Fjord Santos (right) looks up at fireworks he designed with a colleague on May 5 at Nihon Kokukyoen Park in Ikawa Town, Akita Prefecture. (©Sankei/Kengo Matsumoto)
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Fjord Santos, hailing from the Philippines, is a 27-year-old pyrotechnician. Having arrived in Japan in 2023, he now works as a show designer at Hibikiya Omagari Hanabi, a fireworks company known for hosting the Omagari Fireworks Competition, one of Japan's three major fireworks festivals.
On May 5, at Nihon Kokukyoen Park in Akita Prefecture, Santos was crouching on the ground, carefully positioning launch tubes for fireworks shells while directing his colleagues on the setup for an evening show.
"Is this about right, Haruki-san?"
"A little further back."
"Haruki" is the Japanese name Santos chose for himself. The first character, haru (spring), evokes new beginnings, while the second, ki (radiance), reflects his hopes for the future.
A Dream Takes Shape
In the Philippines, fireworks are a New Year's tradition, and Santos has loved them since childhood. As a high school student, he taught himself to design fireworks displays using simulation software and videos. It was through one of those videos that he first encountered Japanese fireworks, and he was immediately captivated.
Fireworks exist all over the world, but Japanese fireworks felt different to him—each shell seemed to express something, like light filtering through trees or falling snow.
In his first year of university, he entered a simulated fireworks video in the World Web Fireworks Competition held in Maebashi and won first place, deepening his dream of becoming a pyrotechnician in Japan. He studied the language by watching popular anime like Detective Conan and attending language school.
After graduating, he tracked down Hibikiya Omagari Hanabi through an English-language fireworks company website and sent them an email expressing his interest in fireworks design.
In recent years, fireworks shows have increasingly moved toward entertainment-style productions, with launches synchronized to music. Hibikiya's CEO Kentaro Saito,recalls the timing well: "We were short on people who could handle production work," he says. "He had a track record in video simulations, so we believed he could contribute right away."
But it would be three and a half years before Santos set foot in Japan, delayed in part by the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, he kept working and continued improving his Japanese, while Hibikiya used the period to prepare for overseas expansion, anticipating a shrinking domestic market.
Visa Status and Growing Debate
Santos holds a residence status under the "Engineer / Specialist in Humanities / International Services" category, which is issued to highly skilled foreign professionals with university degrees. By the end of last year, the number of people on this visa had reached roughly 470,000, about 3.4 times the figure from a decade earlier.
The category has drawn concern, however. It has sometimes been used for work outside its intended scope, including unskilled labor, and in March the Immigration Services Agency tightened enforcement. Because Japanese language ability is not strictly required, lax applications have become widespread among both foreign workers seeking jobs in Japan and some companies looking for cheaper labor.
Koichi Takeuchi, a director of the Japan Association for Employment of Foreign Nationals (JAEFN), an organization of around 160 companies that employ foreign workers, sees a growing gap between the system and reality.
"Originally, many people on this visa had strong Japanese skills," he says, "but cases of work outside the permitted scope have increased, and the reality no longer matches what the system was designed for."
If such problems persist, even foreign workers who follow the rules may find themselves subject to greater scrutiny. Santos is clear on where he stands: "If you live in a foreign country, you need to follow its rules," he says. "Otherwise it becomes harder for you, and it causes trouble for others."
Craft and Skill Development
As his Japanese improved, so did his understanding of fireworks structure and burn time, and he now also participates in manufacturing fireworks shells. As a result, his simulation videos have become more practical and have contributed to improved customer satisfaction.
Fluent in English, he is also helping Hibikiya expand overseas. This year, the company is accelerating international expansion, including exporting 7,000 fireworks shells to the United States for a July 4 event marking the 250th anniversary of American independence.
The Director of the International Affairs Division at the Tohoku Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry said: "This is a good example of sharing an Japanese cultural asset like fireworks with the world in a way that also contributes to national interest."
At the finale of a fireworks show designed by Santos, about 500 shells were launched, drawing great excitement from the audience. While his style had previously been characterized by flashy displays, on this occasion the spacing between launches created a sense of ma (interval), evoking wabi-sabi aesthetics. President Saito smiled and said, "He's now able to create displays that also delight Japanese audiences."
"I believe that if you don't learn not only the language but also the culture, you can't truly become part of it," Santos says. He hopes to continue living in Japan and spread Japanese fireworks to the world.
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(Read the article in Japanese.)
Author: Masako Nagashima, The Sankei Shimbun
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