The Watch That Shouldn’t Have Existed
In November 2024, the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève announced its Challenge Prize winner—the award for watches under CHF 3,000 that demonstrate exceptional creativity. The room expected Kurono Tokyo, or perhaps Studio Underd0g, brands with established followings and proven track records. Instead, the jury awarded it to a watch that looks like a 1950s pressure gauge, made by a former car designer who taught himself watchmaking on a lathe bought from an online auction.
The winner was Otsuka Lotec No.6.
For most of the audience, the name meant nothing. Otsuka Lotec wasn’t a heritage Swiss manufacture. It wasn’t a German precision house. It wasn’t even a Japanese brand with decades of history like Grand Seiko. It was—impossibly—a one-man workshop in Tokyo that made fewer than 200 watches a year.
This is the story of how that happened.
Otsuka Lotec Founder: From Cars to Watches
Jiro Katayama didn’t grow up dreaming of watchmaking. He grew up dreaming of industrial design—of cars, appliances, and the mid-century machines that made the modern world. For years, he worked as a professional designer, shaping objects that millions of people would use but never notice. He understood how form follows function, how materials speak, how the texture of a surface can communicate purpose.
In 2008, at an age when most designers are consolidating their careers, Katayama did something that made no professional sense: he bought a small bench lathe from an online auction. Not for a project. Not for work. Simply because he was curious. He wanted to understand metalworking from the inside.
That lathe sat in his modest workshop in Tokyo’s Ōtsuka neighborhood, near Ikebukuro. He started turning small pieces. Then cases. Then dials. Then hands. Each experiment led to another question: could he make a watch? Not just design one—actually make every component?
For the next four years, he taught himself watchmaking from Google, YouTube, and relentless trial-and-error. No watchmaking school. No apprenticeship. Just a designer’s mind, a machinist’s hands, and an obsession with understanding how mechanical timekeeping actually works.
He made four experimental watches—No.1 through No.4—that never left his workshop. They were his education, his mistakes, his proofs-of-concept. By 2012, he had something he believed was good enough to sell.
The Otsuka Lotec No.5 was born.
The Name That Means Everything
“Otsuka Lotec” isn’t a name chosen by a marketing team. It’s a statement of philosophy:
- Ōtsuka – the Tokyo neighborhood where Katayama’s workshop sits, grounding the brand in a specific place
- Lōtec – from “low-tech,” reflecting his love of analog tools, older machines, and mid-century industrial design rather than sleek modernity
This “low-tech” ethos isn’t about being primitive. It’s about celebrating the analog in a digital age. Katayama is obsessed with 1950s–1960s engineering, when one engineer designed an entire product. That “one mind, one object” ideal shapes every watch he makes.
His workshop reflects this. It’s filled with vintage lathes and milling machines he collects as much for their form as their function. Those machines’ shapes and textures influence his watch designs. The result is a distinctive steampunk-industrial aesthetic that feels both nostalgic and futuristic.
Otsuka Lotec No.5: The First Commercial Watch
The No.5 (circa 2012) was Katayama’s first watch for the public—a regulator-style display with hours at 12, minutes at 6, and center seconds. It used a Miyota 8215 base with his own module. But what made it special was the case.
Instead of a polished finish, Katayama used tsuchime—a traditional Japanese hand-hammering technique familiar from artisanal knives. The entire case, from bezel to lugs, bears this textured finish. It’s deeply tactile, catching light in unpredictable ways. No other watchmaker was doing this. It was steampunk made real.
The No.5 proved something crucial: Katayama could make a reliable watch that looked like nothing else. It sold in tiny numbers, mostly to Japanese collectors who appreciated its uniqueness. But it established the template: Miyota base + in-house module + industrial aesthetic.
Otsuka Lotec No.6: The GPHG Breakthrough and the Analog Meter
If No.5 was the proof-of-concept, No.6 was the masterpiece that made the world notice.
Katayama looked at analog pressure gauges and electrical meters from the 1950s—those beautiful semi-circular dials with needles that sweep across a fan-shaped scale—and thought: what if a watch worked like that?
The No.6 features a bi-retrograde display: both hour and minute hands start at the left side of the dial, sweep across a semi-circular scale, then snap back to zero simultaneously. The effect is mesmerizing—like watching a mechanical scale reset itself. A running seconds disc occupies the center; a date window sits to the right.
Technically, it’s a Miyota 9015 with Katayama’s retrograde module—about 30 additional parts that transform a standard movement into something extraordinary. The challenge isn’t just making it work; it’s managing tolerances so that when all those parts stack together, the overall height and clearances remain perfect. Katayama adjusts combinations of parts until everything functions precisely.
The case is 42.6mm of stainless steel, initially SUS303, later upgraded to 316L. The crystal is sapphire with anti-reflective coating. The lugs are wire-style, screwed from the back rather than the bezel—a detail Katayama refined in 2023 to improve durability.
At JPY 440,000–484,000 (≈ USD 2,800–3,200), it sits in that sweet spot: accessible enough for serious enthusiasts, expensive enough to reflect the handwork involved.
Then came November 2024. The GPHG jury awarded the Challenge Prize to the No.6, praising its “bi-retrograde display, gauge-inspired design, and artisanal steampunk execution.”
A watch that looks like industrial equipment. Made by a former car designer. Produced in a Tokyo garage. Beating out brands with decades of history and millions in marketing budgets.
The watch world had to pay attention.
Otsuka Lotec No.7: Camera Lens Inspiration
Emboldened by No.6’s success, Katayama pushed further into his industrial obsessions. The No.7and No.7.5 take inspiration from 8mm film cameras—those mechanical marvels where every frame was a physical object.
The case is a rounded 40mm with wire lugs. The crown at 4 o’clock is knurled like a precision screwdriver. But the real magic is in the dial: three steel-framed windows, each with its own fisheye lens:
- Jumping hour at 10 o’clock
- Minutes disc at 2 o’clock
- Seconds disc at 6 o’clock
The No.7.5 (2021, updated 2023) refines this with three independent windows, sapphire lenses instead of acrylic, and improved 316L steel. The movement is a Miyota 82S5 with Katayama’s jumping-hour module—six months of development to achieve instantaneous hour changes while keeping minutes and seconds running independently.
Reading the time feels like checking a camera’s settings. It’s playful, mechanical, and completely unlike any traditional watch. At JPY 418,000 (≈ USD 2,750), it maintains the brand’s accessible-indie positioning while offering genuine technical novelty.
Otsuka Lotec No.9: Haute Horlogerie Ambition
If No.6 proved Katayama could compete, No.9 proves he can soar. This is Otsuka Lotec’s first high complication, and it represents nine years of development.
The case is rectangular/tonneau, 41–48mm long, with a wraparound sapphire crystal revealing a skeletonized landscape of wheels, discs, and gongs. It looks like a vacuum tube, a camera finder, an industrial cityscape rendered in metal.
Inside is the Calibre SSGT—Katayama’s first truly in-house movement:
- Instantaneous jumping hour disc at the top
- “Rewinding minutes”—a retrograde minute disc that snaps back via a central hairspring every hour
- Power reserve indicator integrated into the dial
- One-minute tourbillon at 2.5 Hz (18,000 vph) with free-sprung balance
- Sonnerie au passage—a striking-on-the-hour gong visible along the case side
The engineering includes MinebeaMitsumi ruby ball bearings as small as 1.5mm—reportedly the world’s smallest—supporting rotating components to reduce friction.
Development took nine years. The price is JPY 2,500,000–3,000,000 (≈ USD 16,500–20,000).
No.9 isn’t just a complicated watch. It’s a statement that Otsuka Lotec belongs in the conversation with F.P. Journe, Voutilainen, and other independent haute horlogerie makers—while looking like absolutely none of them.
Otsuka Lotec’s Cult Following: Why Everyone Wants What They Can’t Have
Despite the GPHG win, Otsuka Lotec remains Japan-centric by design. Watches are sold primarily within Japan, often by lottery to manage demand.
This scarcity has created a global cult following. Collectors travel to Tokyo to enter lotteries. Secondary market prices climb. Auction houses like Phillips feature Otsuka Lotec in their TOKI sales, highlighting them as exemplary Japanese independents.
The brand’s reputation as “Japan’s coolest indie you’ve never heard of”—until the GPHG win brought it into the mainstream—has become self-reinforcing. The more people learn about it, the more they want it. The more they want it, the more exclusive it becomes.
Otsuka Lotec Philosophy: Why “Low-Tech” Is Actually High-Concept
The term “low-tech” might seem like marketing, but for Katayama, it’s a deeply held philosophy about what makes objects meaningful in an age of digital perfection.
He believes analog objects have soul. They require interpretation. They demand engagement. They create a relationship between user and machine that digital devices, with their effortless perfection, cannot replicate.
When you wear an Otsuka Lotec No.6, you’re not just checking time. You’re:
- Decoding a display that requires you to think differently
- Appreciating the snap of retrograde hands returning to zero
- Feeling the texture of a hand-hammered case
- Noticing how light plays across brushed surfaces and exposed screws
- Connecting to a tradition of industrial design where form followed function, but function was beautiful
This is emotional design in its purest form. It’s not about being retro for nostalgia’s sake. It’s about creating objects that feel authentic in a world of mass-produced perfection.
The Future: Scaling Without Selling Out
As of 2026, Otsuka Lotec stands at an inflection point. The GPHG win brought global attention. The No.9 proved high-complication capability. Demand far exceeds supply.
The logical next step would be to scale up, expand internationally, become a “real” watch brand. But Katayama has been cautious. He wants to stabilize quality and capacity before expandinginternationally.
Potential developments include:
- International distribution through selective partnerships
- New complications (perpetual calendar, more sophisticated striking mechanisms)
- Design evolution (new materials, evolved case designs)
- Modest production scaling (perhaps to 300-400 watches annually)
But he won’t compromise quality for quantity. Any growth will be gradual and controlled.
Why Otsuka Lotec Matters: A New Paradigm
In an industry dominated by Swiss heritage and luxury conglomerates, Otsuka Lotec represents something radically different:
- It proves design philosophy can be the differentiator—not heritage, not marketing, not technical complexity for its own sake
- It shows self-taught watchmaking can reach the highest levels—passion and dedication can substitute for formal training
- It demonstrates small scale can be a strength—scarcity creates value, not artificial limitation
- It represents a distinctly Japanese approach to luxury—monozukuri, wabi-sabi, kaizen, omotenashi
- It challenges what a “luxury watch” should look like—industrial, asymmetrical, exposed, yet undeniably luxurious
Conclusion: The Watchmaker Who Proved Different Can Be Better
The story of Otsuka Lotec is the story of what happens when someone looks at an established industry and asks: “What if we did this completely differently?”
Jiro Katayama didn’t try to compete with Swiss watchmakers on their terms. He drew inspiration from industrial design, taught himself watchmaking from scratch, created a “low-tech” aestheticthat celebrates the analog, and built a micro-manufacturing operation that prioritizes quality over quantity.
The GPHG win for the No.6 wasn’t just an award for a good watch. It was validation that a different approach can succeed at the highest levels. It proved that collectors and experts value originality, craftsmanship, and coherent design philosophy as much as heritage or brand prestige.
As Otsuka Lotec approaches its next chapter, one thing is certain: Katayama won’t compromise the vision that got him here. He’ll grow slowly, carefully, on his own terms.
And for collectors, that’s exactly what makes Otsuka Lotec so compelling. In an industry full of brands trying to be everything to everyone, Otsuka Lotec is unapologetically itself.
The watch that shouldn’t have won did. And in doing so, it proved that in watchmaking, as in all creative endeavors, the most interesting path is often the one no one else is taking.
Stories from Independent Watchmaking
While Otsuka Lotec channels industrial design into wristwatches, other Japanese independents take radically different paths. Naoya Hida & Co. refines mid-century dress watch aesthetics through neo-classical revisionism, proving that a salesman’s eye for detail can rival traditional watchmaking schools. For those who believe “handmade” has lost its meaning, Alan Birchall demonstrates in his Tajimi ceramics studio that one watchmaker can still shape 95% of a watch using only manually-operated vintage machines. Each represents a unique vision of what independent watchmaking can achieve when intention matters more than production volume.
