Editor’s note: This is the compilation of Asahi Shimbun articles about the G-Shock watch. The birth and developments over the course of 40 years are retraced of the Casio line known for not only its exceptional durability but stylishness, under which more than 100 million units have been sold in more than 140 countries the world over.

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Kikuo Ibe's eureka moment came as the result of an unfortunate accident, when he bumped into someone in a corridor at his research institute in Tokyo during his fifth year in the job.

Ibe, a watch designer at Casio Computer Co., was deeply shocked by the simple fact that a wristwatch could be “broken if dropped,” seeing his timepiece fall to the floor and its parts scattered about.

Though the watch was given to him by his father when he was entering high school, he was more taken aback by how easily it broke. 

Inspired by this “impressive” experience, Ibe jotted down and submitted the concept in 1981 for a heavy-duty watch under a Casio program where employees were supposed to pitch new products and technologies at the end of each month.

JUST IN TIME BUT NO TESTS

Despite pitching his concept, Ibe had not conducted experiments beforehand like in his usual proposals since he had to submit his idea in a hurry before the monthly deadline.

He did not enter a timetable for its predicted completion nor an envisioned design. 

Therefore, Ibe was stunned to hear his boss say his suggestion had “passed.” He could not confess that he had handed over his plan without testing it from an engineering standpoint.

Another problem was that he knew from the beginning that a sturdy watch would be far thicker than its common metallic counterparts characterized by slim designs that do not interfere with shirt cuffs.

Wondering who would wear such a bulky item, Ibe noticed that none of the construction workers on a road near his lab wore wristwatches. They likely wanted to know the time but could not wear a watch due to the strong vibrations from drilling through concrete and other hard surfaces. 

“My brainchild would prove helpful at least for those people, although it may have been going against the trend of the times,” recalled Ibe.

Ibe, driven by the discovery, began solely committing himself to the product’s development. He started with testing how much cushioning would be needed to protect a watch’s core component called a module.

Ibe wrapped rubber around a module to turn it into a ball-like shape, so it could be dropped from a window of the restroom on the research institute’s third floor in a test to see if it could continue ticking.

Ibe descended the stairs to recover it, checked the damage and mulled the reason.

The process was repeated on many occasions every day, prompting some people around him to ask him what he was doing. Ibe tried hard to ensure that no one would know that he was carrying out trials only after he had submitted the concept.

It eventually turned out that cushioning 10 centimeters in diameter is essential to protect a wristwatch when it is accidentally dropped. This indicated a totally different structure had to be devised for the envisioned watch.

Ibe hit upon the idea of covering a timepiece with parts made of rubber and metal to absorb shocks in stages eight months following his initial proposal. But this was still unable to keep the device completely safe when dropped.

While the project was not going smoothly, a product designer and other members joined Ibe’s team in succession. The window for the watch's release and the name G-Shock were decided in tribute to the word “gravity,” despite there being no prospect of its completion.

The only possible option left for Ibe was just to continue going forward.

SLUGGISH SALES

Pushed to the brink, Ibe decided to quit unless he could come up with a protective solution. In an attempt to spend 24 hours a day working on its development, Ibe put a broken prototype beside his pillow while he slept and would think about it in his dreams.

Ibe even went to his lab on a Sunday, had lunch outside and stopped at a park. He envied a girl playing with a ball there for being free from any serious concerns.

But this was the moment he had long awaited. Watching her from a bench brought him a spark of inspiration: holding a module suspended in the air within a ball-like structure might work.

Boasting this design to absorb shocks, the G-Shock hit the market on April 12, 1983. A black-only model was adopted to make the watch, which was nearly twice as thick as ordinary ones, appear as slim as possible.

Ibe presented the special version of the first-generation G-Shock to the seven members of the development team. But all of them, except one kept by Ibe, have been lost over time, as they were not treated carefully given the model’s unpopularity in the early stages.

Seeing the product barely selling for some time, Ibe voluntarily left G-Shock’s team and engaged in the development of another watch model. Ibe continued keeping it a secret that he had submitted his proposal without giving it due consideration.

“I wanted to completely put a lid on it,” recalled Ibe. “The project was so burdensome that I would cry each time I remembered it.”

The annual sales of G-Shock watches in Japan remained flat and as low as 10,000 units until fiscal 1990. Ibe did not feel like donning a G-Shock on his own wrist for a prolonged period of time.

Sales of the model, however, started spreading afterward and made waves following an unexpected development.

BOOM REIMPORTED

Takashi Uema, who started on his career path at Casio in 1988, was assigned to serve as the corporation’s first timepiece-dedicated sales representative. The enterprise’s flagship products were pocket calculators and word processors at the time.

“Those around me would take pity on my situation,” said Uema, looking back on those days when the G-Shock was still struggling in the domestic market.

Far away in the United States, the G-Shock was entering the spotlight.

A TV commercial was aired in which a hockey player hits a G-Shock in place of a puck to demonstrate the strength of the device. A local TV broadcaster did a test for verification, revealing that the G-Shock was indeed unbreakable.

The G-Shock was bought by a spate of firefighters and police officers. Skateboarders alike preferred the model, which resisted damage from slips and falls.

At a watch store back in Japan, Uema was asked one day by a woman whether a model shown in a magazine she was holding was available during his visit there. He had never seen that G-Shock variant.

He did a survey and found it was available only outside Japan. The model was beginning to draw attention among fashion-conscious people in its homeland.

Uema headed for a boutique in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward and spotted G-Shock models that had yet to be released in Japan. They carried higher price tags than their usual retail values.

He was astonished but felt at the same time that such variants would sell well.

Uema convinced his reluctant higher-up to pitch 300 “reimported” units around 1990. They were snapped up in an instant. An additional 1,000 pieces disappeared off the shelves a month later.

The catchphrase “sought-after in the United States” struck a chord with young consumers. Yellow, white, transparent and other models fully captured the attention of the market.

“It is natural to look at their colors while choosing clothes,” said Uema. “Our offering of fashion suggestions for watches is likely the reason for people having embraced our brand.”

Shipping of G-Shock watches reached 6 million units in fiscal 1997, logging a more than 10-fold rise from a decade earlier. Casio was unable to keep up with the demand and its employees were even prohibited from purchasing a G-Shock.

The boom did not last long, though. Casio posted a red figure the following fiscal year, a sharp turnaround from the previous year's record profit.

As improving its durability or adding a solar charging feature did not prove to be of much help, Casio turned to markets outside Japan again.

Working with Ibe, Uema rolled out the promotional campaign "Shock the World" in 2008. Ibe toured some 30 countries to demonstrate the strength and durability of the G-Shock by throwing the watch and telling lesser-known stories about the model’s development.

Word spread about the G-Shock’s popularity in nations other than the United States that way. Combined with the big hit of its analog version with hands, sales dramatically rebounded to 6.5 million units in fiscal 2013, surpassing the previous peak.

Ibe finally made it a habit to wear a G-Shock despite his painful memories of the product’s creation.

“It could have vanished in seven to eight years,” said Ibe, 70, with the first-generation model on his wrist. “I have nothing but gratitude for the product being kept going.”

FRONTIER SPIRIT

Taking office as Casio’s new president on April 1, Yuichi Masuda, 68, was among the members of G-Shock’s development team.

Masuda, who was responsible for the management of watches’ creation schedules, saw Ibe, a senior to him, “doing something strange” in a restroom. A few days later, he was tapped by Ibe to join his team.

The eccentric concept of the heavy-duty watch resonated with Masuda in such a big way that Masuda helped Ibe drop a prototype from the bathroom window.

Masuda remembered an executive expressing concerns over the prospects for the G-Shock's sales and opposing the project in a meeting.

Kazuo Kashio, who later became Casio's third president and is now deceased, supported the plan as head of the company’s sales department, reportedly contributing to the acceleration of G-Shock’s development.

“This product’s idea is different from those of existing ones,” Kashio was quoted as saying by Masuda. “Give it a try.”

Masuda said the G-Shock ended up a global hit because it created a novel category in the watch industry against the backdrop of Casio's flexible corporate climate, which produced an advocative executive and an engineer who met a hidden need that consumers were not even aware of.

The G-Shock is currently the major driving force behind Casio's business.

Watches and clocks account for 60 percent of the corporation’s total sales, and more than half of its timepiece proceeds come from the G-Shock. Shipping rose by 1.5 times from the 1990s boom to 9.1 million units in fiscal 2021.