Originally, these were offered for sale only in China, and each watch came with one or more of these bears.
Casio refers to these watches as the Shanghai Night series. They are limited editions. The upper one in the picture with the more rectangular, digital-only display, is the GM5600SN-1, and the lower one in the picture, with analog hour and minute hands in addition to digital screens, is the GM110SN-2A.
I have not yet been able to find out what Shanghai Night refers to. For all I know it could simply refer to the city of Shanghai, at night. Or perhaps "Shanghai Night" is a Chinese or Japanese or Chinese-Japanese animated TV series starring bears who look like the metallic doll in the picture. Or maybe something else. I'm just guessing.
I'm writing this blog post today because, somehow, I didn't realize until yesterday, that the GM5600SN-1 has that rainbow IP coating on its case, the kind which I've thus far only seen on a handful of G-shocks, and now also these little metallic bears, and which really triggers me in a very positive way, and not just me, apparently. Yesterday I noticed that Casio had put the GM5600SN-1 on sale in the US. The watch only, sold in the US without a bear. Suggested retail price $260. Still available from authorized dealers at retail, it seems. I saw a commercial for it on YouTube. A young man was wearing one in a nighttime urban landscape which, I assume, was Shanghai. Wait -- it's a woman, not a man. Wait... I don't know whether it's a woman or a man. It's a very androgynous young person wearing a very handsome watch coated with rainbow IP.
The GM110SN-2A, the rounder one with the hour and minute hands, although it has an extremely colorful dial, does not, as far as I can see, have any rainbow IP. The case is has a bright blue IP, but it's not rainbow, with one color bleeding into the next. And it's still only offered in China. Which is to say, it's only offered by authorized dealers in China. I've seen one on sale on ebay for around $1000. In terms of functionality, it's the same GM110 that Producer Michael bought last autumn, the one which made him and me, and many others who saw his video, interested in G-Shocks.
I don't understand anything about the technical challenges involved in applying the rainbow IP to a metal surface. It could be that it's extremely difficult to do, and maybe that's why I've only seen it on limited edition G-Shocks, apart from a very small amount of rainbow IP applied to one part of the dial of the GM110-B, which, although not officially a limited edition, seems to have been sold out for a while now. I would love to see Casio put rainbow IP on mass-produced G-Shocks, millions of them, but, whether for technical reasons or marketing reasons or some other reasons, it doesn't appear that that will happen soon.
To those already familiar with the G-Shock brand, the interest of both of these new models is a matter of styling. In terms of function, they are both ordinary mid-level G-Shocks.
To those unfamiliar with the G-Shock brand, it may be surprising to learn that ordinary mid-level G-shocks, in addition to being extremely accurate, dependable and tough, also include world time, stopwatch, countdown timer, alarm, chiming and backlight functions, all with a very great deal of customization available to those willing to study the thick G-Shock owner's manuals.
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