Seiko Final Fantasy Limited Edition watch W444

As this is the 2nd birthday of my blog, I thought I should blog something special. This watch is one that seems to be very sought after, and so it took a while for me to get my hands on it.

The watch is the Final Fantasy watch by Seiko. It was released in 2001 in connection with the movie Final Fantasy - Spirits Within. The movie is completely computer generated but with graphics as lifelike as possible with the technology of the time. It was designed to be the start of 'digital actors' where the computer generated character models would be used for other movies in the same way real actors perform different roles, allowing more effort to be put into the model than for a standalone film. The main character, Aki Ross, was made up of around 400,000 polygons with every one of the 60,000 hairs was separately animated using a bank of 960 workstations, and it took 1.5 hrs to render every frame. Although the movie didn't perform well, the character models were popular, and Aki made number 87 on the Maxim Top 100 Hottest Women of 2001.

The movie follows the story of scientists Dr Aki Ross and Dr Sid as they work on a post-apocalyptic Earth in 2065 plagued with deadly aliens called Phantoms with the remaining humans living in 'barrier cities'. The two scientists aim to try to solve the problem before the army intervenes using deadly force.

In 2065, Seiko release a prototype of the Wrist Holo watch which is worn on the Wrist and can project information onto a holographic screen displayed down your arm. The Wrist Holo includes a distance scanner mode, and can scan for spiritual energy, although this model only has a 25 min operating time. As a piece of product placement, the Wrist Holo features in the movie where it is worn by Aki. Today's watch is the forerunner of the Wrist Holo and shares some design elements.

This Final Fantasy model was released in America and Japan, with the Japanese model being a limited edition of 1000. The limited edition model has no serial number, but has the edition number on the back, whereas the American model just has a serial number (and i don't know if that was a limited edition or not). My watch is the limited edition version, but the only difference between the models seems to be the number on the back.

The watch uses a dot matrix style LCD display, with the numbers showing over 3 rows, with a small additional row at the top. The digits are made up of blocks, but only numbers show, so it's not used as a dot matrix would often be. The digits are also inverse with a yellowy green reflective background, fitting in with the theme by giving a slightly holographic look. It uses a W444 module, and has alarm, chronograph, and timer modes.

The full model number is W444-4000, and had a catalogue number of SBJR001. It originally cost ¥21,000/ $200 on release, but can be seen for as high as $400-600 nowadays.