong Kong TV personality known as Master Seven, also urged people to stay away from Japan, starting in April.
Japan’s Cabinet Office took to X earlier this month to explain that modern technology has yet to be able to accurately predict an earthquake.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/19/trave...k-intl-hnk
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
