<figure id="attachment_368687" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-368687" style="width: 4589px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="9c23796b"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/04/3a62c8fbffaa030004f1e96ad150b174.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-368687" class="wp-caption-text">They only saw him as a gold-digger. &#8230;&#8230;</figcaption></figure>
 &#8220;To my surprise, a bigwig from the bureau stormed into the news department,&#8230;&#8230; and the scene was nothing short of stunned.
 He moved to the Dodgers with a blockbuster contract totaling 100 billion yen, the highest in professional sports history, and also announced his marriage. For Shohei Ohtani (29), this season was supposed to be a glorious page in his legend.
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 It is no secret that &#8220;Otani&#8217;s interpreter,&#8221; Ippei Mizuhara (39), who was close by to support him in his great achievement and said that he was &#8220;most grateful,&#8221; has fallen from &#8220;ally&#8221; to &#8220;traitor of the century&#8221; and &#8220;big thief. The amount of money he had stolen from Otani&#8217;s account had increased from 600 million yen to 2.5 billion yen, and the depth of Mizuhara&#8217;s guilt, which is revealed every time the investigation progresses, is nothing short of breathtaking. I would like to introduce what was happening at the TV station immediately after the incident and how the TV crews were reacting.
<h2> Stop the live broadcast now!</h2>
 In the early morning of March 21, there was a tremor at the TV stations.
 Ohtani had a multi-hit game in the Korean Series against the Padres, the opening game of the season. The morning was supposed to be a &#8220;Congratulations to Otani&#8221; festival on all stations.
 However, during an early-morning news program, news of a huge magnitude came in from the United States. Otani&#8217;s interpreter, Mr. Mizuhara, was suddenly fired by the Dodgers. The reason for his dismissal was a huge illegal bet of over 600 million yen.
 At first, it was suspected to be a false report, but NTV and TBS broke the story, followed by TV Asahi and Fuji TV.
 The information was updated one after another. The Internet was abuzz with confusion over whether or not Otani was involved in the illegal gambling, as information was added that huge sums of money had been transferred from his account to the operator of the illegal gambling.
 A staff member in charge of Nippon TV&#8217;s morning program recalls.
 When I heard the first report, I thought, &#8220;This is going to be a big case. I assumed that not only Mizuhara but also Otani might be involved, so I expanded the scope of my coverage. My bosses were also very supportive, saying, &#8216;Go out there and cover it! &#8216; and he was very proactive about it.
 The &#8220;Shinichi Hatori Morning Show&#8221; (TV Asahi) also changed its schedule to cover Mizuhara&#8217;s illegal gambling problem on short notice.
 All the prepared scripts were replaced. The &#8220;Morning Show&#8221; broadcast was a live broadcast of Mizuhara&#8217;s illegal gambling problem. During the &#8220;Morning Show&#8221; broadcast, announcer Yasushi Komatsu, 49, who graduated from the &#8220;Super J Channel&#8221; this spring and was transferred to the New York office, was struggling. He was using his English skills to report local media reports in real time, and was also accurately answering questions from Shinichi Hatori (53). He was giving us the front line stories. &#8230;&#8230;&#8221; (TV Asahi source)
 During the live broadcast, &#8220;the station&#8217;s executives stormed into the news department with a tremendous sword,&#8221; according to this TV Asahi source.
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 It later turned out that Mizuhara was lying, but at first Mizuhara claimed that he had transferred money from his bank account in Otani&#8217;s presence. When Komatsu introduced this information during the live broadcast, the station executives turned blue. They immediately stormed over to the scene and said, &#8216;Don&#8217;t quote articles from foreign media that you don&#8217;t even know what kind of media it is. They demanded, &#8220;Don&#8217;t quote any article from foreign media that you don&#8217;t know what kind of media it is, and stop the live broadcast immediately.
 We had always quoted local media reports in the form of &#8220;According to the American media,&#8221; so why did you lose your temper just this once? The staff members on site were stunned. Was it because TV Asahi was scheduled to broadcast the second game of the Korea Series that night?　Komatsu Anna&#8217;s on-site broadcast was canceled, but it was getting the highest ratings we haven&#8217;t seen in recent times.&#8221;
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" That ABEMA also ......"></div>
<figure id="attachment_368688" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-368688" style="width: 4731px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="3d5ee819"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/04/db193b30ede3811b99772a04f6c87a70.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-368688" class="wp-caption-text">On April 11, U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada held a press conference and decried that &#8220;Mr. Mizuhara abused his position of trust from Mr. Otani to satisfy his insatiable appetite for sports gambling.</figcaption></figure>
 And one more thing &#8211; ABEMA, which takes advantage of online distribution to sharply cut into the news, was &#8220;forced to respond in a different mild manner than usual,&#8221; according to a director of a production company.
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 The director of a production company said, &#8220;ABEMA&#8217;s largest shareholder, CyberAgent, is promoting a sports betting business. Apparently, we were told privately to refrain from reporting in a way that would make sports betting look bad.
 The TV stations, which were exposed in the light of day over the issue of Johnny&#8217;s sexual assault, still seem to have the same disciplinary attitude.

 AFLO

 Facts are stranger than fiction. Ippei Mizuhara's illegal gambling case has been full of surprises. The shock of this incident shook the Japanese TV stations as well. Behind the Scenes

Shocking Confession of a TV Man&#8230; Ippei Mizuhara&#8217;s illegal gambling of huge sums of money, &#8220;What was happening in the studio at that time&#8221; and the contents of the shocking commotion.

Shocking Confession of a TV Man… Ippei Mizuhara’s illegal gambling of huge sums of money, “What was happening in the studio at that time” and the contents of the shocking commotion.

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