List of prophecies by Ryo Tatsuki, Japan's Baba Vanga: A famous death, a virus and more

Ryo Tatsuki, Japan's Baba Vanga, is in the news as July 5 approaches. The manga writer had predicted in a book that Japan would witness a major earthquake and a devastating tsunami on this day. It will be worse than the magnitude 9 quake that hit Tohoku in 2011, which killed nearly 20,000 people. The prophecy had triggered panic among the Japanese and those who had planned on visiting the country during this time. Meanwhile, Japan's meteorological agency brushed aside such concerns and said that it was all unscientific and a hoax. Tatsuki's 1999 book, titled "Watashi ga mita mirai" (The Future I Saw), predicted an event on July 5 and many more things. Here are other predictions made by Tatsuki in her book.

At the time the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake slammed Tōhoku, Tatsuki's book wasn't popular. It was only in 2020 that it went viral for apparently predicting a disaster in Japan in 2011. Its front page carried the prediction, and soon TV channels and other media sources picked it up. The Japanese watched in awe as the book was splashed everywhere. How could a book written in 1999 predict a disaster in 2011? "I dreamed of a great disaster. The waters of the Pacific Ocean south of the Japanese archipelago will rise," a passage in the book reads.

Reports by the Japanese media suggest that Tatsuki also predicted the COVID-19 pandemic. She wrote in the manga that a virus would cause global devastation in 2020. "Around 2020, an unknown virus will appear, reaching its peak in April," a line in the book reads. The virus did not peak in April of the same year, but in 2021.

Tatsuki's prediction about the COVID-19 pandemic did not end with 2020. She has apparently also predicted that the virus will return. She wrote in the same comic that "it will then vanish but reappear around 10 years later." So the virus that put the entire world into lockdown might stage a comeback in the next five years, if Tatsuki's prediction comes true.

Way before Ryo Tatsuki wrote the manga, she dreamt about the death of the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen, Freddie Mercury. She had a vision about the event on November 24, 1976, exactly 15 years before Mercury passed away on November 24, 1991. Tatsuki had a second dream, on November 29, 1986, in which she saw the other band members and a statue of an unknown man.

The Great Hanshin Earthquake, or the Kobe Earthquake, was Japan's second-deadliest earthquake in the 20th century. A 6.9 magnitude quake shook the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture on January 17, 1995. Tatsuki had a vision about this destruction. The ground shook for nearly 20 seconds and killed 5,000 people.

Tatsuki had a vision about a major disaster in Japan in 2025, which would be much more terrible than the 2011 event. She wrote, "The Ocean floor between Japan and the Philippines will crack. Huge waves will rise in all directions. Tsunamis will devastate the Pacific Rim countries. A tsunami three times higher than that of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011 will strike the southwest of the country." Since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami happened, as predicted, her prophecy for 2025 has terrified people.

The good news is that Tatsuki's predictions follow a "15-year cycle". Meaning, if an event does not happen as predicted, it moves forward by 15 years. So if Japan remains safe from the devastating prophecy for July 5, then it moves forward to 2040. Similarly, if COVID-19 does not return in 2030, the world can breathe a sigh of relief until 2045.