Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Made in Japan Seiko... well, not really. First, I’d like to say this is a very nice watch. The green color is great. I was worried that with my skinny wrists it would look too large. It’s fine. I think the biggest selling point was the “made in Japan” on the watch. It got me to research the origin of this watch and what classifies as “made in Japan” Ok, simple answer is that Japanese law allows products to be marked “made in Japan” if the Japanese company fully owns the facility on a foreign soil and it’s build processing is overseen by a Japanese national. So, it doesn’t have to be made on Japanese soil to be marked “made in Japan”. Seiko designates the watch models with a K or J. This doesn’t designate country of manufacturing but the country they can export the product to. Since the USA requires product to be marked with country of manufacturing, the “made in Japan” J model can’t be imported so Seiko sends the K models to the USA. These have the “true” country of manufacturing marked... Malaysia. If you open the watch it Is made of mostly Chinese parts. It was assembled in Malaysia. Other countries have different import laws, so they can import the J models. These watches are identical (K and J) other than a few markings, they are made in exact same location in Malaysia using Chinese and Malaysian parts. Built by automated process with very little human interaction. If you want a Seiko made in Japan by skilled Japanese watch makers, you have to spend the money on a Grand Seiko model. Even some of those models outsource the parts but are made truly in Japan. You will spend $$$ on those models. Also, since this was a “grey market” purchase, there is no manufacturer warranty since it was never meant to be sold in the USA. Seiko will not honor this purchase. The warranty card is removed. So my recommendation, knowing what I know now, is that I could have saved money getting the K version and I would have a full warranty. Lesson learned. Hence, I’m docking one star. Overall, for the price it’s still a very nice watch. It’s just not made in Japan the way you think it is. No company could compete with the labor cost of Japanese worker to make a watch at this price point in Japan.