Rome Kanda

is a Japanese tarento, comedian and actor who resides in the United States. He currently resides and works in Los Angeles, California. Born in Kishiwada, Osaka, Japan, Kanda spent his early career as an actor with his debut movie Tokyo Pop directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui and filmed both in Japan and the USA in 1987. After finding his own path to be an actor and comedian, he moved to the USA in 1999 and has made his first appearances on Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide as a samurai, and nowadays Kanda is most known for his hosting role on the "Majide" game on I Survived a Japanese Game Show in 2008 and 2009 and works under the alias of Kei Kato on the G4 broadcasts of Kinniku Banzuke. He has also appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Saturday Night Live and in a commercial for the New York Mets as a sushi chef. Kanda has also starred in films such as Takeshi Kitano's film Sonatine. His most recent film appearance has been a supportive role (President of Japanese corporation) in "The Informant!"(2009), a Matt Damon vehicle directed by Steven Soderbergh. He has recently appeared as a spokesman and personality for Sun Drop soda. He appears on several TV commercials playing a soda sommelier named "The Taste Master." Kanda is familiar with variety of Japanese traditional performing arts and martial arts such as Buyō, Karate, Kendo, Iaido, among which is samurai sword fighting, which he teaches. while he continues to perform at a comedy club in Hollywood as a comedian. Kanda was chosen to be one of the speakers at "TEDxTOKYO 2010 HIT RESET" (TEDxTokyo is operated under license from TED event started in 2009 by Patrick Newell and Todd Porter) to be held in Tokyo on May 15, 2010.