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Last June, the death of author Ben Goto did not escape notice in the media. Goto was best remembered for "Great Prophesies of Nostradamus," published in 1973, and several spinoffs.
Goto's works concerned the prognostications of 16th century French astrologer and physician Michel de Nostredame, who in 1555 published a book of poetic quatrains that are believed by some to have accurately predicted wars and other catastrophic events.
Japanese readers purchased over 6 million copies of Goto's scary books, although skeptics also had fun attempting to debunk them, disparaging the medieval French seer as "Nostre-damasu" -- damasu being the Japanese word for cheat or deceive.
Goto might have departed to the big catastrophe in the sky, but some Japanese are flocking to works in a similarly scary vein by manga author Ryo Tatsuki, Friday (April 9) reports.
Published in 1999, her comic, titled "The future as I see it," predicted that "a huge catastrophe will occur in March 2011." What's more, Tatsuki also issued a prediction on her home page to the effect that "around 2020, an unknown virus will appear, reaching its peak in April; it will then vanish but reappear 10 years later."
That particular issue of Tatsuki's manga has achieved cult status, with a copy in good condition selling on web auction sites for 100,000 yen or higher.
Upon further research, Friday's writer found that in other manga issues Tatsuki also predicted the deaths of Freddie Mercury of the rock band Queen in 1991, and Princess Diana in 1997.
What scared the writer even more however, were predictions of things that have yet to happen, namely a major eruption of Mt Fuji and a megathrust earthquake along the Nankai Trough.
"Tatsuki-san says that her prophesies follow a 15-year cycle," says Leo, the manager of her website. "She foresaw the 2011 disaster in Tohoku, in March 1996. But should something she predicts not occur, then an additional 15 years should be added, so the next time for it to occur would be 30 years from now, or 45 years, and so on.
"So since the major eruption of Mt Fuji did not occur 15 years after the prediction, in 2006, then there's a high probability of it happening on August 20 of this year."
"Likewise for the Nankai Trough earthquake. As it came to Tatsuki in a dream in the summer of 1981, the next probability of it occurring will be 45 years later, between June through September of 2026."
Through Leo's good offices, Friday's reporter made contact with Tatsuki -- who generally does not conduct media interviews -- after patiently waiting for one month.
"There's a strong chance of a major eruption of Mt Fuji this year," Tatsuki is quoted as saying. "In the dream that inspired the prediction, I saw the eruption from a long distance. So for that reason I wasn't able to be specific about the degree of damage it will wreak.
"But in the case of the Nankai earthquake, I was also washed away by a tsunami," she continues. "As shown in my illustrations, extensive parts of Kanagawa Prefecture are inundated, including the area around Aokibashi in the Kinko-cho area of Yokohama's Kanagawa Ward."
Not leaving anything to chance, Tatsuki says she plans to move out of Kanagawa Prefecture before June 2026.
And how about this coming August? Is there anything a person can do to prepare?
"Realistically, I guess what you can do is refrain from mountain climbing," Tatsuki advises.
"I do not possess a power of prophetic dreaming, but rather view my dreams through the process of 'seven dimensional shogi,"' she explains. (Shogi is a form of Asian chess.) "My role is to 'issue warnings to reduce the damage.' Everything stems from 'them,' in accordance with their strategy."
Tatsuki adds that her dream about the Tohoku catastrophe, in March 1996, was "the last" one of its kind.
"I have regular dreams, but the ones that contain a prophecy are different. It's hard to explain," she says.
Asked if she had a message for Friday readers, Tatsuki replied, "If a major earthquake occurs, even if you are living in a place that was never hit by a tsunami back to your grandparents' generation, evacuate at once!"
© Japan Today
12 Comments
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virusrex
But how many predictions did this author made in total?
I mean getting 10 things right out of 12 predicted is not the same as getting 10 things right out of 300 that were predicted.
NCIS Reruns
I would assume the number of misses are purposely overlooked, as a way of fortifying her mystique. Friday's writer doesn't seem to have bothered researching anything negative. This sort of position is endemic in local reporting here, and has led to numerous religious scoundrels being treated as modern-day prophets. Unfortunately, there is a tendency in the media to indulge in mumbo-jumbo, so as to appeal to people who enjoy fantasizing about the occult.
Jsapc
It has been in it "infancy" for decades because it's all a bunch of bullcrap.
1glenn
In 1962, in his book "Profiles of the Future: An inquiry into the Limits of the Possible," Arthur C. Clarke formulated what are known as Clarke's three laws, the most famous of which is, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," which is to say that there is much that we do not understand, however far advanced we think we have become.
Or, as Shakespeare said in 1609, through Hamlet, "There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
And, in 1633, one of the founders of modern science, Galileo Galilei, was forced to renounce his statement that Earth is not the center of the universe, because those with a vested interest in the status quo found the findings of science counterproductive.
All of which is to say, keeping an open and inquisitive mind is not the same thing as adopting and promulgating conspiracy theories. To pronounce that anything which we do not already understand is therefore impossible is not only counterproductive, but anti-science.
ZombieNemesis
No one knows for sure what the distant future holds, but we all love to guess. Only after monitoring/analyzing past and current conditions, can someone use mathematical probability to get close in predicting the near future. i.e.: predicting the weather.
1glenn
The question about her rate of accuracy is an important point to ask, but the specificity of some of her predictions that were accurate is amazing. To give the month and year of a tsunami, and then a pandemic, is more than what Nostradamus was able to do.
Since she is still alive, talking with her scientifically is a rare opportunity. The field of ESP is really in its infancy, and here is a chance to advance our knowledge by leaps and bounds.
virusrex
That is again completely dependent on the the total number of predictions.
Is this the only date she ever give for a tsunami? or will we find a few dozens more if everything she wrote is examined? The same for diseases and famous people deaths.
I mean, if I predict the deaths of 200 famous people at random in the next 5 years there is a very nice chance I would get at least a few right. Same if I predict 10 disasters and two different kinds of outbreaks every year.
Now, chance alone will let me get at least 3 or 4 things right this way, but if I am only one out of a hundred people that do the same some of us will do better or worse than expected again just by chance alone.
A reporter then just have to get the story of the one author out of the hundred that had the best number of predictions that turned up right (lets say 20) and only present those 20 hits. There, you have something that looks supernatural, but only as long as you don't examine it too closely.
Kumagaijin
Sylvia Browne also predicted in her End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies about the End of the World. She wrote "In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and bronchial tubes resisting all known treatments".
I think for every major world event, there are probably a few who get it right given the amount of predictions that are made every year. There is probably someone out there that predicted a ship blocking the Suez or the rise of Bitcoin.
lostinyok
She lifted that from Dean Koontz' 1981 book The Eyes of Darkness. Koontz did not accurately imagine corona, but the bit about vanishing and coming back 10 years later is straight from the book.
1glenn
Ms. Tatsuki deserves some study.
For instance, how many predictions has she made, and how many can be said to have been accurate? I do not make any claims for the veracity of her work, but, given what is said in the article, I would be interested in reading the results of a study of her work.
kurisupisu
Which people do not always do-good advice!
Lazarus Knows
Nah, ESP is nonsense. It isn't real.