Age: 51
male
Takehiro Hira (平 岳大, Hira Takehiro, born July 27, 1974) is a Japanese theatre, film, and television actor. Hira was born in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan, to actors Mikijirō Hira and Yoshiko Sakuma. He was raised in Japan until he was 15 years old. He went to high school at Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island, United States, and then attended Brown University. He made his theatrical debut in 2002 with Rokumeikan, which was written by Yukio Mishima. He worked closely with his father, Mikijirō Hira, who was also a Japanese actor. Takehiro played the role of Iago in the production of Othello with his father playing Othello. He received major recognition when he played the last shogun, Yoshinobu Tokugawa, in the NHK taiga drama Atsuhime. He has appeared in several films of Takashi Miike, including Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, Ace Attorney, and Aku no Kyoten. He plays Natsuka Masaie in the big-budget film Nobou's Castle. He played the role of the Player Queen in the English stage production of Hamlet in 2005, in which the title role was played by Michael Maloney. This three-month tour was received well at many places in the UK. Hira played the lead role in the 2019 British TV series Giri/Haji. He has also had notable parts in the American films Lost Girls & Love Hotels (2020) and Snake Eyes (2021) and a minor role in Gran Turismo. In 2024, Hira starred in FX's adaptation of Shōgun. Description above from the Wikipedia article Takehiro Hira, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
The story of Ninja Gaiden takes place two years before the first Dead or Alive game [citation needed], and is mainly delivered through cut scenes at the start and end of each chapter. The player starts taking control of Ryu to infiltrate the Shadow clan ninja fortress and visit its clan leader, Murai, who is also Ryu's uncle. During the visit, the female ninja Ayane delivers news of a raid on the Hayabusa village through a cut scene. Ryu fights his way back to his village, and encounters Doku who has taken the Dark Dragon Blade and killed Kureha, the Hayabusa shrine maiden. The first part of the story ends with a cut scene of Doku cutting down Ryu with the Blade. The scene ends with a falcon, the Hayabusa's spiritual animal, watching over Ryu's fallen body.
