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25 Years of Casio G-shock

25 years of Casio G-Shock

Who would have thought one mans clumsiness could lead to the creation of such a revolutionary watch. In 1981, Kikuo Ibe accidentally dropped his watch onto his tiled office floor and he was rather annoyed to say the least. The cherished watch, a graduation present from his parents, was now smashed to pieces rendering it binworthy. Disgruntled that a watch couldn’t survive such a fall, Ibe, an ideas man, decided he would make a watch so tough it would never break. The fact he worked for Casio’s research and development department meant that this was no pipe dream, this was something he could make happen.

In the autumn of 1981, Kikuo Ibe recruited Yuichi Masuda and Takashi Nikaido to work on his project, calling themselves Project Team Tough, they set out to make Ibe’s tough watch reality. Yuichi Masuda had become involved in the project because of his curiosity, he had noticed Ibe was spending a lot of time in the toilet, but knew Ibe didn’t have a bowel or bladder problem, because everytime he ran to the toilet, he would immediately run downstairs and out of the building. Was it OCD? Was Kikuo Ibe a madman? Did he just like confusing people? Naturally curious Masuda asked Ibe what the hell he was doing. Kikuo Ibe admitted he had been testing prototypes for his tough watch but as it was not an offical project he was not able to use the pressure chambers, centrifuges or any of that other hi-tech sophisticated stuff, so instead he was resorting to simpler means – namely chucking watches out of toilet windows.

Though it seems crazy, the window test was the perfect measure of the toughness of the watch, the distance from the toilet window to the ground below was 10 metres, if the watch survived that fall, Ibe would be satisifed it was tough enough. The creation of this tough watch was not a simple task though, after many trials, Kikuo Ibe kept coming back with destroyed prototype after destroyed prototype. After many funny looks everytime he entered a toilet and a good deal of time Ibe gave in and resigned himself to the fact he just couldn’t make a watch that would survive a 10m fall.

One day whilst at a park, Ibe realised he wouldn’t let people discussing his toilet habits get him down, he needed to start working on the project once more, he was no quitter. Watching a little girl play with a small rubber ball, Ibe noticed how the ball could be hit with such force and the rubber would just absorb the impact. Kikuo Ibe realised he needed to use this principal in the creation of his watch. After almost two years perfecting prototypes of the watch and hell of a lot of time spent in the toilet, one day a watch went out the window and came back up unscathed.

With the unbreakable material developed, Project Team Tough decided the watch needed to meet three requirements – the watch should withstand a 10-metre drop, be water resistant to a depth of at least 10 bars and have a battery life of 10 years. The triple ten requirements would not be used in initial marketing, although they had faith in their product, they did not want others holding the team or the watch to the triple ten requirements. The team decided it was better to come up with a name that implied these standards. Takashi Nikaido came up with the name G-Shock, with the G standing for Gravity.

The first watch produced was the DW-5000, eight prototypes were made with the words Project Team Tough in the lower-left-hand corner of the crystal, Kikuo Ibe still wears one of the original eight to this day.

Features have long surpassed the original Triple Ten, today they are watches available that are powered by solar power, that use atomic timekeeping, mud-resistant models, models with altitude features, models with thermometers, watches with world time functions and watches with barometer functions and thats just a few!

25 years on Casio G-shock watches have become a cult classic, instantly recognisable and a favourite amongst collectors. There have been many collaborations notably with A Bathing Ape, Stussy, LRG and Levis. The watches have appeared in numerous films including the Mission Impossible series, Bad Boys, Speed and The Cable Guy to name a few. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the watch, film director Spike Lee and graphic artist Eric Haze and others have come on board to produce special signature models.

25 years and still as tough.

Milestones

1983 DW-5000 Worldwide first shock resistant watch

1985 DW-5500 * Actualizing dustproof anti mud structure with the angular type forum

1987 DW-5600 * The best-selling model which succeeds the angular type forum of DW-5000

1989 AW-500 * Adopting analog and digital combination indication

1990 DW-5900/DW-6000 The japanese first hit model which adopts new face design

1993 DW-6300 * The first diving watch which loads the waterproof function for 200m diving

1994 DW-6600 Loading EL back light

1994 International dolphin whale meeting Commemoration model was the first environmental activity model

1994 DW-520 shock resistant watch (Baby-G first model) for women

1996 Lover’ s Collection The pair watch which combines G-SHOCK and Baby-G

1996 MRG-100 Actualizing shock resistant structure with the full metal

1998 DW-9300 features solar power system: “tough solar”

2000 GW-100 featuring radio wave reception function “

2002 GW-300 featuring radio wave and solar function

2006 GW-9000 works with standard frequency broadcast of 5 bureaus world-wide in addition to dustproof anti mud structure

About the Author

Spouting off about the great outdoors, technology and anything else I have an opinion on.

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