Casio Meta ME-110 - Matsuri Productions

I like mysterious watches, and so have gained a fascination with the Casio Meta range. The Meta range seems to have been released sometime in the 90s, and most of the watches I've seen have been special editions with some sort of collaboration. The Meta range came in 3 watch designs, and had quite a sci-fi feel.

This watch is a collaboration with Matsuri Productions, and is the second Meta watch I've got with that collaboration. The other is a ME-120M.

Matsuri Productions were a psychedelic trance record label from the UK, who were founded in 1994. The label was founded by John Perloff and Japan's most famous trance DJ of the era, Tsuyoshi Suzuki, but no longer exists.

The watch itself has the same shape as the other ME-110 Meta watches, a this one is the ME-110M. The difference comes in the decoration which is specific to this model. The square LCD panel is surrounded by red, white, and blue (probably magenta, cyan, and white) concentric squares, and the LCD backlight also displays a pattern of concentric squares, but with a circle in the middle. The start link on the strap is also engraved with a stylized smoke cloud, and the back has the Matsuri Productions logo. The strap matches the body, and has a part number of S-717L. This particular model/colour is the ME-110MD-4, and these watches were originally on sale for ¥15,000.

It uses a 1828 module which powers a 3 line LCD display with a combination of digits (top two lines), and dot matrix array. For the modes, it has alarm, data bank (30 slot), dual time, world time, and stopwatch.

Casio ME-120 Matsuri Productions

I've been wearing another of the Casio Meta (possibly Meza)  range today, and yet again, it's a special collaboration model.

The ME or Meta range seem to have been a high tech sci-fi shiny metal range from sometime in the 90s. There isn't much easy info to be found online, but there were three versions the ME-100, ME-110, and today's ME-120 (specifically ME-120M).

The ME-120 looks very similar to the ME-110, and uses the same 1828 module. This model does however have a more square case and display surround. It also has the same flat looking square LCD panel with lines for day and date (top) , time (across the centre), and information (dot matrix array, bottom). The modes for this model are world time, multi time, 30 slot databank, alarm, and stopwatch. The metal strap is matched with the body and has the part number S718-L.

This model is a collaboration model with Matsuri Productions, and has their design on the back, clasp, and backlight. Matsuri Productions were a psychedelic trance record label from the UK. The label doesn't exist anymore, but was founded in 1994 by John Perloff and Tsuyoshi Suzuki (-one of the most famous DJs in the Japanese trance music scene).

Casio Meta ME-110

Since I started my blog, I covered a couple of watches with the ME series name, but both were special editions, so I assumed that the ME-100 was a one-off.

Today I'm blogging another in the series called the ME-110 (and there is an ME-120 to come at some point in the future). The ME watches are a series called Meta which has a logo of an M drawn like a soundwave (or heartbeat). The range has a bit of a sci-fi feel to them, and tend to be very shiny and metal. I haven't found out any more about the range, as it has one of those names that gets too many Internet search hits to be useful.

The ME-110 uses a 1828 module, and is a world time data bank (called data memory in this instance) model (and looks like it is a Casio Illuminator too).

The face has a large LCD display which doesn't look to have the normal depth of an LCD screen, giving the impression that the numbers are on the front glass. The display has various areas with boxes for status indicators on the top, small digit date and day below, the main 6 digit time display below that, and a dot matrix array showing the year at the bottom. Changing modes for anything except the data bank only changes the dot matrix display, with the time being shown throughout.

Mode-wise, it has multi times, world time (which cycles through alphabetically rather than by time zone), alarm, stopwatch, and data bank (with 30 slots).

The strap is matched with the case (as the linking piece slots into the side of the case), and has a part number of S737-L. There was also a variant with a mesh strap too.