is a Japanese-language

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 word meaning "side story

Side story

A side story is a story that occurs alongside established stories set within a fictional universe. As opposed to a prequel, sequel, or interquel, a side story takes place within the same time frame as an existing work....

" or "tale", used to refer to an anecdote

Anecdote

An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...

 or supplementary biography of a person. This use of gaiden is commonly used in popular Japanese fiction to refer to a spin-off

Spin-off (media)

In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...

 (canonical or otherwise) of a previously published work that is neither officially considered a sequel

Sequel

A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...

 nor a prequel

Prequel

A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...

. However, some gaiden are retold stories in the perspective of a different character, similar to that of a flashback

Flashback (narrative)

Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...

.

Works that includes the use of the word gaiden in their titles include Fire Emblem Gaiden

Fire Emblem Gaiden

is the second installment in the Fire Emblem Tactical role-playing game series developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. The game was released on March 14, 1992 in Japan. It is also the second Fire Emblem game to be released exclusively on the Family Computer...

, Ten no Haō Hokuto no Ken Raō Gaiden (spin-off of Fist of the North Star

Fist of the North Star

is a Japanese manga series written by Buronson and drawn by Tetsuo Hara that was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1983 to 1988, spanning 245 chapters, which were initially collected in a 27-volume tankōbon edition by Shueisha...

, which is told through the eyes of Kenshiro's brother, Raoh

Raoh

is a fictional character in the Fist of the North Star manga franchise by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara. He is the eldest of four honorary brothers who trained alongside the protagonist Kenshiro in the ancient assassination art of Hokuto Shinken...

) or Albert Odyssey Gaiden (released in English as Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean). In addition, the word gaiden has been used in English titles as well such as Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden

is a series of video games by Tecmo featuring the ninja Ryu Hayabusa as its protagonist. The series was originally known as in Japan. The word "gaiden" in the North American Ninja Gaiden title means "side-story" in Japanese, even though the Ninja Gaiden series is not a spinoff of a previous series...

(literally "Ninja's Tale", the American title for the Japanese series Ninja Ryūkenden) and Resident Evil Gaiden

Resident Evil Gaiden

Resident Evil Gaiden, known as Biohazard Gaiden in Japan, is a survival horror game for the Game Boy Color co-developed by Capcom and M4, and first released on December 14, 2001...

(a European-developed spin-off of the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese Resident Evil franchise), Super Robot Taisen Alpha Gaiden, which tells a future that would happen without the heroes fighting at the time of need as well as Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden

Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden

Tales of Game's Presents Chef Boyardee's Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa is a freeware RPG developed by Tales of Game's Studios, presented as an unofficial sequel to Barkley Shut Up and Jam! and Space Jam...

 (an apocryphal epic detailing the canon account of Charles Barkley

Charles Barkley

Charles Wade Barkley is a former American professional basketball player. Nicknamed "Sir Charles" and "The Round Mound of Rebound", Barkley established himself as one of the National Basketball Association's most dominating power forwards...

, who revives the condemned culture of b-ball to save Neo New York and his son Hoopz from the machinations of the traitor Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan

Michael Jeffrey Jordan is a former American professional basketball player, active entrepreneur, and majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats...

). The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

is an action-adventure video game developed by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan on April 27, 2000, North America on October 26, 2000, and Europe on November 17, 2000. The game sold approximately 314,000 copies during its first...

 was called Zelda Gaiden in its development stages.

Films such as Battle Royale

Battle Royale (film)

is a 2000 Japanese film directed by Kinji Fukasaku based on the novel of the same name. It was written by Kenta Fukasaku and stars Takeshi Kitano. The film aroused international controversy.A sequel, Battle Royale II: Requiem, followed...

use the term Gaiden to refer to supplementary or additional works.