Japan's July 2025 Earthquake Rumor Hits Travel Bookings as Scientists Reject Manga Prophecy

A disaster rumor is changing travel plans

Flight reservations from Hong Kong to Japan for late June and early July 2025 have fallen by as much as 83% compared with a year earlier, as a prediction in a manga spreads anxiety about a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. The rumor has prompted airlines to cut services and some travelers to choose mainland China, Australia or Europe instead.

At the center of the scare is Japanese artist Ryo Tatsuki's Watashi ga Mita Mirai, translated as The Future I Saw. A new edition published in 2021 warned of a catastrophe in July 2025. Online discussion has focused on July 5, giving an imagined disaster a date around which travelers can change their plans.

As of June 12, 2025, Japan's scientific authorities say there is no scientific basis for the prophecy. The Japan Meteorological Agency, or JMA, has repeatedly said there are no signs of an impending disaster in July. Scientists cannot predict the exact time, location and magnitude of an earthquake.

Japan nevertheless faces a genuine, continuing earthquake risk. The country sits atop four major tectonic plates and within the seismically active Ring of Fire. The question for travelers is how to understand that lasting risk without letting a dated prediction dictate their decisions.

The economic effects are already visible, even while Japan's total visitor numbers remain strong. Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, all important tourism markets for Japan, have become centers of concern as the story spreads through social media, television coverage and conversations about disaster preparedness.

How a dream diary became a prophecy

Tatsuki first published The Future I Saw in 1999, drawing on dreams she had recorded in the 1980s. The manga contains 15 dreams recorded in 1985, illustrated and accompanied by dates and cryptic messages.

One entry referred to a "great disaster" in March 2011. Readers later connected it with the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that struck that month, killing nearly 20,000 people and triggering the Fukushima nuclear disaster. That apparent correspondence helped give Tatsuki a cult following in Japan and elsewhere in East Asia.

Other events attributed to the manga's predictions include the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the deaths of Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury, and a pandemic in 2020 that readers interpreted as COVID-19. Those claims have helped build its reputation as a book that foresaw major events.

The 2021 complete edition brought a new warning: "The real catastrophe will come in July 2025." Tatsuki described a crack opening beneath the seabed between Japan and the Philippines, a tsunami "three times larger" than the 2011 disaster, and the ocean "boiling" off Japan's coast.

The reprint has sold nearly a million copies since 2021. Its growing readership, combined with the approaching month named in the book, has carried a collection of personal dreams into a much wider debate about travel and safety.

The main dates behind the story show how that attention developed:

• 1985: Tatsuki recorded the 15 dreams described in the manga.
• 1999: The Future I Saw was first published.
• March 2011: The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami gave new attention to the manga's reference to a disaster that month.
• 2021: A complete edition introduced the warning about July 2025.
• Early 2025: Feng shui practitioners and psychics helped spread the prediction in Hong Kong and mainland China.
• May 21, 2025: JMA director general Ryoichi Nomura addressed the rumors at a briefing.
• July 5, 2025: The specific date circulating in the prophecy discussion remains ahead as of June 12.

Why the warning spread across borders

Influential feng shui masters and psychics in Hong Kong and mainland China began referring to the manga's prediction in early 2025. Viral videos, the hashtag #July2025Prediction and sales of survival equipment helped give the story a sense of urgency.

Coverage across Asia repeated the manga's supposed record of predictions, including the 2011 earthquake, famous deaths and the pandemic. For people already familiar with images of Japan's disasters, the combination of an apparent past success and a specific future date made the warning especially unsettling.

A Japanese government damage projection for the Nankai Trough, a fault zone off the country's Pacific coast, appeared around the same time. The government's assessment raised the probability of a major earthquake over 30 years from 70-80% to around 80%. Some people interpreted that scientific assessment as confirmation of the manga's warning.

The two claims concern different kinds of information. A probability covering three decades describes a region's earthquake risk over a long period. A prediction naming July 2025 claims to identify when a particular disaster will happen. Current science can estimate the former, while the latter remains beyond its capabilities.

Japan's frequent exposure to earthquakes provides a powerful setting for such fears. The devastation of 2011 remains part of the public's experience, making warnings about another tsunami emotionally charged even when they come from a work based on dreams.

Travel agencies and airlines feel the losses

Figures attributed to Bloomberg Intelligence and ForwardKeys show that flight bookings from Hong Kong to Japan dropped by 50% compared with a year earlier during the April-May spring break. Reservations for late June to early July fell by as much as 83%.

The decline was not confined to Hong Kong. Similar booking weakness was reported in Taiwan and South Korea, with some travel agencies recording an 80% reduction in summer bookings. Discounts and promotions have struggled to overcome travelers' concerns.

Greater Bay Airlines, a carrier based in Hong Kong that operates on a low cost model, reduced its Sendai service from four to two round trips a week. That is half its previous weekly frequency. It also cut Tokushima flights as reservations stagnated. Other airlines and travel agencies reported similar difficulties.

Yuen Chun-ning, executive director of Hong Kong travel agency WWPKG, described how the repeated circulation of the rumor was affecting customers:

The continuous dissemination of rumors has significantly dented confidence among Hong Kong travelers heading to Japan. Even with discounts and promotions, the lack of bookings is a clear indication of travelers' unwillingness to take risks.

Some travelers have chosen mainland China, Australia or Europe instead. For Japanese destinations affected by reduced services and fewer reservations, anxiety about an event in July is already changing the flow of visitors before the predicted date arrives.

Japan's wider tourism picture remains strong

The Japan National Tourism Organization recorded a record 10.5 million international visitors in the first three months of 2025. Strong growth from mainland China and other regions has helped keep national tourism numbers robust.

Those figures sit alongside the sharp declines reported in particular markets and booking periods. The 10.5 million total counts people who visited during January through March, while the largest reported reservation decline concerns travel planned for late June and early July.

Japan can therefore have strong national visitor numbers while airlines serving particular routes face weak demand. The concern for tourism businesses is concentrated in the places, services and travel markets where the rumor is changing behavior.

Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea matter because they are key sources of visitors to Japan. A sustained reluctance to book from those markets would affect the local economies that depend on their travelers, even while growth elsewhere supports the national total.

What earthquake science can actually tell travelers

The JMA continuously monitors seismic and volcanic activity. Its position on the July prediction is straightforward: the exact timing and location of an earthquake cannot be forecast, and there are no signs of an impending disaster in July 2025.

Ryoichi Nomura, director general of the JMA, addressed the rumors at a May 21 briefing and urged people to avoid decisions driven by a dated disaster claim:

It is impossible to predict the exact time and location of an earthquake. We urge the public not to be swayed by disaster information that specifies a date and strongly advise against acting irrationally out of fear.

Seismologists can estimate the chance of a major earthquake occurring within a region over decades. Pinpointing a particular day or month, together with an exact location and magnitude, is beyond current scientific capability.

Stewart Fishwick, professor of geophysics at the University of Leicester, explained that even estimates covering decades can vary:

Even the 80% chance in the next 30 years is at the very high end of the range of forecasts that have been made for this area—others put it at around 10-30%. The precise time, location, and magnitude of a particular earthquake cannot be predicted.

The practical meaning is that Japan's earthquake risk continues across the calendar. A probability for the next 30 years gives planners a reason to prepare for a major event, while providing no scientific timetable for a disaster on July 5.

Why the story finds an audience

Laura Miller, professor of Japanese studies at the University of Missouri, places the manga within a broader culture of predictions and attempts to make sense of uncertainty. Divination and forecasts appear throughout popular culture, including many other manga.

Miller described how Tatsuki's work may give readers a focus for worries that are otherwise difficult to name:

Divination and forecasts about the future are present in all forms of popular culture, including hundreds of other manga. Perhaps Tatsuki's manga resonates with people outside Japan who have amorphous worries about the future, and this manga is a way to debate or focus on anxiety.

Japan's history of destructive earthquakes, together with the collective trauma of 2011, makes disaster warnings especially sensitive. Social media allows an alarming claim to circulate rapidly, with repeated exposure bringing it to people far beyond the manga's original audience.

Similar waves of anxiety have appeared elsewhere, including the 2012 Mayan apocalypse scare. In Japan's case, a real and familiar natural hazard has become attached to a precise date in popular discussion, bringing personal fears into decisions about flights and holidays.

The author and officials urge calm

Tatsuki herself has cautioned readers against taking the predictions literally. In a recent interview, the manga artist encouraged people to seek expert guidance:

It's important not to be unnecessarily influenced… and to listen to the opinions of experts.

Yoshihiro Murai, governor of Miyagi Prefecture, has also challenged the rumor's effect on tourism. Miyagi was among the regions hardest hit by the 2011 earthquake, giving the issue particular weight for the prefecture.

Murai used a press conference to urge visitors to set aside the claims circulating online:

It would be a major problem if the spread of unscientific rumors on social media had an effect on tourism. There is no reason to worry because Japanese are not fleeing abroad… I hope people will ignore the rumors and visit.

Japanese officials, the JMA and disaster preparedness specialists have repeated the same practical message: travelers should rely on scientific advice and remain prepared for natural disasters, without canceling plans because of a fictional prediction.

Preparedness matters beyond a date in July

Japan has extensive measures intended to reduce the damage caused by earthquakes and tsunamis. They include a 400-kilometer tsunami wall, building codes designed for earthquake resistance and high speed trains equipped with seismic detection systems.

That infrastructure makes Japan better equipped than most countries to respond to natural disasters. Earthquakes nevertheless remain unpredictable, so preparedness is a continuing responsibility rather than something tied to the month named in a manga.

For travelers considering Japan in summer 2025, the central advice from authorities is to stay informed through expert guidance and maintain ordinary disaster preparedness. The July prophecy has already affected bookings and flight schedules, but scientific understanding provides no basis for treating its date as an earthquake forecast.

Key Points

• Ryo Tatsuki's The Future I Saw has fueled fears of an earthquake and tsunami in July 2025, with online attention focused on July 5.
• Hong Kong flight reservations for late June and early July fell by as much as 83%, while some travel agencies reported an 80% fall in summer bookings.
• Greater Bay Airlines halved its weekly Sendai frequency and cut Tokushima flights amid weak reservations.
• Japan recorded a record 10.5 million international visitors in the first three months of 2025 despite difficulties in particular markets.
• The JMA says precise earthquake prediction is impossible and there is no scientific basis for the July prophecy.
• Tatsuki and Japanese officials have urged people to listen to experts, remain prepared and avoid decisions driven by rumors.