Throughout my travels across the Japanese pop-culture landscape, I am ashamed to say that I have never once partaken in a work with the word “gaiden”–or “side story”–in its title. Well, until now, as I have just finished reading Dance in the Vampire Bund Gaiden: Dive in the Vampire...

Five years since its announcement, and twelve years after finishing its Japanese television run, Trigun fires its way into theaters with the release of the film Badlands Rumble. Vash the Stampede once again stumbles and fumbles his way into a lost, extended, standalone episode from the first half of...

While the world knows Matsudaira Ken as a jidai geki actor turned novelty singer, the truth is far stranger. After being put off by a frustrating series of false trails and dead leads, I have finally unlocked the truth behind the famed “Matsuken.” This man, who can be found...