The Return of the Jedi

1983 was an interesting year. I got discharged from the IDF and returned to civilian life a bit shaky on my legs but at least I still had two of them, Lucas produced the sequel to the genre breaking Star Wars movie, which was one of the few occasions where a sequel did match the expectations, and Casio launched the first G-Shock in the form of the DW-5000C.

Which was black, square, digital and could probably have been the perfect prop for a Jedi master exploring his dark side - if only Lucas waited another year to get it from Japan. 

The DW-5600E that I’m wearing today is the direct descendant of the DW-5000C. There are of course some differences in build materials, light source, button placement and dial decorations, but take a tour back in time to 1985 with a modern square, and nobody there would have been able to tell the differences. Which is somewhat unfortunate because the legacy of the DW-5000C included two divisive features that carried over from one square model to another for 40 years.

The first was the fixed MMDD day format, which is a bit weird since this isn’t the official date format in Japan, and it isn’t used by 95% of the world’s population. The other feature was the semi rigid strap. This does have a good explanation, since the strap is used as a part of the shock absorbing mechanism that protects the watch. It’s not very comfortable however, and the material is very good at collecting sweat and smearing it on your wrist, and Casio made it very difficult to find alternatives. Therefore, both features were pretty much take it or leave it for 40 years.

 I can’t do a lot to fix the date problem of the DW-5600E, except buying a new one with a U module, but now it’s possible to put a decent strap on a square G-Shock without having to use third party adapters.

The red garnet leather strap fitted on my DW-5600E is from the new range of G-Shock straps launched by Vario. I bought two in the hope that one will fit my GM-S5600, which unfortunately wasn’t the case, but they are perfect for the DW-5600E. It’s not the thinnest or most supple strap around, but it’s a much better strap than the standard plastic fantastic original strap.

Vario claim that their G-Shock straps are water resistant and as tough as they need to be for a G-Shock, and I tend to believe that this is the case. They are not cheap but after fitting the red strap to my black DW-5600E I feel that at last, after 40 years my square finally got the strap that it deserved.