What it takes to make the toughest watch in the world

WHAT DOES it take to be considered the toughest watch in the world? According to the Guiness Book of World Records in 2017, surviving being run over by a 24.97-ton truck, breaking the record for “The heaviest vehicle to drive over a watch.” The watch in question was the Casio G-Shock, which was being marketed as the “toughest watch in the world.”

Kikuo Ibe, the inventor of the G-Shock, was in the Philippines last week for the launch of the MR-G (the G-Shock’s more sophisticated companion) in the Philippines. It has an all-metal construction, with the band using DAT55G, a titanium alloy that is three times harder than pure titanium, while its bezels are made of Cobarion and Ti64 Titanium Alloy for a beautiful radiant finish and long-lasting durability. Shigeru Watanabe of Casio Singapore PTE Ltd., who was also in the Philippines during the launch, noted that the MR-G is made completely in Japan, instead of in its other factories abroad.

The G-Shock’s parent company is the Japanese giant Casio, which aside from making watches, both analog and digital, also make digital musical instruments and calculators. Calculators, in fact, made the company known worldwide, it being Casio’s first product after making pipes since the 1940s.

Casio watches are relatively affordable, with some models selling at P2,000 or so, and the G-Shocks themselves are priced at about P7,000 and above (the MR-G line, on the other hand, runs up to six digits). By democratizing the price of watches, it seems that Casio has democratized the very concept of time itself.

“Our company slogan is ‘creativity and contribution.’ That means we make something from nothing, and contribute to society and people. If Casio produced only expensive watches, it only pleases a limited number of people,” said Mr. Watanabe.

Aside from arguably being the world’s toughest watch, the G-Shock could well be a contender for the world’s most popular.

Mr. Watanabe said that as of March, 140 million G-Shocks have been sold around the world. Knowing that millions of wrists around the world sport his invention, Mr. Ibe, speaking through an interpreter, said, “I really feel very grateful to find out that many people own a G-Shock. Looking back, close to 10 years after the launch of G-Shock back in the ’80s, it wasn’t selling at all. Looking at that, and thinking of that, to know that 140 million people are now fans… I really have nothing but gratitude.”

MAKING A WATCH TOUGHThe story of G-Shock’s creation is quite personal.

Mr. Watanabe said that when the G-Shock was invented, Mr. Ibe had construction workers in mind. He wanted to develop “an unbreakable watch, even with the shock of the vibrations,” said Mr. Watanabe. Mr. Ibe’s story goes back to his own father. “The start of it all was when my father gifted me, when I entered high school, with a wristwatch, which I had until I started working. One day, when I was at work, I dropped it, and the watch just broke into pieces. That’s when I told myself… I need to create a watch that’s going to be very tough, that doesn’t easily break.”

According to the Casio website, Mr. Ibe would test the G-Shock prototypes by dropping them from the third floor of the research and development center. He would then analyze how and why they broke and make the adjustments. But with a deadline looming, inspiration came just in the nick of time.

The Casio site says, “Inspiration finally came to the engineer, who had never given up experimenting, on a day off just before the development deadline. After going out to lunch feeling low, he was watching some children playing with a rubber ball in the park next to the research and development center when the idea of the module floating in the space inside the ball suddenly came to him. In order to realize this concept, he came up with a hollow structure in which the module is supported at just a few points with a slight space around it.”

The result of this is “a structure that could absorb shock from all directions by combining soft materials that reduce shock with a hard material frame.”

Since the first G-Shock was created, subsequent models were developed “to withstand any conceivable ‘tough environment.’” Aside from being shock-proof, G-Shock watches are waterproof, dust-proof, and mud-proof. They now have “radio-controlled solar powered functions that run on light and display the correct time, and compass bearings and altitude measurements using sensor technology,” says the site.

CHANGING BATTERIESMr. Ibe was once a designer at Casio, but now he jokes that he’s in Sales and Marketing, travelling the world as he does to speak about G-Shock.

We asked Mr. Ibe if anybody ever had the need to have a G-Shock repaired. “Personally, I have not received any question or inquiry that the watch broke, or the parts are so-and-so. Nothing like that on my end,” he said. Usual complaints are about the battery (for the models without solar power capabilities). The same goes for him. “I have one of the original watches that was launched in 1983. Apart from changing the battery once, it has not had repairs or anything like that.”

The world’s toughest watch: in the face of a more difficult world, it’s nice to have a tough companion. Mr. Ibe seems to think so as well. Asked what possessing the toughest watch in the world can do for a person, he chuckled at first, and said, “Wow.”

“Personally, people in general, everything doesn’t go perfectly all the time. Sometimes, you are not feeling well; sometimes you’re not doing well with life. I wish that these people, who are going through that, and then they own a G-Shock, I hope that they understand the story behind the G-Shock, how it was created; what it went through…

“Knowing that story, they would also look at the G-Shock, and say, ‘I can’t quit. I also have to persevere.’ I hope that owning a G-Shock would give them that kind of additional determination to persevere with whatever is going on in their life,” he said. “I hope that the G-Shock would be like the one motivating or cheering the owner. I want these owners of the watch to be those who really work hard, and those who really want to work hard and do well.”

The G-Shock MR-G series is exclusively available at L’Atelier Lucerne at Shangri-la at The Fort. — Joseph L. Garcia