# 2001 in Japan

The following is a list of events that occurred in the year 2001 in Japan. It corresponds to the year Heisei 13 (平成13年 or 平成十三年) in the Japanese calendar.

## Incumbents

* Emperor: Akihito
* Prime Minister: Yoshiro Mori (L–Ishikawa) until April 26, Junichiro Koizumi (L–Kanagawa)
* Chief Cabinet Secretary: Yasuo Fukuda (L–Gunma)
* Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: Shigeru Yamaguchi
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Tamisuke Watanuki (L–Toyama)
* President of the House of Councillors: Yutaka Inoue (L–Chiba), reelected August 7
* Diet sessions: 151st (regular, January 31 to June 29), 152nd (extraordinary, August 7 to August 10), 153rd (extraordinary, September 27 to December 7)

### Governors

* Aichi Prefecture: Masaaki Kanda
* Akita Prefecture: Sukeshiro Terata
* Aomori Prefecture: Morio Kimura
* Chiba Prefecture: Takeshi Numata (until 4 April); Akiko Dōmoto (starting 4 April)
* Ehime Prefecture: Moriyuki Kato
* Fukui Prefecture: Yukio Kurita
* Fukuoka Prefecture: Wataru Asō
* Fukushima Prefecture: Eisaku Satō
* Gifu Prefecture: Taku Kajiwara
* Gunma Prefecture: Hiroyuki Kodera
* Hiroshima Prefecture: Yūzan Fujita
* Hokkaido: Tatsuya Hori
* Hyogo Prefecture: Toshitami Kaihara (until 31 July); Toshizō Ido (starting 1 August)
* Ibaraki Prefecture: Masaru Hashimoto
* Ishikawa Prefecture: Masanori Tanimoto
* Iwate Prefecture: Hiroya Masuda
* Kagawa Prefecture: Takeki Manabe
* Kagoshima Prefecture: Tatsurō Suga
* Kanagawa Prefecture: Hiroshi Okazaki
* Kochi Prefecture: Daijiro Hashimoto
* Kumamoto Prefecture: Yoshiko Shiotani
* Kyoto Prefecture: Teiichi Aramaki
* Mie Prefecture: Masayasu Kitagawa
* Miyagi Prefecture: Shirō Asano
* Miyazaki Prefecture: Suketaka Matsukata
* Nagano Prefecture: Yasuo Tanaka
* Nagasaki Prefecture: Genjirō Kaneko
* Nara Prefecture: Yoshiya Kakimoto
* Niigata Prefecture: Ikuo Hirayama
* Oita Prefecture: Morihiko Hiramatsu
* Okayama Prefecture: Masahiro Ishii
* Okinawa Prefecture: Keiichi Inamine
* Osaka Prefecture: Fusae Ōta
* Saga Prefecture: Isamu Imoto
* Saitama Prefecture: Yoshihiko Tsuchiya
* Shiga Prefecture: Yoshitsugu Kunimatsu
* Shiname Prefecture: Nobuyoshi Sumita
* Shizuoka Prefecture: Yoshinobu Ishikawa
* Tochigi Prefecture: Akio Fukuda
* Tokushima Prefecture: Toshio Endo
* Tokyo: Shintarō Ishihara
* Tottori Prefecture: Yoshihiro Katayama
* Toyama Prefecture: Yutaka Nakaoki
* Wakayama Prefecture: Yoshiki Kimura
* Yamagata Prefecture: Kazuo Takahashi
* Yamaguchi Prefecture: Sekinari Nii
* Yamanashi Prefecture: Ken Amano

## Events
### January

* January 6: Nurse Daisuke Mori arrested for an attempted murder of 11-year-old girl.
* January 26: A JR yamanote line train coming into Shin-Ōkubo Station hits and kills a man who fell off the platform and two others who jumped onto the rails to rescue him.
* January 31: 2001 Japan Airlines mid-air incident

### February

* February 9: The fishing boat Ehime Maru is struck by a U.S. submarine and sunk.

### March

* March 21: The Nintendo Game Boy Advance handheld is released.
* March 24: 2001 Geiyo earthquake, kill two people with injure 288 in Hiroshima and Ehime.
* March 27: Hikaru Saeki became the first female star officer (admiral and general) in the history of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF).
* March 31: Universal Studios Japan opens in Osaka.

### April

* April 1: Sakura Bank and Sumitomo Bank merge to form Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.
* April 6: Japanese government institutes new overtime regulations.
* April 24: Junichiro Koizumi defeats Ryutaro Hashimoto in LDP polls to become prime minister.
* April 26: Koizumi announces his first cabinet, with Makiko Tanaka as foreign minister and Heizo Takenaka as Minister of State for the Economy.

### June

* June 8: Ikeda school massacre takes place.

### July

* July 13: Osaka is removed on the first ballot for the site of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
* July 20: Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away premieres; it becomes the first anime film to win an Academy Award.
* July 29: 2001 Japanese House of Councillors election.

### August

* August 13: Koizumi visits Yasukuni Shrine, angering China and South Korea.
* August 16–26: The sixth World Games are held in Akita.
* August 29: The first H-IIA rocket is launched from Tanegashima Space Center.

### September

* September 1: Myojo 56 building fire kills 44.
* September 4: Tokyo DisneySea opens to the public as part of the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan.
* September 11: The first case of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Japan is discovered.
* September 12: Following the September 11 attacks in the United States, the Nikkei 225 index drops below 10,000 for the first time since 1984.
* September 14: The Nintendo GameCube is released.

### October

* October 1: Ghibli Museum opens.
* October 18: The East Japan Railway Company introduces the Suica smart card service to the Tokyo area.

### December

* December 1: Princess Aiko, potential heiress to the Imperial throne, is born.
* December 9: Television performer Masashi Tashiro is arrested for peeping in a male bath-house.
* December 21: TIME removes Masashi Tashiro from its "Person of the Year" poll after 2channel users vote the "bad boy" performer into first place.

## The Nobel Prize

* Ryoji Noyori: 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner.

## Births

* January 2: Wakaba Higuchi, figure skater
* February 2: Maria Makino, pop singer
* February 4: Fūka Haruna, actress
* May 24: Noa Tsurushima, actress
* May 28: Rikako Sasaki, singer
* June 4: Takefusa Kubo, footballer
* June 18: Nako Yabuki, singer
* June 19: Natsumi Sakai, swimmer
* June 25: Yurina Hirate, idol singer
* August 4: Seishiro Kato, actor
* August 31: Nana Mori, actress
* October 1: Pankun, chimpanzee
* October 6: Hitomi Honda, singer
* November 3: Rōki Sasaki, professional baseball pitcher (Chiba Marines)
* December 1: Princess Aiko, the daughter and only child of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako

## Deaths

* March 9: Mitsuo Kagawa, archaeologist (b. 1923)
* April 7: Yasuhira Kiyohara, lieutenant of the Imperial army (b. 1914)
* May 17: Hyōichi Kōno, adventurer (b. 1958)
* July 24: Hiroshi Tsuburaya, actor (b. 1964)
* July 28: Futaro Yamada, author (b. 1922)
* August 25: Ginzō Matsuo, voice actor (b. 1951)
* September 9: Shinji Sōmai, film director (b. 1948)
* September 28: Isao Inokuma, judoka (b. 1938)
* September 30: Takasi Tokioka, zoologist (b. 1913)
* October 11: Fuku Akino, painter (b. 1908)
* November 7: Sachiko Hidari, film actress (b. 1930)
* November 15: Satoru Kobayashi, film director (b. 1930)
* November 30: Kikutaro Baba, malacologist (b. 1905)
* December 20: Kōji Nanbara, actor (b. 1927)
* December 22: Shizue Kato, politician and activist (b. 1897)
* December 29: Takashi Asahina, conductor (b. 1908)