Tokyoflash Japan Kisai Seven

I got the brand new Kisai Seven watch from Tokyoflash Japan just the other day. The Seven has a really awesome, futuristic looking design with a blue LED that glows softly and brightens as it comes on, dims gradually as it shuts off. It was also available in white, but I thought that, that would be too showy/gaudy, and besides I just liked the blue more than the white, it has more character.



You tell the time by looking at the dark spots on the LED rings. The inner ring represents the hour, the outer, 5 minute intervals. The two "sevens" (hence the name) on the outside light up one LED for each individual minute. So, let's say that the minute ring is at 35, and the seven-shape has 2 LEDs lit, it's 37 after the hour. It takes a little getting used to, but if you've bought a watch from Tokyoflash or other crazy-designer watch companies before, you know their methodology can be creative to work around not being able to cram 60 individual LEDs into the face of the watch.
 
It of course has a rechargeable battery much like a lot of LED Tokyoflash watches do, like my Satellite did. This rechargeablity enables it to have a constant animation mode, animation every 30 seconds, or animation every 5 minutes. The constant mode was kind of disappointing, as if you turn it on, it fades and comes back instead of staying on constantly, as I thought it would. This turning on constantly or even every 30 seconds would be impossible with most other watches, unless you felt like buying a new battery every week or so. Because it is rechargeable, you can use the function as much as you want, without worry, and even if you do manage to run it down, the replacement batteries are cheap, too. Plus, it can be recharged in the neighborhood of like 300~400 times before needing replaced, so unless you wear it everyday, you're not gonna need a new one for quite some time.



The strap was kind of a double-edged sword for me. See, in the vein of being future-y, the Seven has a butterfly clasp under the band, thus concealing itself and making you appear more like Tron or Timecop or whatever. The downside to not just tucking in the band and being on your merry way is that you then need to trim it to your wrist's size. They advise doing this with scissors, which I will admit is an easy process, however as careful as I was about it, I wound up trimming down the one side too far, and then the pin would stick through the side, and the rubber covering it was very thin on the end. So I trimmed it one more "link" down and then it was too short and the clasp kept coming open on its own because the band was then too tight against my wrist. So I superglued the one with the almost open end back on and it has actually held pretty well through the first 4 days of normal wear to my job, outside, etc. But Tokyoflash actually said they'd send me a replacement strap after I contacted them (they're sending it with another watch I purchased, so how could they say no? lol), so that's a real bright spot.



Again, the watch itself is amazingly well-designed, it's positively Tron-ish and I'm super glad I bought the Seven. It also seems to be popular, because my Youtube video of it has gotten a couple hundred views in the few weeks since I've gotten it. I started posting videos of my watches not only because I think that they're neat/cool and should be shared with the world at large, but because a lot of people don't seem to put videos or even pictures up about their watches, and it's really difficult to find info on a lot of these obscure watches made in limited numbers by smaller - but by all means better - companies like Seahope or Tokyoflash. I always went looking for something that wasn't the stock photos/videos that the company took, of these watches to make sure of what it'd really look like in the color I chose, and now I'm trying to provide that for others so they know what it'll really look like once they get it. Anyway, it's a great watch, perfect conversation starter, and one I wholeheartedly recommend buying if you're a fan of this type of design/style. Another win from Tokyoflash Japan!

As of this writing, the Seven was still available. You can get it here.