Japan Sinks: 2020 is an animated series available on Netflix about – well, Japan sinking. Having watched the below video about the great earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan in 2011, the story becomes a bit more real and scary.

The Netflix series is based off a disaster novel written by Sakyo Komatsu, published in 1973. While the story itself might be an exaggeration (as it talks about the entire country sinking), it’s still scary how similar it is to the 2011 Megaquake, and considering the fact that it was written 38 years prior to the event!

The show is about how a family tries to survive the greatest disaster that’s ever struck Japan. They meet different people along the way, some more helpful than others. But what this show depicts is really how human beings can be selfish and selfless in the face of disaster. It also shows how our lives can be changed drastically in an instant, and a great reminder of how this Earth is not really ours, and at anytime the Earth can take things away from us without warning.

I’m not going to spoil the series for you, but one of the things that surprised me was that the mother not just from the Philippines, but from my hometown of Cebu. So yes, her kids are half-Filipino, too! Gō, the younger child, in fact speaks English a lot in the series.

Watch Japan Sinks: 2020 on Netflix and let me know how you find it! It may not be an easy watch (it can be anxiety-inducing), but I’d still recommend it as a nice reminder of how life is fleeting, and that our situation now can still be a lot worse so we need to be grateful still, despite of it all!