In recent weeks, a previously obscure manga has captured headlines both in Japan and internationally. The Future I Saw (Watashi ga Mita Mirai), by author Ryo Tatsuki, includes a claim that Japan will experience a catastrophic natural disaster in July 2025. This forecast is reportedly causing some travelers to cancel their summer trips to Japan and has fueled widespread discussion on Japanese social media. Why are some people giving credence to Tatsuki's predictions? And how has an upcoming Japanese horror film become entangled in this wave of anxiety?

Ryo Tatsuki's manga The Future I Saw was originally published in 1999. It features a character based on Tatsuki herself and draws from the dream journals she has maintained since 1985. The cover of the 1999 edition depicts Tatsuki's character with a hand raised to one eye, with postcards above her head illustrating various "visions" she claims to have witnessed. One postcard reads "March 2011: A Great Disaster." Following the catastrophic Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011, Tatsuki's manga was rediscovered, leading to surging interest and driving up prices for out-of-print copies on auction sites.

In 2021, a new Complete Edition of Tatsuki's manga was published. This version adds another premonition: an even larger natural disaster will strike Japan in July 2025. Tatsuki describes a tsunami three times the scale of the March 2011 event. Given the perceived accuracy of her earlier March 2011 prediction, details of this July 2025 warning rapidly spread across Japanese social networks.

As noted by various media reports, Tatsuki's July 2025 prediction appears to have influenced some superstitious travelers to avoid Japan this summer. The exact scale of this decline is unclear, with the trend seeming most pronounced in Hong Kong, where a translated version of the manga is available. According to the Sankei Shimbun and CNN, Hong Kong-based fortune teller and TV personality Master Seven has amplified Tatsuki's prediction, asserting that Japan's earthquake risk will be elevated between June and August of this year.

Japanese television coverage has focused on responses from Hong Kong-based airlines to these predictions. As reported by ANN News and other broadcasters earlier this month, Hong Kong Airlines canceled its three weekly flights to Sendai, a Japanese city severely affected by the 2011 earthquake. Similarly, Greater Bay Airlines is reducing its direct flights from Hong Kong to Sendai and Tokushima between May and October, citing a sudden drop in demand for travel to Japan. Potential reasons cited for this decline include the July disaster predictions and broader economic uncertainty. During an April press conference, Miyagi Prefecture Governor Yoshihiro Murai, whose region includes Sendai, criticized the "unscientific basis" of the disaster predictions circulating on social media and urged vacationers to disregard them.

This increased mainstream media attention on The Future I Saw and its purported impact on tourism has, naturally, returned the manga to the spotlight. On May 23, it was reported that the Complete Edition had sold over 1 million copies. This resurgence in interest coincides with the upcoming film July 5 2025, 4:18 AM, scheduled for release in Japanese theaters on June 27. The movie, in which strange events begin to unfold for a protagonist with a July 5th birthday, draws inspiration from the July 2025 earthquake prediction in Tatsuki's manga. The current media coverage of the manga and its disaster forecast is likely boosting awareness for the film.

However, some Japanese social media discussions and videos mistakenly report that the movie's title refers to the exact date of the predicted disaster, blending scientific seismic information with alarmist claims. This prompted the publisher, Asuka Shinsha, to issue a clarifying statement: "We wish to reiterate that the author (Tatsuki) did not specify the exact date and time referenced in the movie's title. We ask that people take care not to be misled by fragmented information in the press and on social media."

From earthquakes and tsunamis to floods and landslides, natural disasters are a frequent reality in Japan. While unscientific, Tatsuki's premonition and its coverage tap into a larger, scientifically supported concern. Seismologists estimate a 70-80% probability of a Nankai Trough megaquake occurring in Japan within the next 30 years (sources: Asahi News, Kobe University). This topic returned to Japanese news this year after the government published revised fatality projections for such an event in late March 2025. A Nankai Trough megaquake could affect a vast area of Japan, impacting numerous major cities and potentially causing around 300,000 deaths, accompanied by massive tsunamis. This explains why fear-inducing posts often conflate Tatsuki's premonition with scientific worst-case scenarios for the Nankai Trough. However, accurately predicting the precise date and location of a major earthquake or tsunami beforehand remains impossible. The Japan Meteorological Agency labels such specific predictions as "hoaxes" on its homepage. Given Japan's high susceptibility to natural disasters, Tatsuki's March 2011 premonition may have simply been a coincidence.

In recent weeks, many Japanese-speaking commentators on X have been critical of the media coverage and panic surrounding Tatsuki's prediction. "It's foolish to believe disaster predictions from a manga. The Nankai Trough quake could happen today or tomorrow," stated one user. Tatsuki herself has responded to the attention, expressing hope that interest in her manga might improve public disaster preparedness, but urging people not to be "overly influenced" by her premonition and to "act appropriately based on expert opinions" (Mainichi Shimbun).