It’s official! Mino Monta (62) is the world’s hardest working man on television. Alistair Richards, COO of Guinness World Records, was at the TBS studios in Tokyo’s Akasaka yesterday morning to officially recognize Mino for his record-breaking work rate. The man who never seems to stop talking paused long enough to down a glass of champagne, though he joked that his wife warned him not to drink in the mornings because of his afternoon work schedule. The master emcee and housewive’s favorite has two live shows every weekday, one from 5:30 in the morning on TBS and an afternoon show on NTV, and another at 5:45 on Saturday mornings. Altogether his live shows add up to 21 hours and 42 minutes of on-air time – not including commercial breaks! He made his breakthrough more than 30 years ago as a Bunka Housou radio presenter, and he still does a Saturday afternoon show on the public network. He also has four weekly recorded TV shows, does TV commercials, and is the president of a water meter company that was established by his father.
• Actor Osawa Takao (38) and singer/songwriter Hirose Kohmi (40) announced yesterday that they have divorced. They had been married since 1999. Hirose began composing at the age of five and while in the U.S. had the same voice training teacher as Michael Jackson. She debuted in 1992 and had a huge hit with the single “Romance no Kamisama” the following year. Osawa started out as a fashion model before switching to acting in 1994. He has apperared in several smash hit movies, including “Sekai no Chushin de, Ai wo Sakebu” (2004), as well as last year’s Steven Segal movie “Into the Sun”.