Wednesday, July 9, 2008

White knight with noble intent or tragic irony?

I.C.E.R.C. GW-206K Frogman



Ever since re-kindling my love for Casio watches, the G-Shocks have been the focus of my collection and they encompass about 98% of all my watches. The grail for me has always been the mighty G-Shock Frogman (any vintage) but especially the magnificent white I.C.E.R.C. GW-206K.


I.C.E.R.C. stands for "International Cetacean Education & Research Centre". Casio's G-Shock collaboration with I.C.E.R.C. stretches as far back as 1994 with the DW-6100DW-9 model. The philosophy behind such collaboration between Casio and I.C.E.R.C. is simple; to promote awareness that humans must live in harmony with all of nature. "All As One"

This particular model, the GW206K I.C.E.R.C. Frogman is the most recent of the I.C.E.R.C. collaboration frogmen. Released in 2006 following a long and distinguished line of highly collectable and prized models, it is without doubt the most difficult to keep CLEAN!

Even with nearly 15 years of Casio and I.C.E.R.C. collaboration, here in 2008, unfortunately and somewhat ironically, the Japanese tradition of hunting whale for their meat as a delicacy is still being practiced. So is this magnificent GW-206K Frogman a white knight with noble intent or is it all a tragic irony?

I hope with I.C.E.R.C.'s continued education of the impressionable newer generation of Japanese youth and the support of Casio to promote the philosophy with products that will be worn by predominantly the younger generation, that maybe one day Japanese whaling fleets will be a thing of the past. Hopefully, it will not be too late for these graceful giants of the ocean.

Here is to wishing for another model of I.C.E.R.C. Frogman! :-)




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