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

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: Osaka 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 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)