“Our way of doing things is to donate money to a town, let it hold the funds, and then make money by operating them.” This was One Table’s method, revealed through recorded audio. The “Bellring” shown in the diagram is an ambulance venture company (image provided by Kahoku Shimpo). “Town halls with no fiscal capacity are stupid”“Local assemblies are small fry” Once he had gathered enough material to write an article, reporter Yokoyama interviewed the president of One Table. “To be honest, within myself, matters such as the donation kickback scheme were still at the level of suspicion. According to the explanation I received when I phoned the Cabinet Office, which oversees the corporate hometown tax system, the project scheme itself could not be declared entirely black. However, after hearing directly from One Table’s president, I could only conclude that they were exploiting loopholes in the system.” Immediately after the interview with the president, Yokoyama reported on the ambulance leasing project in the Kahoku Shimpo morning edition for four consecutive days starting February 3, 2023. Soon after, a large amount of information poured into Kahoku Shimpo from all over the country. Yokoyama then obtained audio recordings of conversations between One Table’s president and external parties. In those recordings, the president made statements like the following: 〈“We are doing insanely good money laundering while using the corporate version of the hometown tax system. If a company donates 400 million yen, 400 million comes straight to us.”〉 〈“The small municipalities that get ignored are ideal. Municipalities that no one cares about.”〉 〈“Municipalities with a fiscal strength index below 0.5 don’t even have people. Frankly, they’re stupid. We are the ‘second town hall.’ We’ve taken over the administrative functions themselves.”〉 〈“Local assemblies are small fry. We study more than they do, and honestly, our real feeling is ‘they should do what we say.’”〉 The true feelings of a regional revitalization consultant who looks down on and preys upon local municipalities are laid bare with almost excessive frankness. In Depopulation Business, Yokoyama writes that the remark “Small municipalities that get ignored are ideal” was the most unforgivable. Was that the moment the spirit of a regional newspaper reporter truly ignited? “There were several stages, but hearing the recordings made me extremely angry. He himself was born and raised in a depopulated area of Hokkaido—he’s from the regions, too. I couldn’t understand how someone could do something that preys on rural areas like that. This is my own speculation, but I think he had something like a love–hate relationship with the regions. A sense of mission—‘I’ll fix this’—combined with a contemptuous feeling of this is exactly why they’re hopeless. Still, he was far too careless about what local communities actually are.” In March 2023, Yokoyama published a total of 11 follow-up articles and released the president’s audio recordings on Kahoku Shimpo’s official YouTube channel. In response to the series of reports, the president of One Table stepped down from his position, stating that he would take responsibility for his remarks.