Faux Willard Review

For the longest time I have been eyeing the Seiko Captain Willard. The robust asymmetrical case design worn by Martin Sheen in the wartime classic Apocalypse Now has been used by different Chinese microbrands such as Steeldive, Addiesdive, etc to pay homage to a highly sought after timepiece. Seeing how it’s the holidays and I’m supposed to be giving to others and the reissue Willard is out of my budget, I bought myself the Addiesdive without telling my fiancé to scratch that itch for the time being.

Last week I wore the Addiesdive Willard on my wrist to test it out. This is the first time in many years that I wear the same watch consecutively for more than 3 days and the shocking thing is that I didn’t mind at all. Although the silicone strap accompanying the watch felt a little flimsy the 44mm case design made it very comfortable to wear daily and even to bed on occasion. And despite the aforementioned 44mm size, the watch had the Seiko magic that made it wear smaller on wrist than the size listed on paper. Within this comfortable oddball case shape is Seikos workhorse NH35 movement that provides hacking, hand winding and hacking. Although the movement is not some COSC certified Suisee masterpiece, it provides accurate enough time throughout the day running +7 seconds a day.

The dial is a very bland matte black with Addiesdive and their logo printed under the 12 o’clock indices and below the hand stack Automatic 200m Water Resist. The lume is ok, no Seiko lume, but it gets the job done for long enough. Speaking about lume… the bezel insert is also lumed, lumed a different color than the dial, but lumed nonetheless. Since we’re on the topic, the bezel looks to be a very attractive ceramic insert.

The hand set is flat and uninspired making reading the time hard to do in certain angles under direct sunlight despite having blue AR coating underneath the slightly raised saphire glass.

After a week on the wrist my feelings are still in the air about this one. As previously stated, the watch is comfortable to wear daily, has a reliable movement that is going to be serviceable years down the line due to the popular NH35a movement and gets tons of compliments due to its unique design. But it still has aspects that remind you this is far from the Seiko it’s based on. The bezel action is stiff yet tolerable but the ratcheting sound that gets tinny when the 12 o’clock marker is between 6 and 4 going back to the normal sound after rotating a bit further. The loud mechanical sound made when manually winding this watch that my other Seiko watches with the same movement don’t grace me with.

Although my mixed feelings probably don’t convey my happiness I truly dont know if I’m happy with Addiesdive for the homage or Seiko for the amazing design. All in all if you don’t like the look of the Addiesdive you’ll at least have a great case to start a killer mod especially since the movement is pretty easy to obtain mod parts for. Please don’t mistake this for a bad review since I do like this watch. Just be aware of what you’re buying. Thanks for reading my review and if you do mod one of these please post your pics.