In Living Color: G-SHOCK’s New GA-V01 Series is Next-Level Tough

It might be a little hard to get your head around it, but the first Casio watch, the venerable and recently revisited Casiotron, debuted in 1974. Of course, G-SHOCK’s still relevant and often revisited inaugural timepiece, the DW-5000C, which burst onto the watch scene in 1983, less than a decade after the first Casio. Still, 50 years of watch expertise is a half-century no matter how you count it, especially in the digital realm.

Released earlier this month, the colorful new GA-V01 series picks up the Casio story of technical advancement and combines it with G-SHOCK’s legendary toughness to create an eye-catching new-jack rainbow of options for fans.

Inspired after watching a child play with a simple rubber ball, Kikuo Ibe, then an engineer at Casio, created the DW5000C while attempting to design the most shock-resistant timepiece possible. That playful concept directly led to prototype after prototype and testing, followed by more testing to deliver the G-SHOCK rugged heritage we know today.
 

According to G-SHOCK, the GA-V01 line is coming at a fourth phase of that rubber-ball inspiration: The birth of G-SHOCK was first; the growth of that toughness out of the timepiece interior and across the whole watch came second; and then the approach’s creativity, appeal, and fandom cam third and that takes us up to today.

Going beyond the expected protected core wrapped in a sleek-but-rugged oversized package, the innovative message on the technical side of this new line is the introduction of a ground-breaking magnetic holding structure.
 

In other words, the GA-V01’s analog hands are indirectly attached to the watch’s body via magnetic force, making them even more resistant to shock, since they are not physically attached to the movement shaft. This innovation has also allowed G-SHOCK to use larger hands and have greater design freedom.
 

While the hands are larger on the GA-V01, the biggest design message here is color: matte black, metallic silver, neon yellow, and bold purple – rich, deep, variant colorways to satisfy G-SHOCKers of nearly every stripe imaginable.
 

Oversized dimensional indices extend over the curved spherical glass, lending another level of shock absorption, but they also look great. The whole design and construction of the new GA-V01 line feels more unified and less layered than typical G-SHOCKs; yes, these models have the pushers and extensions as befits any function-heavy G-SHOCK, but the design works as a “one-piece” unit, down to the integrated strap.
 

Pick your preference, but to our eye, the contrasting blue hands on the purple execution and orange hands on the neon yellow version deliver a certain pop off futuristic fun!

Of course, you can expect a full raft of digital functionality via the combined analog and digital display in these new models beyond the physical shock resistance and 200m water resistance: 48-city world timing, 1/100 of a second stopwatch, timer countdown, up to five daily alarms, and double-LED illumination functions are all ready to go for you on these timepieces, which all carry a robust 10-year battery life.
 

The GA-V01 line retails for just $140 each and is available at select retailers and via the maker’s website. Visit the G-SHOCK website for more information.