Solar-Powered Samurai: Casio G-Shock MR-G Special Edition
Of the three major Japanese watch manufacturers, Casio, and particularly its flagship brand-within-a-brand, G-Shock, has been the slowest to stray from its high-tech, digital-age approach approach to watchmaking and design and embrace more traditional luxury watchmaking techniques. That changes this year, with the release of the new G-Shock MR-G Special Edition (Ref. MRGG2000HA-1). In fact, the limited-edition timepiece is a rather deftly engineered amalgam of ancient Japanese craftsmanship and avant-garde technology.
Casio G-Shock Special Edition Connected MR-G
The watch is immediately recognizable for its signature feature, a bezel sporting a hammer-tone “Arashi-Tuchime” pattern hand-applied by third-generation Japanese artisan Bihou Asano. This distinctively gritty texture is the same one found on the hilts of traditional Japanese samurai swords. The motif, achieved by Asano individually hammering each titanium bezel, is also used on the center links of the watch’s bracelet. The watch’s color scheme echoes the look of murasaki-gane, a deep violet-hued alloy which includes gold, and a type of copper called suaka, thanks to an AIP (Arc Iron Plating) process that creates a hardened coating to which a deep-layer hardening, for additional abrasion resistance, is added. The titanium bezel features a hammer-tone finish used on the hilts of samurai swords.
While the MR-G’s exterior boasts an artisanal technique from Japanese history, its interior is...
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