Nikkei 225 closes down 2.1% at 63,290.11; KOSPI falls 3.53%

The dispersion is the story here: Korea's KOSPI fell more than three times as hard as the Topix, so this reads less like a single regional macro shock than a concentrated hit to the more export- and tech-heavy Korean market relative to Japan's broader index. For regional risk appetite, the gap between the Nikkei's decline and the milder Topix move also suggests the selling was weighted toward larger Japanese names rather than the whole market. Whether Korean underperformance persists, or the two benchmarks converge as the session rolls into other regions, is the open question.