Australian readers who don’t follow baseball may not know who Shohei Ohtani is, but he is no joke. Ohtani is a star with the ability to both pitch and bat with stats to back him up. This season, he’s had six games with 10 strikeouts, while leading the entire league in home runs with 31. So it’s not surprising that Seiko would tap Ohtani for the latest collaboration, the Seiko SBDC191.
The SBDC191 may be almost identical to the SPB14 including all the high-end features of the Prospex Divers like the 6R35 movement with a 70-hour power reserve, 200m of water resistance, a three o’clock date window, guardless crown, and a stainless steel bracelet with milled clasp.
The dial takes everything we’ve seen on the SPB14 series from the bezel text to the applied markers but with the additional references to Ohtani. The most obvious of these additions is the red accent colour taken from the LA Angels’ colour scheme. You can spot this on the seconds hand and the “Diver’s 200m” text.
Another addition is Ohtani’s signature on the clasp, a unique position as it would’ve been expected to be on the caseback, which adds a level of uniqueness to the piece but can also be seen as a turn off as it kind of looks like a big scratch.
These are limited to 1,700 pieces and cost around $1,200 USD. Pre-orders are open now before it goes on sale officially on July 11. The only downside is that these are only for the Japanese market, but that doesn’t mean they are impossible to grab if you live outside of Japan, just a little harder.
