2025 tsunami, 2011 quake and Princess Diana's death: Did a 90's manga really predict these disasters?

Did a 1999 manga prediction come true?

Ryo Tatsuki, a relatively unknown manga artist until recently, found herself thrust into the spotlight owing to a manga she released over two decades ago. Her 1999 work, The Future I Saw, has taken on a second life in 2025, with fans and internet sleuths claiming it ‘predicted’ real-world events, including the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, and now, a supposed July 2025 disaster. The manga has since sparked viral conversations, flight cancellations, and a wave of public anxiety across East Asia, to the point that Tatsuki herself, had to come out and clarify her stance.

More dream journal than traditional manga, The Future I Saw is a visual diary of dreams Tatsuki recorded between 1985 and the late '90s. She created it as her farewell to the manga world after experiencing a creative block. The book’s most talked-about element: A phrase printed on the cover stating, ‘The disaster will arrive in March 2011.’ After the real-life March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, fans began to look back at Tatsuki’s book with a different perspective.

Later reprints, especially the 2021 and 2022 editions, reignited interest by including a new statement: ‘A real disaster will happen in July 2025.’

That one line on the cover, July 2025, set off a chain reaction. By late 2024, conversations about the manga exploded across social media in countries like China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and the Philippines. Videos dissected the book, users speculated about tsunamis or asteroid impacts, and even news outlets began reporting on growing fears about travelling to Japan.

Holiday bookings dropped sharply. Bloomberg reported up to 83% declines in Japanese travel from some regions. Some airlines reduced or cancelled flights altogether.

While the timing of some dreams, like one involving the phrase ‘March 2011’, has raised eyebrows, Tatsuki has clarified to several outlets,  that she never intended her work to be seen as a prediction. The March 2011 reference only appeared on the book’s original cover, not inside the manga itself. Other dreams mentioned, such as those involving Freddie Mercury and Dianna,’ were interpreted retroactively by readers after real-world events took place.  For instance, Ryo Tatsuki's ‘Diana dream,’ as described, occurred in 1992—five years before Princess Diana’s tragic death in 1997. Here's what she reportedly experienced: She dreamed of a portrait of a woman, and during the dream, she heard a voice say the name ‘DIANNA’ (with that specific spelling). However, nowhere in the dream did she see or sense death. Tatsuki herself later clarified that there was no implication in the dream that the woman would die, and any connection to Princess Diana's fatal car accident was made after the fact by readers, not by her.

This is one of the examples where readers retrospectively interpreted the dream as a prediction, even though Tatsuki did not make any such claim.

Tatsuki herself has always described her work as deeply personal, not predictive.

As the hysteria reached new heights in July 2025, Tatsuki released a rare public statement via her publisher. She made it clear that The Future I Saw is a collection of dreams, not warnings. She emphasised that she had no intention of forecasting future events, and discouraged readers from drawing conclusions beyond the content itself.