What is the most powerful instrument of Japanese soft power? If you answered anime or manga, you are not completely wrong, but you are not thinking big enough. A clue to the correct answer was provided at the closing ceremony of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Tokyo was set to host the Olympic Games in 2020. Shinzo Abe, then prime minister of Japan, popped out of a giant green pipe dressed as Mario , a character from the Super Mario game series developed by Nintendo , a Japanese video game company. The crowd in Rio went berserk, and social media melted. Abe, a man not previously known for his comedic timing, did more for Japan’s image than years of trade summits and defense white papers. He made the world feel a sudden warmth toward his country, simply by donning the red cap and blue overalls of Mario, the Italian plumber—a character invented by Shigeru Miyamoto, a game developer at Nintendo in 1981.…