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.

Seismologists have long warned that accurately predicting when an earthquake might strike is all but impossible. Japan is a country with a good track record of withstanding even powerful tremors and the prospect of a major quake is something its population lives with on a daily basis.

But the fear of a “big one,” amplified by both soothsayers and social media, is prompting some travelers to get cold feet. And for many, it’s a comic book that’s scaring them away.

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.”

The premonitions
Japan is no stranger to severe earthquakes. It lies on the Ring of Fire, an area of intense seismic and volcanic activity on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

Fears of a “big one” have been mounting since the Japanese government warned in January that there was an 80% chance of a severe earthquake hitting the country’s southern Nankai Trough within 30 years. Some seismologists have been critical of these warnings, questioning whether they can ever be accurate.

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.

The quake triggered a deadly tsunami that killed tens of thousands and crippled the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.