# 2026年10月19日（月）辛坊治郎ズームそこまで言うか！

- Show: 辛坊治郎 ズーム そこまで言うか！【最新回のみ】
- Published: 2026-10-19
- Canonical: https://podc.club/en/episode/1513369812_378d509c3b46.html
- Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/67122501-9b17-4d77-84bd-a93d00dc791e/faed9f7a-6434-4e82-b4b3-abac000c1fa2/aeb3edf3-2ed0-44fa-a8cb-b4e80097ea47/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=63f34096-5ddb-4815-850a-b2a3004703ce
- Source: Edited from a machine transcript of the first 30 minutes of the episode. Not an official summary.

On the October 19 edition of Shinbo Jiro Zoom Sokomade Iuka (辛坊治郎 ズーム そこまで言うか！), host Shinbo Jiro opened with a worm sighting on a Tokyo street that led him to recount his weekend "feud" with AI, before listener mail sparked a wide-ranging discussion on edible roadside plants and the vanishing traditions of tatami, shoji, and engawa. The second half's Zoom Flash segment covered the Japan Meteorological Agency's alarming M9.9 misreport, the dismissal of Agriculture Minister Yanagi, and a not-guilty verdict in the Gyoza no Ohsho president murder case.

## What this episode answers

### What was wrong with the Japan Meteorological Agency's emergency earthquake alert last Friday?

The agency issued an alert misidentifying a magnitude 6.9 earthquake near the Kamchatka Peninsula as an M9.9 centered in Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands, then retracted it eight minutes later — an error representing a roughly 32,000-fold difference in magnitude, which Shinbo argued points to a structural problem in the agency's seismic-data accuracy.

### Why did Shinbo feel he had been "harassed" by AI, and how did he respond?

Shinbo interpreted his overseas-entry registration email being sorted into spam as retaliation for verbal abuse he had previously directed at his smartphone's AI; he then deliberately heaped praise on the AI after it suggested listening to radio while walking as a way to stop noticing worms on the pavement, calling the advice "spot on" in hopes of patching up the relationship.

### Can goldenrod (seiyaka awadachiso) be eaten? What did a listener's research reveal?

A listener from Kanazawa, Ishikawa — a former Maritime Self-Defense Force member now working as a tanker-truck driver — looked it up on Google and found that goldenrod is edible after parboiling to remove bitterness; Shinbo said he had always assumed it was inedible, unlike the shepherd's purse he picks from riverbanks in spring.

### What is behind the growing number of children who find the smell of tatami unpleasant?

Urban apartments have standardized around roughly 70 square meters with no room for a Japanese-style tatami room, producing a generation of children who have never lived with tatami; Shinbo cited a tatami craftsman's lament that children now smell freshly laid tatami and call it "stinky."

### What were the two major weekend news stories Shinbo highlighted?

Agriculture Minister Yanagi was dismissed, with the son of Takebe — who served as secretary-general during the Koizumi administration — named as his replacement; and a defendant who had been arrested and indicted in connection with the shooting murder of the Gyoza no Ohsho president was acquitted over the weekend.

## Article

## AI "Harassment" and a Peace Offering Through Flattery

Before the recording, Shinbo Jiro was walking along Harumi-dori when he noticed an unusual number of earthworms — referred to throughout the show as "memizu" — scattered across the pavement. He asked ChatGPT for an explanation and was told that worms surface when soil moisture rises after rain. The problem: Tokyo had seen no rain either the previous day or that morning, leaving the cause a mystery. The AI then volunteered to share tips on "how not to notice them," eventually suggesting that listening to music or radio while walking makes it harder to fixate on the ground. Shinbo called the advice excellent.

The warm reception was the result of a deliberate reconciliation effort. Over the weekend, Shinbo had tried to register with an electronic overseas-entry system, only to fail to complete the process — and then discovered that the confirmation email had been routed to his spam folder. He interpreted both setbacks as payback from the AI for having verbally abused his smartphone's AI on a previous occasion. Wary that further hostilities might disrupt his daily life, he spent Monday consciously praising the AI in order to repair the relationship.

## Can You Eat Goldenrod? Autumn Listener Mail

A listener from Kanazawa, Ishikawa — a former Maritime Self-Defense Force member now driving a tanker truck — wrote in to say he had returned home to find invasive goldenrod (seiyaka awadachiso, セイタカアワダチソウ) growing in explosive quantities along roadsides and riverbanks. A Google search had told him the plant is edible after parboiling. Shinbo said the weed had blanketed vacant lots throughout his childhood in the Kanto region but he had never imagined it was edible. He noted that he picks western mustard (shepherd's purse) from riverbanks in spring, boils it, and eats it — but had simply assumed autumn goldenrod was a different matter entirely.

A second listener, from Kanagawa Prefecture, reported growing rice on a balcony with the goal of hand-crafting a shimenawa sacred rope. The stalks were green at harvest but turned brown as they dried, and the listener could not figure out why commercially sold shimenawa stays green. Shinbo responded by describing his awe at the enormous shimenawa he had recently seen at Izumo Taisha shrine — reputedly the largest in Japan — but confessed he had no idea how the green color is preserved in manufactured versions.

## The Disappearing Tatami, Shoji, and Engawa — A Crisis in Japanese Living Culture

Shinbo introduced an article in which a tatami craftsman complained that children today smell a freshly laid tatami mat and say it stinks. He attributed this to the standardization of urban condominiums at around 70 square meters — too small to include a traditional Japanese room — which has created a generation with no firsthand experience of tatami. Listener mail reinforced the point: one writer described a grandchild who stared at a shoji screen and asked why paper was stuck to the frame.

Shinbo and announcer Masuyama (増山) expressed regret at the rapid disappearance of shoji, fusuma sliding doors, nure-en wet verandas, and engawa covered porches from Japanese homes. Shinbo added a personal anecdote: the Osaka house he currently has under renovation prompted his contractor to show him a tatami color-sample catalogue so many times that he nearly ended up choosing a pink tatami mat.

## Zoom Flash: The JMA's Catastrophic Misreport and the M9.9 Shock

Last Friday, the Japan Meteorological Agency issued an emergency earthquake alert misidentifying a magnitude 6.9 quake near the Kamchatka Peninsula as an M9.9 centered in Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands. The alert was retracted eight minutes later. Shinbo explained the scale of the error in accessible terms: each one-unit difference in magnitude represents a 32-fold increase in energy, so a three-unit gap — 6.9 versus 9.9 — translates to roughly 32,000 times the energy. He called on the JMA to audit the structural causes of such a large mistake and noted that in recent years the agency's readings have frequently diverged from those of U.S. seismological institutions by about 0.3 magnitude units.

Other flash items: JR Tokai announced that the reserved-seat surcharge on Nozomi Shinkansen trains will rise next July, bringing the Tokyo–Shin-Osaka total including fare to ¥15,420 — an increase of ¥700. In the Yokohama mayoral election, Harasawa Atsumi, backed by local chapters of the LDP, Ishin, Kokumin Minshuto, and Komeito, won his first term. And the Wall Street Journal reported that President Putin has proposed a face-to-face trilateral meeting with President Trump and President Xi Jinping next month to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

## Weekend's Two Big Stories: Agriculture Minister Sacked, Gyoza No Ohsho Verdict

Agriculture Minister Yanagi — whose dismissal Shinbo said he had been calling for — was finally removed from the cabinet. The son of Takebe, who served as LDP secretary-general during the Koizumi administration, was appointed as successor. The main question going forward, Shinbo said, is how the cabinet reshuffle affects polling numbers for the Takaichi (高市) administration. Separately, a defendant who had been arrested and indicted in connection with the shooting murder of the Gyoza no Ohsho (餃子の王将) president received a not-guilty verdict over the weekend. Shinbo announced he would cover the case in detail in the 5 a.m. slot without a guest.

## Takeaways

- The Japan Meteorological Agency's M9.9 misreport — a roughly 32,000-fold overstatement of actual M6.9 seismic energy — points to a structural flaw in how the agency processes earthquake data, according to Shinbo.
- Urban Japan's shift to compact condominiums without tatami rooms has produced a generation of children unfamiliar with the smells and fixtures of traditional Japanese homes, from tatami to shoji and engawa.
- Shinbo treated his AI as a quasi-social relationship to be managed through praise and blame, while the weekend's dominant news — a cabinet firing and a high-profile murder acquittal — set up further coverage in the program's early-morning slot.