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Cyberpunk Fans Rejoice, The G-Shock Digital Glitch Series Is Here

G-Shock have just dropped a three-piece capsule that is inspired by glitches and like as seen in the digital world. That’s what they say anyway, but I can’t help but...

Michael Lozina
8 months ago

G-Shock have just dropped a three-piece capsule that is inspired by glitches and like as seen in the digital world. That’s what they say anyway, but I can’t help but feel that it looks like a VHS tape gone wrong (though that was probably intentional as well). Presenting, the Digital Glitch series.

Let’s get into the aesthetic first. Personally, I love the colourways (most of them). The black with highlights of purple, pink, blue, and green look fantastic. You really get this RGB gone wrong type of vibe. How they’ve achieved this look is through a combination of translucent skeleton-style resin with blue, green, and purple polarised ink. They are then distorted using G-Shock’s multi-angle printing that deposits microparticles that reflect light at different angles. This does effectively get across the electric current glitching mid-transmit vibe they’re going for – so if we’re going purely with effective implementation of theme, gold star.

But there’s more to it than that. Just because something adheres effectively to a theme that doesn’t automatically mean it’s good. Now I’m speaking here of the green GA-2200NN-1A. The round bezel with six pins surrounding it? 2007 called and it wants its Fox Racing T-shirt and Monster Energy drink back. I’m being mean here, but I don’t know, this watch just feels dated in a way that the others don’t. I don’t think it has that nostalgic quality of the 2000s we’re currently experiencing; it feels like all the worst parts of that decade aesthetically. Also, low-key it looks like a Marvel tie-in for The Hulk – do with that what you will.

The purple GA-2100NN-1A and the blue DW-5600NN-1 don’t suffer from this thankfully. The purple variant feels like a classic G-Shock (because it basically is) and the blue variant feels nostalgic in all the right ways by taking the shape straight out of the 70s/80s. The colours also seem to work better than the green and it unfortunately feels like G-Shock might not be riding the green watch trend as they might’ve hoped. Though it must be said that the purple looks closer to blue than I would like. Both of these fit the digital cyberpunk vibe better than the green (I know the green matches the Matrix vibe, but the execution is just off).

What I am worried about is whether or not these watches look incredibly cheap and tacky in-person. We can’t know for sure but if you want us to get our hands on one (or maybe all) of these, let us know.

Each watch provides 200-metre water resistance and shock resistance, as is standard for G-Shock so no surprises there. All three models feature flash alert, a double LED light or EL back light, a multi-function alarm, a countdown timer, and a 1/100-second stopwatch. So a lot of nifty features here, but again, that’s standard for G-Shock.

The real point of difference for these watches isn’t the specs. They’re G-Shocks. All the quality and features that you would expect from Casio are present. It’s the colourways that will grab people’s attention. Considering that they got two out of three right, I’d say they succeeded because in wise words of Meatloaf, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

Select models range from $140 USD (~$200 AUD) and $160 USD (~$230 AUD).

For more like this, check out the Bell & Ross Wildlife Warrior BR 03-92.