What 'prophetic' manga supposedly predicting Jul. 5 earthquake in Japan actually says

Japan has seen record tourist arrivals for the year.

However an earlier Bloomberg article noted that holiday bookings dropped after a manga predicted a July 2025 earthquake.

That manga purportedly predicted a July disaster.

But what does the book actually say?

Why?

Before that, why is this book even taken seriously?

For that, we'll reference the original printing of the book.

In it, the author, Ryo Tatsuki, purportedly made a prediction that a major disaster would strike Japan in March 2011.

The manga itself was written in 1999. It consists of a set of supposedly prophetic dreams by the author.

The next big prediction though came about in a 2021 rerelease of the book.

In the introduction of the new release, the book claims that an impersonator had been giving out interviews and adding their own spin to the original prophecies.

Which is why the author, who had apparently been silent for 22 years, re-released the book.

This "complete" version features even more prophecies that were not published in the first book.

More pointedly, and this is where all this July business stems from, the author says "the real catastrophe will arrive in July 2025".

But even if you wholeheartedly believe in the author, that doesn't mean the Jul. 5 date is set in stone.

July or Jul. 5

But how did the Jul. 5 date come to play?

Well it turns out there was a movie that is coming out which apparently documents these prophecies.

This work is based on an urban legend that says a disaster will happen on Jul. 5, 2025 at 4:18am.

The publisher had came out to clarify that that the author was not in any way associated with the work, and that the author's prediction had just mentioned July, instead of any specific date in July.

So, what could have been the possible misinterpretation from a broader date, to a more specified date?

It turns out the author had written down the date where she had the dream/prophecy.

So not a specific date for the purported disaster, but the date when she had the dream.

She wrote about a huge tsunami spreading to surrounding countries.

The date is significant though because the author reportedly had prophetic dreams, where said prophecy happens during the same month but just years later.

Earthquakes cannot be predicted

Despite the hooplah, experts say there is no method to accurately predict when earthquakes will happen.

Japan Meteorological Agency director general Ryoichi Nomura had earlier stated:

"[It is] impossible to predict an earthquake with specific timing, location or its magnitude", and "any such prediction is a hoax, and there is absolutely no need to worry about such disinformation".

Image from Kinokuniya & online PDF