Japanese Fashion

My younger brother is graduating from college in a month, which happens to be during the month of his birthday. I figured I'd get him a really cool gift that he'd appreciate. (Usually I get him a game or something, but this year I wanted to get him something a bit more mature.)

Tokyo Flash is a website based in Okinawa (confusing I know) who sells all kinds of Japanese goods. Most famously for their really unique LED watches. They usually incorporate some unique way of displaying the time. My brother picked out the "Barcode" watch which was probably a good choice being that it was very different looking, but the display didn't seem difficult to learn.

One thing I have to say is that I love EMS shipping. I placed the order on Wednesday morning expecting not to see it till next week, but it just came this morning. I can barely get stuff from NewYork based stores that fast.


The box looks pretty cool, the photo makes it look a little cheap, but there is a cool embossing of of a dragon on the top and photos of "club people" around the sides.


It's a fairly hefty watch, but in a good way. All the pieces feel really solid and would be comparable to a watch by Tag Heuer or Diesel. It's not a fine timepiece by any means, but it definitely looks cool and doesn't feel like a cheap costume watch.

The watch came with batteries and was set to Japanese time. It wasn't too difficult to reset the time. The left most bar represents 5 hours of time, the second bar represents 1 hour. Then two right bars represent the 10's and 1's place for the minutes. A random animation lights up when you press the button on the side then the time is displayed. If you press it again, the date is displayed, then a third time the day of the week is displayed. In the photo above the time reads 10:47 am. The watch can also be set to either 12 hour time or 24 hour time.

This is a really cool watch, and if I didn't love my Skagen so much, I'd be really jealous.