The popular samurai TV drama "Mito Komon," which debuted in 1969, has become the nation's first such program to air 1,000 episodes.
The one-hour program, which airs at 8 p.m. Mondays on TBS and its affiliates, celebrated the milestone Monday with a special three-hour episode.
The main character in the drama is Tokugawa Mitsukuni, also known as Mito Komon, one of Tokugawa Ieyasu's grandsons and lord of the province of Mito, now the capital of Ibaraki Prefecture.