2026年10月7日（水）辛坊治郎ズームそこまで言うか！

The Amsterdam Debate: Is 'City of Evil' Still Accurate?

A day after Shinbo Jiro called Amsterdam a 'city of evil,' a listener who has lived in the city for over 15 years wrote in to set the record straight. The roughly ¥30,000 fine for dropping gum on the street is genuine — as is the nickname 'Gumsterdam' — but the infamous syringe problem dates back about 40 years and was largely resolved 30 years ago. Syringes on the streets are essentially unheard of today. Shinbo acknowledged that his own visit to Amsterdam was in 1979, squarely in the era when those problems were at their worst.

On European safety more broadly, Shinbo relayed two listener anecdotes: a friend whose smartphone was snatched in the UK, and another who was effectively surrounded and robbed by a group of four or five people on the Paris Métro. He reminded listeners to stay alert when walking alone at night.

Flemish Painting and A Dog of Flanders

The Amsterdam museum conversation led Shinbo to mention The Night Watch, which he initially attributed to Rubens — a slip he caught and corrected himself later in the program, naming the correct painter as Rembrandt. He went on to explain that Rubens was from the Flemish region between Belgium and the Netherlands and, together with Van Dyck, represents the pinnacle of Flemish painting.

From there the conversation drifted to the Japanese anime Furandāsu no Inu (フランダースの犬) — A Dog of Flanders — with Shinbo recalling that the protagonist is Nello and his dog is Patrasche. He noted that the work is virtually unknown in the Netherlands and Belgium themselves, and that it is only now reaching local audiences through a kind of reverse import, arriving as a Japanese animation. The discussion also touched on interest in famous European museums such as the Louvre in Paris and the Prado in Madrid.

News Flash: Wages, EVs, and Olympic Candidates

**Markets:** The Nikkei average closed down 648 yen at 37,351.71 — its lowest level in roughly three months. The dollar stood at around ¥158.40, and New York crude oil futures were near $90.10 per barrel.

**Real wages:** The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reported that real wages in August rose 1.5% year-on-year, extending the positive streak to eight consecutive months — the longest such run in about ten years. Analysts caution that food price increases and the scheduled end of electricity and gas subsidies from autumn onward make it unclear whether the trend will hold.

**Auto sales:** The top-selling new car in the first half of the fiscal year was Honda's kei-class N-BOX at 101,564 units, marking its fifth consecutive year at the top. In EVs, the Toyota BZ4X led with 14,448 units, giving electric vehicles a 3.7% share of all passenger cars sold. Globally, pure gasoline cars fell below 50% of new-car sales in the first half of this year, but Shinbo was quick to stress that hybrids are excluded from that figure — it means vehicles with no electric motor whatsoever have dipped below half, a more precise claim than most headlines convey.

**2036 Olympics:** Seven countries — India, Qatar, Germany, Hungary, South Korea, South Africa, and Turkey — have advanced to the first stage of candidacy for the 2036 Summer Games. The IOC is deliberately extending its dialogue process to improve selection transparency, and a final decision is not expected until 2029.

¥3 Million Kei Cars and a Spirited Away Solo Screening

Shinbo revealed he has been eyeing the Honda N-VAN — a commercial sibling of the N-BOX — because its front passenger seat folds flat along with the rear seats to create a fully flat sleeping surface, making it ideal for car camping. He was nonetheless taken aback to find that the all-in price, including fees and taxes, comes to nearly ¥3 million. 'For a kei car?' he said.

A listener from Misato City, Saitama reported using the Wednesday discount (¥2,000 reduced to ¥1,400) to catch the 10:00 a.m. screening of the new film Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi: Ningyō no Shima no Himitsu — and found themselves the sole audience member in an otherwise large theater. Another listener explained the mystery: limited venue merchandise (the 5th wave of exclusive goods) goes on sale October 10, so fans are holding off until then. A side story emerged about Kura Sushi planning Spirited Away tie-in giveaways, only for an employee to leak the details early, sparking a minor controversy.

Finally, a listener from Sakushi, Nagano shared an enviable report: a neighbor who enjoys foraging for mushrooms but inexplicably dislikes matsutake gave them 12 whole matsutake mushrooms.