Believing the artist's 'prophet', many tourists cancel tours to Japan

A manga artist's predictions of a major disaster hitting Japan in 2025 have scared people so much they're canceling their summer vacations to the country.

Many people call manga author Ryo Tatsuki Baba "Manga", after Baba Vanga, the famous Bulgarian prophet.

“The Future I Saw” is a manga with strange predictive abilities by Ryo Tatsuki.

PHOTO: Asuka Shinsha

In the 2021 edition (which has sold 1 million copies) of the author's best-selling comic series "The Future I Saw," she predicted a disaster would occur on July 5, 2025.

The uproar came after many readers linked the original series to a 1999 issue in which the author warned of a "major disaster" hitting Japan in March 2011 - the same day as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that killed more than 18,000 people and caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

As a result, many people believed Tatsuki's latest hunch so much that they posted notices on social media warning people to stay away from the Land of the Rising Sun.

With the so-called apocalypse approaching, many travelers who had booked trips to Japan for the summer of 2025 are faltering and postponing or canceling their vacations altogether.

Flight bookings to Japan from major markets such as South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong have dropped sharply following the prophecy.

According to a survey by Bloomberg Intelligence, trips from Hong Kong have dropped 50% compared to the same period last year, while trips from late June to early July have plummeted by 83%. Not stopping there, a Hong Kong-based travel agency announced that trips to Japan during the spring break from April to May have halved compared to last year.

Since then, Japanese officials have urged people to ignore the warnings, which they say are completely unfounded.

"It would be a big problem if the spread of unscientific rumors on social media affected tourism," Yoshihiro Murai, governor of Miyagi prefecture - one of the areas hardest hit by the 2011 earthquake - said at a press conference, according to the Daily Mail . "There is no reason to worry because Japanese people are not fleeing abroad… I hope people will ignore the rumors and come visit."

Houses are washed away by water after a tsunami and earthquake in Natori city, northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011.

PHOTO: Reuters

Unfortunately, the so-called Japanese disaster is not the only disaster that lies ahead, according to "The Future I Saw." "Prophet" Tatsuki also predicted in the work that Covid-19 - which killed more than 7 million people and overwhelmed hospitals in 2020 - will return in 2030 and cause "an even greater disaster."

“An unknown virus will emerge in 2020, disappear after peaking in April, and reappear 10 years later,” she wrote.

In a recent interview with Japanese media, Tatsuki warned people to be cautious with her predictions. “It is important not to be unnecessarily influenced… and to listen to the opinions of experts,” she said.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/tin-loi-nha-tien-tri-hoa-si-nhieu-du-khach-huy-tour-den-nhat-ban-185250605121238358.htm