Predictions and prophecies often give us fascinating outlooks into the future, but often it's the case where the only things that are foreseen are events that change the world for the worse.
People have been predicting the future ever since the 16th century when Michel de Nostredame - more commonly known as Nostradamus - wrote his prophetic work named 'Les Prophéties' which encapsulated 942 poetic views into the world still yet to come.
In the five centuries since then there have been a number of different individuals who have seemingly been able to accurately predict the future, including the mysterious healer Baba Vanga, YouTube 'prophets', TV shows like The Simpsons, and even AI recreations of Nostradamus himself.
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One perhaps underrated mystic though is Japanese manga author Ryo Tatsuki, who has managed to envision a number of accurate predictions through her dreams, most notably the arrival of the devastating Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, as repoted by Japan Today.
Her comic titled 'The future as I see it' in 1999 prophesied that "around 2020, an unknown virus will appear, reaching its peak in April."
While it's hard to define when exactly Covid's 'peak' was, as its death toll continued to be horrific for months and even into the next year, it's certainly on the money when it comes to the arrival of the virus itself.
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This is far from the only thing that Tatsuki has correctly predicted either, as she seemingly foresaw the deaths of both Freddie Mercury and Princess Diana in other works.
However, the most concerning aspect of her pandemic prediction in 'The future as I see it' is what came immediately after, as it paints an unpleasant picture of what's to come in the next few years.
Following on from the vision of an unknown virus in 2020, Tatsuki outlines that "it will then vanish but reappear around 10 years later."
This would mean that another world-halting pandemic could very well be brewing right now, reading to pop up in 2030 and cause mass devastation once again. As a small silver lining you'd hope that global health organisations would be better equipped to deal with a pandemic on the same scale as Covid-19 if it happened so soon after, but you never truly know until it happens.
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This isn't the first time that people have envisioned a new virus on the horizon either, as scientists have discovered similar strains in animals, and even our good friend Nostradamus himself has predicted the return of a pandemic following the devastation caused by Covid-19.
One thing that might perhaps be on our side is the fact that Tatsuki's predictions don't always stick to their original date. It is argued that her visions follow a '15 year cycle', so if the date passes and nothing happens then it's shifted forward 15 years until it eventually comes true - a convenient answer, of course.
So, if 2030 rolls around and there's no pandemic in sight, then we should be all good until 2045 when the threat will then rise once more. This has been the case for predictions that she's made about catastrophic environmental events, and with the next one scheduled to occur in July of this year, we could very well see how well Tatsuki's abilities hold up in 2025.