The year 2001 was a pivotal year for Shogakukan’s Weekly Big Comic Spirits (週刊ビッグコミックスピリッツ) magazine. For the magazine that started in 1980, it was celebrating its 15th year anniversary from it’s change to a weekly release starting in 1986. The cover designs would change over to almost exclusively gravure photos, rather than a focus on the manga titles and the fruit/vegetable mascots which was the standard for the years past. Additionally, the year 2001 would include a changing of the Editor-in-Chief. To catalog these changes on a more issue-to-issue basis, we are starting a new article series looking back at each issue of Weekly Big Comic Spirits via the author comments found on the table of contents. A new article will be released each week, on the same release date as it was exactly 25 years ago. Please enjoy this journey on exploring another manga magazine for the entirety of 2026. You can find all of our articles related to Weekly Big Comic Spirits on this page.
The cover date on the issues are not the actual release dates for the magazine. As such, we will be posting the articles based on the calendar date when the magazine was actually available for readers to pick up in Japan. In the year 2001, this would typically be published on every Monday.
Every issue, the editorial staff would ask a single question to all of the published authors. While the magazine was released weekly, not every series in the magazine was published in each issue. Below is the listing of the manga series as they appear in the issue along with a rough English translation for the question and each response.
Issue Info
Release Date: 1/6/2001
Cover Date: 1/22/2001
Cover Design: Mascot (Tomato)
- Fighting Sun Legend Gutch!! started its serialization.
- 20th Century Boys started its second story arc.
- Final chapter of Tokyo Daigaku Monogatari, which had 8 years of serialization
- Final chapter of Koutsuu Hikokunin Mae he!!
Question
The 21st century is finally here!!! What amazing advancements do you think will happen this century?
いよいよ迎えた21世紀!!! 今世紀中に実現しそうなスゴイこと･･･といえば?
| Series | Author | Answer (English) | Answer (Japanese) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fighting Sun Legend Gutch!! 格闘太陽伝 GUTCH!! | Hiromi Aoyama Supervision: Lou Thesz 青山広美 監修・ルー・テーズ | Whale farming. (Aoyama) | 鯨の養殖。(青山) |
| Yoiko よいこ | Yugo Ishikawa 石川優吾 | Paying off my loans. | 俺のローン完済。 |
| Otana-Bukuro 大人袋 | Isami Nakagawa 中川いさみ | Final episode of Shōten. | 笑点最終回。 |
| Subaru 昴スバル | Masahito Soda 曽田正人 | Schumacher-sama wins all of his F1 races. | シューマッハ様F1全勝。 |
| 20th Century Boys 20世紀少年 | Naoki Urasawa 浦沢直樹 | A cat-shaped robot with no ears. | ネコ型ロボットの耳のないやつ。 |
| The 3 Young Men THE3名様 | Makochin Ishihara 石原まこちん | Developing a car that protects you in any crash. | ぶつかっても痛くないクルマの開発。 |
| Gekka no Kishi 月下の棋士 | Junichi Noujou 能條純一 | I just don’t want video calls to become more widespread. | て、いうかTV電話だけは普及されたくない。 |
| Millennium Stock Exchange Legend: Monkey Money ミレニアム相場師伝説 猿MONEY | Seiki Kimura & Kōshi Kabuto 木村清輝+兜公司 | I can be able to eat abalone steak soon. (Kimura) | もうすぐアワビのステーキが食えるかもしれない。 (木村) |
| Jimihen じみへん | Tatsuya Nakazaki 中崎タツヤ | Clothes that don’t need to be washed (suitable for both summer and winter wear) | 洗濯しなくてもいい服(夏冬兼用、着替え不要)。 |
| Kaijuu Jinsei 怪獣人生 | Nobuyuki Hori ほりのぶゆき | Robots versus Kaijus. | ロボ対怪獣。 |
| Saikano 最終兵器彼女 | Shin Takahashi 高橋しん | We should have moving walkways and cars that drive in tubes. | そろそろ動く歩道と、チューブの中に車走ってるヤツ。 |
| Tokyo Daigaku Monogatari 東京大学物語 | Tatsuya Egawa 江川達也 | Space travel. | 宇宙旅行。 |
| Gallery Fake ギャラリーフェイク | Fujihiko Hosono 細野不二彦 | Somehow we shockingly already lost the Mekama Line back in the 20th century! | というか20世紀中に目蒲線がなくなってしまった、ショック! |
| Koutsuu Hikokunin Mae he!! 交通被告人 前へ!! | Story: Ryuichi Imai Art: Uhyosuke 今井亮一+ウヒョ助 | 10.1 billion old men will die peacefully. (Uhyosuke) | 101億人ジイちゃん大往生。(ウヒョ助) |
| A Capricious Concept 気まぐれコンセプト | Hoichoi Productions ホイチョイ・プロ | It means that every member in our production house will have died. | 今、ウチにいるメンバーが、全員死ぬってこと。 |
| Senkousekka 電光石火 | Kenji Morita 盛田賢司 | Space colonies and mobile suits. | スペースコロニーとモビルスーツ。 |
| Aozora 青空 | Hidenori Hara 原秀則 | Hanshin’s championship win… (maybe impossible?) | 阪神優勝･･･(やっぱ無理か?)。 |
| Boku 僕 BOKU | Yasuhito Yamamoto 山本康人 | My beloved dog Knuckles can talk! | ウチの愛犬ナックルがしゃべる! |
| Naoko 奈緒子 | Story: Nobuhiro Sakata Art: Yuu Nakahara 坂田信弘+中原裕 | Hanshin’s championship win. | 阪神優勝。 |
| Animal Mania アニマルマニア | Kiriko Kubo 玖保キリコ | ADSL on my mac! I’m trying to get ISDN installed. Sigh. | うちのmacにADSL!!! 実はこれからISDNをひくところ。 とほほ。 |
