Who Is Actually Doing Cultural Diplomacy: The State or The Manga Shop

The Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies (YCAPS) is pleased to present the next installment of Soft Power, Hard Questions: A Forum for Indo-Pacific Culture, Society & Policy: “Who Is Actually Doing Cultural Diplomacy: Japan’s Manga Empire in Poland and the Private Initiative Behind It.”

Japanese manga have built devoted audiences across Europe with almost no involvement from Tokyo. In Poland alone, roughly one in four teenagers now reads manga. This is a market that has been created not by government programs but by local fans, translators, publishers, and retailers who carried the financial risk themselves. By contrast, South Korea has deployed state institutions like the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) to actively push its cultural exports into international markets, including a new Central and Eastern European office in Warsaw opened in 2025. The contrast between these two models, one organic and one engineered, is the real subject of this session.

The session will feature Jan Godwod, co-founder and CEO of Studio JG and Yatta.pl in Warsaw, who built a team of eighteen in-house translators, publishes up to three hundred titles a year, and operates more than thirty stores without any official support. Joining him is Radosław Tyszkiewicz, President of the Poland-Japan Foundation and former Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Japan, who will bring an institutional and diplomatic perspective on what the state can and cannot do.

To join use this link to register

This event is a part of YCAPS' "Soft Power, Hard Questions" series.

Date: Wednesday, November, 11, 2026

Time: 18:30-19:30 JST

Venue: Temple University Japan Campus, Tokyo (in-person),

Room 208, 1-14-29 Taishido, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 154-0004, Japan

Schedule:

18:00-18:30 Open Door / Networking

18:30-19:30 Program

19:30-20:00 Networking

Speakers:

Jan Godwod is the co-founder and CEO of Studio JG and Yatta.pl, based in Warsaw. He was active in the Polish manga and anime fandom from the late 1990s through the mid-2000s, before moving into professional publishing and retail. Over the following two decades, he helped build Studio JG into one of Poland's leading manga publishers, while Yatta.pl grew into a nationwide specialist retail network with more than thirty stores.

Today, Studio JG publishes up to three hundred titles annually and works with a large in-house editorial and translation team. Jan remains directly involved in licensing, publishing strategy, retail development, and long-term partnerships with Japanese publishers.

Radosław Tyszkiewicz is President of the Poland-Japan Foundation. An experienced diplomat, he has served on diplomatic missions in Tokyo, Brussels (European Union), and New York (United Nations). Most recently, he served as Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Japan. He is also a film producer and the founder of Tyszkiewicz Films, as well as the screenwriter and director of two documentaries dedicated to Poles living in Japan. He is actively involved in developing Polish-Japanese relations, implementing projects in the fields of business, education, culture, and the exchange of knowledge and information. He currently lives in Tokyo.

Host:

Waka Ikeda is a Japanese journalist based in Budapest and Tokyo, and Research Fellow and Program Director at YCAPS. A contributing writer at The Japan Times, she also writes for Nikkei Asia and other outlets, with a focus on soft power, youth culture, and the intersection of Japan, Asia, and Europe. She conducted the field reporting behind the Poland–Japan Foundation’s April 2026 policy analysis on Japan–Europe cultural diplomacy, and wrote for The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus on “Young Audiences Abandoning Traditional Media in the Age of Takaichi” (January 2026). She hosts Soft Power, Hard Questions.

Benoit Hardy-Chartrand is Senior Lecturer at Temple University Japan (TUJ), Fellow at TUJ’s Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies (ICAS), and Adjunct Professor at the United Nations University (UNU), where he focuses on the geopolitics and security of Northeast Asia. Prior to joining TUJ in 2018, Benoit taught at the University of Montreal and was a Senior Researcher at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), one of Canada’s premier think tanks. He has written for various publications and frequently appears in the media to discuss regional politics.

Format: This event will be off-the-record. Questions are encouraged during the live event.

Registration: Required Link

Moderator: Waka Ikeda, Benoit Hardy-Chartrand

Webinar Cost: Free of charge