Kenji Matsuda Artist
Kenji Matsuda (松田 賢二, Matsuda Kenji, born September 23, 1971 in Osaka) is a Japanese actor. Matsuda began acting in high school when a girl he had a crush on convinced him to join the theatre 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 genre. Among those roles are: as Zaoumaru Zaitsuhara/Kamen Rider Zanki in the Tokusatsu television series Kamen Rider Hibiki (2005–2006) (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 Jiro/Garulu, the last surviving member of the Wolfen race, from Kamen Rider Kiva. He has also made brief cameos in the Kamen Rider G special and Cho Kamen Rider Den-O & Decade Neo Generations: The Onigashima Warship. He most recently played the recurring role of Wataru Shijima/Baron the Thunder Knight in the series Garo: Makai Senki. He is currently playing the role of Zebra from the series Toriko.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.