Casio gets arty with Hokusai painting G-Shock digital watches

Casio has announced a pair of G-Shock 5600 series watches bearing two of the most famous paintings in Japanese art.

First up is Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa from 1831, an iconic woodblock work currently on display at Italy’s Palazzo Blu gallery in Pisa.

The second arty timepiece is again a Hokusai number, this time a recreation of Fine Wind, Clear Morning. It’s part of the artist’s 36 view of Mount Fuji series. And one whose colour and vibrancy seems to change just about every time it’s recreated.

Casio appears to have gone for a moderately well-saturated red for the side of Fuji on this one.

Both of the artworks fit perfectly around the classic no-nonsense G-Shock monochrome LCD, while the basics as the same as they are in any other high-grade 5600 series watch.

That means we get 20ATM water resistance, 5-year battery life, a glass top screen layer. And a stopwatch, timer and calendar as well as the clock view.

Arty essentials

This isn’t one of Casio’s Bluetooth models. Some G-Shocks have this to let the watch sync with a phone app in order to switch to a different time zone when you travel.

But we do get a metal backplate engraved with the Kanji symbols for “Japan.” These watches cost 17,600 yen, equivalent to around £92.

The watches are made in Japan, but that’s also a clue to the one big potential problem here. There’s no word of these Hokusai-themed models coming to markets outside of Japan, so an import may be required.

Both designs are currently listed as “out of stock” at Casio’s Japanese store, but given they are also listed as due this month, it seems likely the first stocks have not been put in place yet. Casio itself won’t ship outside of Japan from its own store, so you may have to get creative in order to get hold of one of these arty retro digital watches.

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