is a Japanese actor. Matsuda began acting in
high school
A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...
when a girl he had a crush on convinced him to join the
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a Stage (theatre), stage. The performe ...
club. He later joined the sho-gekijo theatrical troupe Haiyu-Za. Nowadays known for roles such as Kagero in the low-budget films ''Shinobi: The Law of Shinobi'', 2002, and its sequels ''Shinobi: Runaway'', 2005 (not related to the 2005 film ''
Shinobi: Heart Under Blade''), ''Shinobi: Hidden Techniques'', and ''Shinobi: A Way Out''. He is probably best known in Japan for numerous roles he has played in the
tokusatsu
is a Japanese term for live-action films or television programs that make heavy use of practical special effects. Credited to special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, ''tokusatsu'' mainly refers to science fiction film, science fiction, War fi ...
genre: starting with ''
Kamen Rider Hibiki'' as Zaoumaru Zaitsuhara/
Kamen Rider Zanki (as well as related characters: Buddhist monk
Kamen Rider Touki in the movie special - a Sengoku-era version of Zanki - and an alternate Zanki from the Hibiki World as depicted in ''
Kamen Rider Decade''), and in ''
Kamen Rider Kiva'' as Jiro/Garulu (who made a cameo appearance in ''
Cho Kamen Rider Den-O & Decade Neo Generations: The Onigashima Warship''). He has also appeared in a cameo in the ''
Kamen Rider G'' special and has a recurring role in the series
Garo: Makai Senki. He played the role of Raizo Gabi in ''
Shuriken Sentai Ninninger''.
He is most internationally known, however, for his role as the
butterfly knife-wielding gangster in
Ryuhei Kitamura's pop culture hit film, ''
Versus''. He has also lent his voice to the
Wii video game
Dragon Quest Swords as the hero's father, Baud. He also play the role of Zebra from the series ''
Toriko''.
External links
Official blog
*
1971 births
Living people
Kamen Rider
People from Ibaraki, Osaka
Japanese male actors
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