A powerful 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on July 30, triggering tsunami warnings across the Pacific and flooding the Kuril Islands, has reignited public fascination with one of Japan’s most mysterious figures: Ryo Tatsuki, the manga artist-turned-psychic some have dubbed “Japan’s Baba Vanga.”
In scenes that are now dominating headlines, tsunami waves reaching nearly 10 feet crashed into the fishing port of Severokurilsk, toppling power lines and prompting mass evacuations.
And while scientists continue to monitor the seismic chaos, thousands online are pointing to an eerie prediction — made decades ago — that appears to have come uncannily close to reality.
The woman who saw it coming
Tatsuki, now 70, rose to quiet fame after publishing her illustrated diary The Future I Saw in 1999.
In it, she chronicled vivid, prophetic dreams that she’d been having since 1985. At first dismissed as eccentric fantasy, her work gained serious attention after fans began connecting her drawings and descriptions to real-world events — many of which she seemed to predict with disturbing accuracy.
Her reported hits include the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991, the 1995 Kobe earthquake that killed over 6,000 people, the 2011 Tōhoku disaster that caused Japan’s Fukushima nuclear meltdown, and even a mysterious "unknown virus" arriving in 2020 — what many believe was a reference to the recent pandemic.
But perhaps the most bone-chilling forecast came in a 2021 reprint of her book, where Tatsuki wrote of a catastrophic underwater event due to strike in July 2025.
“The ocean floor between Japan and the Philippines will crack,” she wrote. “Huge waves will rise in all directions. Tsunamis will devastate the Pacific Rim countries.”
She even pinned a specific date: July 5, 2025.
Though the recent disaster arrived 25 days late, believers on social media aren’t seeing it as a miss.
“The ocean will boil”
In her updated writings, Tatsuki described the sea around southern Japan “boiling” and warned of a tsunami three times larger than the one seen during the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, the Mirror reports. She even mentioned dragon-like shapes emerging from the ocean, a haunting image some are interpreting as symbolic of tectonic upheaval or undersea volcanic activity.
The area she pointed to — a diamond-shaped region covering Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the Northern Mariana Islands — matches what scientists today describe as one of the most seismically volatile zones on Earth: the Pacific Ring of Fire.
And while seismologists have been quick to remind the public that there is “no scientific basis” for Tatsuki’s predictions, per Times Now World, they also note that the region she identified is indeed capable of unleashing a mega-tsunami.
Public panic and global fallout
As news of the July 30 quake spread, so too did awareness of Tatsuki’s apparent foresight.
Travel bookings to Japan dropped by as much as 83% in some regions, per NDTV. And according to Bloomberg Intelligence, flights from Hong Kong alone saw a 50% year-on-year decline in June and July.
Online, social media lit up with reactions:
“It is still July… Ryo Tatsuki’s prediction looks alive… tsunami hitting Japan,” one user posted.
“She was only off by a few days. That’s terrifying,” wrote another.
Others referenced the specific July 5 prediction date, noting the chilling proximity: “Wrong on the day, but not on the month, apparently.”
Even tourism officials scrambled to contain the ripple effect. Yoshihiro Murai, governor of Japan’s Miyagi prefecture, dismissed the panic as “unscientific rumours,” urging travellers not to cancel plans based on predictions. “There is no reason to worry because the Japanese are not fleeing abroad,” he said.
Despite the renewed attention, Tatsuki herself has expressed discomfort with how her work has been portrayed. Speaking to The Sankei Shimbun, she said: “I was unhappy that it was published primarily based on the publisher’s wishes. I vaguely remember mentioning it, but it appears to have been hurriedly written during a rush of work.”
Tatsuki retired in 2020 — a year she once cryptically called her “own funeral” — but resurfaced this year with a quiet acknowledgment of the chaos her prediction has stirred.
Echoes of Baba Vanga
Tatsuki’s growing mystique has drawn comparisons to the late Baba Vanga, the blind Bulgarian mystic known for her prophetic visions. Like Tatsuki, Vanga predicted major disasters, political upheaval, and scientific breakthroughs, and claimed to have gained her powers after a life-changing childhood event.
Vanga’s 2025 forecast isn’t exactly reassuring either. She reportedly predicted war in the East and a devastated Europe, with Russian President Vladimir Putin rising to dominate the world.
“Russia will not only survive, it will dominate the world,” she allegedly said.
Science vs. belief
Experts like Dave Snider from the U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center emphasize that tsunamis are complex, multi-wave events that can travel the ocean “as fast as a jet airplane.” Even when one wave passes, others can follow hours later, making the threat persistent and unpredictable.
As reported by Phys.org, Snider said: "A tsunami is not just one wave. It's a series of powerful waves over a long period of time. Tsunamis cross the ocean at hundreds of miles an hour — as fast as a jet airplane — in deep water. But when they get close to the shore, they slow down and start to pile up. And that's where that inundation problem becomes a little bit more possible there.
"In this case, because of the Earth basically sending out these huge ripples of water across the ocean, they're going to be moving back and forth for quite a while."
Still, the overlap between Tatsuki’s warning and real-world events is enough to make even skeptics pause.
Whether you believe she’s a visionary or just uncannily lucky, one thing is clear: Ryo Tatsuki’s name is now permanently etched into the uneasy headlines of 2025.
And with five months left in the year — and another “boiling sea” vision lingering in the public mind — many are watching, waiting, and quietly bracing for what might come next.