Strategic Tenderness: Kawaii, Pop, and the Art of Influence

How does a nation project power without resorting to force? In what ways do softness, everyday life, emotion—even what appears to be banal—become tools of geopolitical strategy? This issue of Kōbai explores Japanese pop culture as a porous frontier between cultural policy and individual affect, where diplomacy is also exercised through aesthetics, entertainment, and sensibility.