After yesterday's Halloween watch, I decided to go for something cuter today.

Today's watch features the mascot from the Fujiya Food Service Co., Ltd on the face. The mascot is a smiling girl licking her lips who is called Peko-chan. The Fujiya Co are a Japanese chain of confectionery shops and restaurants, and the Peko-chan character is often seen with life-size statues outside. Their most known product is the Milky Candy which also features Peko-chan on the packet. The watch face also has two other characters, a little boy, and a dog who also has its tongue out.

The watch itself has been made by Seiko and uses the V531 module. It is a 3 hand (or 2 hand and a rotating disc) design with the dog character on the rotating seconds disc.

The full model number of the watch is V531-7A20. Based on the serial number, the watch was made in 1986 or 96, or possibly 2006. The character has been around for a long time, so the date could be any one of the 3, but my guess is it on the older end of the scale.

Today, I'm blogging my second Bonbon watch (almost a year after my last one).

The Bonbon watches first appeared in 1989. It was started by Alexandra Pisarz who aimed to design a cute watch, and the first store was in Disneyland Paris. The brand also entered the Japanese market with the story being that it was the flight attendants from JAL and ANA who recommended them to become in-flight sales goods before Alexandra Japan was founded in March 2000. Now, it is easier to find the Japanese site than anything from France.

The Bonbon watches are designed with a round clear ring around the face which is meant to be reminiscent of candy. This case is made of acrylic and plexiglass to make it hard wearing while inside is a Swiss quartz movement (which can be seen through the transparent back). The Alexandra brand is based in Paris (with Alexandra Paris written at the base of the dial), and the watches are hand finished in France.

There are several different ranges of Bonbon watch, and this is another from the Standard range. As with the earlier post, this one doesn't appear on the website anymore. I'd guess that this is therefore a 2000s model, but it's likely it would have been sold at a similar price to the current Standard models (¥13,000 to ¥15,000).

The design is a simple round 3 hand dial in white with a gold trim. It has hour markers at the 6, 9, and 12 o'clock positions only, with a date window at the 3 o'clock position.

Today's watch is by a brand I've featured before on this blog, but with a different designer.

This watch is called Monitor and is by the brand Axcent of Scandinavia. Axcent are based in Stockholm, Sweden and were formed in the late 90s to bring Nordic design into the watch market. They use leading (and award winning) Scandinavian designers, to bring the Scandinavian design to the watches as well as to try and keep up with the latest trends.

All of the Axcent watches I blogged before were designed by Daniel Jakobsson who was their head designer from 2002 to 2009, but this model isn't.

The watch has a smooth curved metal case and lightly domed glass reminiscent of a CRT TV screen or computer monitor, and so I guess that is how it got its name. It has a wide black leather strap which is in one piece and runs through the watch case, but in a way you can still see a curve of the black leather down the side of the case. It is a 3 hand dial design with the face having large overlapping numbers for all except the 12 o'clock position, where the Axcent of Scandinavia name/logo is shown.

The model number for the Monitor is X4434. As for the age, I'm having to guess based on a few clues. The watch isn't shown in the current line-up or on their list of manuals, it is not found online except in a couple of auctions, it isn't by Daniel Jakobsson, and has a lower model number than the models I've blogged before. This all makes me think that it pre-dates 2002 when Jakobsson started, so is likely a late 90s or early 2000s model.

It seems I can add another sub-collection to my watch collecting, but I haven't decided whether it is just Astro Boy watches or whether I should admit already that it is manga/anime watches in general.

This watch one of my Astro Boy watches. Astro Boy is known in his home country as Mighty Atom or Tetsuwan Atom, and he was created by the God of Manga Osamu Tezuka. Osamu Tezuka is one of the most famous Manga artists in Japan, and has been thought of as a Japanese Disney (which has also more recently been said of Hayao Miyazaki from Studio Ghibli). Astro Boy is probably his most famous work outside of Japan, but his productivity has resulted in over 150,000 pages of Manga. This watch is slightly unusual in that it has Japanese text as well as the name Astro Boy, so is mixing the Japanese and western names.

The watch is a 3 hand dial design in a tonneau (barrel) shaped case. There are also 2 smaller dials at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions which cover date and day respectively. The dial features two pictures of Astro Boy, with his face at the 6 and 12 o'clock positions. The face also has the Astro Boy name in the centre circle with the same Japanese text on the clasp on the strap. The back also feature the same two Astro Boy pictures as the dial and shows that this is a limited edition with a release of 500 units. The other information on the back is the standard, stating this is 3atm water resistant, and that it uses a Japanese quartz movement. The one major piece of missing information on the watch is the manufacturer, with only the copyright (Tezuka Productions) being included!

The date is again difficult to pin down, but if I assume that the watch came out for a special event or novie/series release, it would suggest that the most likely link would be to the 2003/04 series restart or 2005 Japanese movie. Not much had happened in the 90s with Astro Boy, and I think this looks too modern for an 80s watch, but the 2009 computer animated movie is a remote possibility.

Yesterday, I asked myself the question about whether I was really collecting anime/manga watches or not. Today's watch probably goes some way to showing that I probably really have a sub-collection of Japanese character watches instead!

This watch is the 4th watch I've blogged which features Ultraman. Ultraman first appeared on TV in 1966 and was one of the transforming super heros in a style which lead to shows such as the Power Rangers. The series was set in the 1990s where monsters and aliens are threatening civilization. To counter these threats, the SSSP (Science Special Search Party) was formed, but when times get desperate, one of their members uses a Beta Capsule to turn into the super powered giant from space - Ultraman. The series characters were designed by Eiji Tsuburaya from Tsuburaya Productions Co., Ltd (who this watch's copyright is registered to). Eiji Tsuburaya also was the designer behind the original Godzilla, and the Ultraman series used the same actor as played Godzilla to pilot the main monster (kaiju) suits in the series.

The watch seems to be from 1996 or 1997 as it states on the back Broadway Collection 96/97, and this matches the date of several of my other Ultraman watches.

The watch has a round metal case with raised pictures of Ultraman's head and shooting stars, and the writing Ultraman Series. In the centre of the face is a round window through which you can see a rotating Ultraman head which is the seconds marker. To view the time, there is a latch on the right side of the watch which opens the lid and reveals the remaining two hands and the watch face. The face is silver and has an engraved Ultraman head at the 12 o'clock position, with shooting stars at 3, 6, and 9. The strap is black plastic and has the Ultraman name printed on it, and the loop for the loose end is metal with the shooting star logo.

Collecting the 1481010 watches has lead to a few spin-off collections due to their collaboration models. The XLarge brand watches are one of those which started with a 1481010 and now this is my third XLarge watch (with more to come).

Today's XLarge (or X Large or X-Large) watch is a pretty simple design model. It is a 3 hand dial design powered by a quartz movement in a plastic case. The face and the strap are covered in a light brown, yellow, and white pattern arranged a little like Tiger stripes. The XLarge name shows on both the dial and the back, and the back also has the model number, 8777NW. Overall, the use of colour, the shape, and the materials make this feel very like the style Swatch is famous for. Inside, the watch uses a Seiko Epson Y121G module, but there are no makers marks for the watch itself. I've blogged a couple of other watches which used the Y121 module, and as both of those were very late 90s, I'd guess this is from around that time too.

The XLarge brand are a street, skate, and hiphop wear company which started on California in 1991. They became known due to one of the Beastie Boys being part of the idea behind the brand, but are still popular today.

Today's watch is a brand I have seen before, but it's more mysterious than I thought.

The watch is by a brand called bootleg (with a little b on purpose). I've been trying to research the brand, but can't find anything online which I can definitively say is the same brand. The bootleg watch has a distinctive b logo and design for the bootleg text, but I've been unable to find anything like it on the web. I do however have a vague recollection of this brand from when I was a kid, and I thought they made sports gear like trainers.

The design is a 3 hand dial design in a normal style silver metal case. It also has a rotating bezel with a smoother style than normal. The design is completed with a turquoise plastic strap. Inside is a mainly plastic module with the name PC21A, and there is also the text SII. Inside the back plate, there is also two letters printed large in black ink - D G, but I don't know what it means.

Based on my vague childhood recollection, I'd guess that this is a 90s model.

I decided that I would blog a clock again today, but it is an unusual design.

The clock is called Walk On, and it was designed by Yoshitomo Nara.

Yoshitomo Nara is a Tokyo based artist, born in 1959, who's work is influenced by Japanese pop culture, manga, and TV. His work has a style often described as scary cute - cute simple images which often have a dark theme.

The Walk On clock is a flip clock design, this means that the time is shown on little plastic plates which flip over when the digits change (like the old railway station destination boards). The special part of the design is that each of the plates has a separate drawing by Nara on each one. It works with a 24hr set up, so there are 84 different drawings (24 hrs and 60 minutes). It often is sold with the warning about the colourful language as one of the minutes drawings (the 00) has a swear word on. The flip drawings are sat in a rectangular case behind a perspex cover. Inside is a quartz movement which is powered by a large 'C' size battery. The clock was exhibited in several collections, so was released also as a piece of art.

It came in 3 colours, and this is the beige model. I think it originally came out in the early 2000s as a limited edition, but there may have been several releases as there are some still for sale (around $350 new) but with slightly different text on the front.

I've decided that this weekend will be a clock weekend for a change, but today's is a little more outrageous looking.

The clock today is also part of my Pokémon timepiece collection which seems to be getting quite large.

The Pokémon games/series came out in several generations which is how the Pokémon were originally grouped. The Generation 1 Pokémon came out in 1996 and were shown in the games Red, Blue, (green in Japan), and Yellow, and in season 1 of the anime.

This clock is celebrating the gen 1 Pokémon with a couple of the starter Pokémon (Charmander and Blastoise (2nd evolution of Squirtle) ), the well liked (Pikachu and Arcanine (evolution of Growlithe)), and the final legendary of gen 1, Mew (number 151). It is a Japanese model as it refers to Pocket Monsters rather than Pokémon.

It is a large foam rubber watch with a 3 hand dial clock in the centre. On the top of the clock is a see-saw mechanism with the Pokémon on which rocks with the seconds. It is run by a large quartz clock mechanism. The copyright for the clock is to Nintendo, Creatures, Gamefreak, TV Tokyo, Sho-Pro, and JR Kikaku.

As it is for the gen 1 Pokemon, I assume this is from around 1996.

Normal service is resumed today as I'm back to the watches again.

This watch is from the range of watches produced by Citizen for the Trans Continents fashion brand. This range of watches started in the early 90s and has many different styles, many having a retro sci-fi feel. The Trans Continents brand was one of the brands under the Tokyo based Point Inc who are a large holding company founded in 1953. According to the Japanese wiki page, this is a brand which was previously under Point Inc, but is no longer so, but I don't know when it stopped (or was sold).

This watch is based around the Citizen 1030 module, previously seen in a couple of the 1481010 models. It has a slightly squared round case which is quite thin. This is connected to a fine weave flexible metal strap with a smooth appearance and feel. It is a 3 hand dial design, and the seconds hand has the Trans Continents target/crosshairs logo at the centre pivot (with the same logo on the back and the end of the crown). The face is covered in a yellow holographic style pattern which is made up of lots of small squares which catch the light in a way to make it look like they are spinning as you move the watch.

The watch was made in 1997 and has the model number of 1030-H09394.

It's been a little while since I blogged a watch with an unusual way of telling the time, so here is one today.

The watch is by a brand called Blitz, but they are another of the mystery fashion brands which appear through my collection. This model feels heavier, better built, and more substantial than most of the cheaper fashion brand watches though.

Based in the text on the front, I guess that the model name is Space Technology. It has a round metal case with two half circular windows on the top half. The main window has the hour numbers, but in two concentric rings. The numbers are the two halves of the hour dial with both 6 and 12 o'clock at the top. As you can only see half of the dial through the window, the time is read by a double ended hour hand, with one end longer than the other so they point either to the inner or the outer ring of numbers. The middle window has a small rotating cog shaped disc, and this is the seconds hand. There is also a tiny window in the bottom half of the dial, and closer inspection reveals this to be where the minutes disc is shown. The metal front is quite thick, so it is hard to spot this reading unless the light is shining in enough.

As there is nothing I've found about this watch, the date estimate is pure speculation. My reasoning for a date estimate of the early 00s is that it is missing from online which could  suggest late 90s or early 00s if it is Japanese, it has the build quality of the 90s cheaper fashion brands rather than the more modern lightweight design, and the lack of wear suggests it is on the newer end of this date range.

The last few weeks have been rather busy with me forever checking the time and rushing between activities. With today's watch I can't worry about being accurate with the time so I'll just need to take it easy instead ;-).

The watch is a One Hand watch by an unknown manufacturer. It has a 1 hand dial design - yes, it really does have only 1 hand and nothing else! The hand it has is basically the hour hand and is a single red hand with a narrow pointed tip. Around the edge of the white dial are the hours numbers bit there are also minutes markers. The minutes markers are in 5 minute increments with every 15 minutes also marked with a number. This allows you to tell the time to the closest 5 minutes (along with the useful information like 'just before' and 'between') but you can never be too accurate. This is a very similar, but slightly more accurate, style as the Chromachron which I blogged before, and means that if I can't see the seconds and minutes ticking past, I can't worry about them :-).

The inside has a standard Japanese Miyota quartz movement with AG4 battery. There are no other distinguishing marks on the watch either outside or inside, so I have no idea on the maker or date.

I think it's now 20 years exactly since I got my first Storm watch, so I thought I'd blog a Storm to commemorate that event.

Today's Storm watch is also a vintage model and is called the Hemisphere. It is one of the featured watches on the vintage watch section of the Storm website so I know this came out in 1997.

The back of the watch also hints that this is a vintage Storm as it refers to Sun 99 Ltd which was the original company of the brand co-founder and chief designer Steve Sun. Steve and his wife started Storm in 1989 to produce fashionable but affordable watches to encourage people to own several watches to match their outfits (-which I seem to have taken to an extreme). They started with a single store in London, but the popularity of the brand grew and now has a global presence.

The Hemisphere watch has the typical Storm image with plenty of curved brushed steel and glass. The dial has a donut appearance with the hands shown in a clear ring around a silver centre. The centre is actually part of the dial and is a silver hemisphere with the Storm name on which rotates with the seconds. The glass gives the watch an interesting optical effect as it is a thick dome with a flat centre. The case is unusually made of brass which has been coated in a later of silver metal and there is a stainless steel back. The back also says this is a registered design with the number 1374971.

The strap is also a typical Storm design (reg no 2016064) with the solid curved first section with the raised centre and Y-shaped links.

Today, I decided I would blog my brand new Apple watch with an LED display.

Now, before you get too excited that I have a preview model of the Apple Smartwatch, it's not that. This is something much cooler and more fun, and you need to take the description more literally.

This watch is an LED watch, but in the shape of an apple (complete with a little leaf detail on the top and bite out of the side). It has a large 4 digit display in the centre which uses red LEDs for illumination. There is a possibility that it is an LED illuminated LCD instead, but I think that the light is maybe too even for that to be likely (although the shape of the segments makes me wonder). The module is one of the simple styles with only day, date, and seconds view, which seems to be the default for novelty watches.

There are no manufacturers marks on the watch, and I think this is just a mass-produced novelty watch from the Far East (likely China).

It's weekend again, and I've chosen to blog a clock again...

This clock fits into one of my sub-collections though as it is from Super Lovers.

Super Lovers is a brand from based in the fashion hub which is the Harajuku district of Tokyo. They were established in 1988 by Yasuhara Tanaka and many of the characters used in the designs are designed by his brother, illustrator Hideyuki Tanaka. The brand was inspired by the London club scene of the 80s and became popular worldwide in the rave scene and 90s techno.

I've blogged quite a few Super Lovers watches so far (with many more to come), but today is the first Super Lovers clock. The clock is a round design with the numbers printed around the bezel in a 'runny paint' style of font. The clock face is in a black and white checked with the words New Wave across the top, the Super Lovers name and logo at the bottom, and two identical scribble style pandas in the middle (which I guess are one of the mascots Ken or Merry, or maybe both).

It is a 3 hand dial design with a quartz clock movement of the number RD6833D, and is powered by a AA battery.

As most of the watches have a 90s dare, I'd guess this is of the same era.

Last Sunday I blogged a Pokémon clock, and this Sunday it's a Pokémon watch.

I've got quite a few Pokémon watches, including several from the same range as this. This watch is a Japanese Pokémon watch for the Pokémon Tsutarja who is known in the English version as Snivy.

Tsutarja is a grass type Pokemon and was one of the 3 starter Pokémon in the Black and White series. It is described as a Grass Snake Pokemon and evolves into Janovy (Servine) at level 17 and Jalorda (Serperior) at level 36.

The watch is a basic LCD design with a lid over the front of the watch. It is likely that it was a prize watch from one of the Gachapon machines in Japan and it was one of a series of the Pokemon Black and White characters.

The design has a green and yellow pokeball as the cover with the text Tsutarja and Pocket Monsters on the green strap. On the face, there is a picture of Tsutarja and the 4 digit LCD display.

The back shows it is by T-Arts and made in China. As normal with the Pokémon watches there are lots of detail in copyrights listed on the back and also the face (to Nintendo-CR-GF-TX-SP-JK and Pokémon).

As the Black and White games came out in 2010, the watch must be from around that time.

Today's watch is one where something doesn't quite ring true with what it claims to be.

The watch is meant to be by the clothing brand Diesel, and is similar to designs I've seen before. On the back it has the 'Only the Brave' name and logo referring to the group which Diesel is a part of. It is a 3 hand dial design with a large rubber one-piece case and strap. The dial is the same colour as the case and has hour markers except for 02, 03, and 04 which are shown as large numbers arranged in a vertical line. So far so good...

The build quality is the first thing that seems strange with this watch. The crown has a loose feel, which could be through use, but also the seams on the rubber from the mould are also a bit rough. The back looks to be a screw back model, but in reality just lifts off, which again can just be a design choice. The number on the back just says 947 rather than the usual DZxxxx format. When searching for this online, there are no hits for this design that I could find, suggesting that this isn't a normal Diesel model number.

So overall there is nothing that definitively says this is a replica rather than real, but as you can see above, there are many things that hint this is not right.

So there it is, my post on my (possibly) Diesel 947 watch.

Today's watch is one of my Nooka collection, but something unlike all of the others I've blogged so far.

The Nooka brand was founded by designer Matthew Waldman who developed the unique Nooka style. I've blogged many Nooka and there is more info on the brand in the other posts.

The watch is the Nooka 360 Night and it is one of the high quality models from the brand. The watch is unusual for a Nooka in that it is a round design rather than the normal square. This is also an analogue design with a 3 hand dial (which is also uncommon, but I've shown one analogue Nooka before).

The watch has a deep steel case and so sits high out of your wrist, but this is due to the feature which gives the watch its name. The unique function of the watch is that the entire head can be rotated clockwise through a full 360 degrees. This allows you to set the watch at whatever angle is easiest to use, whether for normal use on your wrist, or for things such as driving where you look at an unusual angle.

This version is the all black model with black case, face, hands, and (Italian) leather strap. The face is textured, and appears more dark grey than black so the black hands can be seen relatively easily.

The watch is one of the newer designs, and I think it only came out in the last couple of years. It is still available from Nooka, and has an rrp of $285.

One thing about the watch I didn't find online was the battery change instructions, so I thought I can let my readers know. There are 4 small holes on the back of the watch near where the strap attaches. When the head is rotated to be exactly straight, these will align with 4 small screws, but just show the black case when misaligned. These screws release the front of the case from the strap and rotating section which allows you to get to the battery.

I'm wearing another of the 'cool kids' watches from my childhood today as I noticed the colour matched my t-shirt.

The watch is one of the Flik Flak watches which are a range of Swatch watches for kids. Flik Flak refers to the tick tock of the watch, and the range was started in 1987 to bring the Swatch style into the kids market. One of the things I've read about the Flik Flak watches (but I hold no responsibility about if it is wrong) is that the range was machine washable (40C in a fabric net and without prewash), but due to the age of the models I have I don't quite trust this.

This model is called Sweet Banana and was part of the Spring Summer 1999 collection (and was designed in 1998). The design has a red aluminium case with a yellow face and strap. The face has a picture of an open and part eaten banana in the middle, while the fabric strap has a chain of cartoon monkeys along the length.

The model number for this design is FBB366, and it uses a Swiss ETA movement.

It seems that the Benetton by Bulova line of watches is now becoming its own sub-collection as this is the 4th I've blogged, and I have more to come.

The watch is a collaboration between the Italian clothing brand Benetton, and the American watch manufacturer Bulova. This collaboration seems to have started in the early 90s or possibly the late 80s, and has many different designs of watch. More can be found on the brands I'm earlier posts (found using the tags linked on the right of the page). Most of the designs I have use a similar case style, but with many different colours, patterns, and text. The case is round, but with a wider tapered section where the straps attach, and a Benetton logo imprinted on the bezel just below the dial.

This particular model has the text 'ecology' in a handwriting style font across the centre of the dial along with stylized drawings of two fish. It comes with a leather strap which is covered with a jade green fake crocodile skin coating.

It is a quartz 3 hand dial design, and inside is a Ronda movement.