Last summer's Nippon TV scandal, in which a producer admitted he'd bribed monitor families into watching his program, has compromised the Japanese ratings system, but no matter how skeptically you regard such numbers the ratings performance of the pop group SMAP during the first month of the new year can't fail to impress.

In the week ending Jan. 11, NHK's new Sunday night historical drama "Shinsengumi," which stars SMAP's Shingo Katori, dominated the competition with a 26.3 percent share in the Kanto area. That number seemed unbeatable until the following week, which saw the opening episode of Fuji TV's "trendy drama" "Pride," starring Katori's colleague Ta kuya Kimura, take a whopping 28 percent. In fact, during the week ending Jan. 18 the top three rated programs were "Pride," the variety show "SMAP × SMAP," and the premiere of the TBS drama series "Suna no Utsuwa (Vessel of Sand)," which stars SMAP leader Masahiro Nakai. Even "Boku to Kanojo to Kanojo no Ikiru Michi," which stars another SMAPper, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, premiered with a 19.3 percent share, placing fifth overall for the week.

The popularity of the idol boy group, whose members now range in age from 27 to 31, has ceased to be a phenomenon that demands analysis, and the high ratings were certainly no surprise. However, some people were surprised when it was announced more than a year ago that Katori would star in "Shinsengumi." NHK's "taiga drama" is a cultural institution, a yearlong serial about an important figure in Japanese history ("taiga" means "great river," as in the "river of time"). And while NHK always uses idols in taiga dramas, Katori is the first to play the lead role, at least while still an idol.