Slightly scruffy, rough-cut actor Tatsuya Fujiwara gained prominence in his native Japan while still in his late teens for youth roles (actually, he continued playing students into his twenties), usually ones with a heightened quotient for aggression and violence. Unsurprisingly, given the nature of Japanese cinema and the popularity in that country of action, sci-fi, and fantasy, Fujiwara often parlayed said image into assignments within said genres. Born May 15, 1982, in Saitama, Kanto, Japan, the actor moved into filmed roles around the age of 16. Popular projects included the two installments of the Battle Royale series (2001 and 2003, respectively) as a young punk in a dystopian version of the future where society is about to collapse and the first two installments of the Death Note series (2006 and 2007, respectively) as a law student who obtains an enchanted book that enables him to rub out the lives of whomever he chooses.