The popular detective drama "Aibou" reached a new milestone on Wednesday. This season's 4th episode drew ratings of 20.7%, marking the first time that the regular series has ever surpassed 20%.

"Aibou" started out as a string of three separate 2-hour specials in TV Asahi's "Doyo Wide Gekijo" block, and in 2001 the second special achieved 22.0% ratings. In May of this year, another special episode hit 20.6%. However, the regular "Aibou" series, which started in 2002 and is currently in its 7th season, has had more than 100 episodes but had never gone higher than 19% before this season's 2nd episode.