In the Japanese film series, Light Yagami is portrayed by Tatsuya Fujiwara, known for his role as Shuya Nanahara in "Battle Royale". In the films, he is portrayed as a distinguished, popular and intellectually gifted college student, who has a disregard and frustration of the incapability of the law enforcement system to quell the rampant increase in criminal activities around the world, which drives his motives to use the Death Note, to change the world into a utopian society without crime, under the alias of a god-like vigilante known as "Kira", much like his manga counterpart. However, some slight changes and modifications were made to the character. At the film's beginning, Light is a first-year law student at a university, instead of still being in high school as in the beginning of the manga and anime. Light's motives also slightly differ; in this version, he uses the Death Note mainly out of his frustration from the perceived failures of the Japanese justice system. Light, prior to his discovery of the Death Note, hacks into the national police database and finds that the government is unable to prosecute many criminals, either due to lack of evidence or technical loop-holes, among other reasons. Also, Light discovers the Death Note in an alley during a rainy night after encountering an acquitted felon named Takuo Shibuimaru in a night-club. Another difference is that Light meets Ryuk right after killing Shibuimaru with the Death Note. At the end of the first movie, Light reluctantly kills his girlfriend, Shiori Akino, and frames her death as a murder and reason to foster hatred for "Kira", in order to join the Kira investigation team as a result of their sympathy.