As tsunami waves swept the Pacific, some in Asia saw signs of a manga prophecy come true

As powerful waves surged across the vast Pacific on Wednesday, people around the world remained glued to their phones, tracking the tsunami’s fast progress.

But in China, more than a million people were searching for an unusual term: “Prophecy.”

That’s because, for some, the natural disaster had seemingly been foretold four years earlier, in a Japanese manga comic book.

Published in 2021 by artist Ryo Tatsuki – whose fans say her earlier works have been similarly prophetic – the manga claimed that the next big earthquake would hit this July, sparking a flurry of viral internet memes and debates across much of Asia in recent months.

In China, a search term related to Tatsuki’s so-called “prophecy” gained more than 1.1 million views on the video app Douyin in the immediate aftermath of Wednesday’s Pacific tsunami.