What a difference a couple of months make—or 67 days, to be exact. It’s been that long since Kishida’s benefactor Shinzo Abe was assassinated by a crazed gunman. At that very moment, Kishida seemed to be on something of a roll. On July 8, the day Abe met his tragic fate in the western city of Nara, Kishida was nine months into an event-rich premiership. And while his approval rating wasn’t state-of-the-art at about 48%, it was hardly bad for a Japanese leader. When Abe resigned as the nation’...