Casio designer Kikuo Ibe created the first G-SHOCK, the DW-5000C, in 1983 with the goals of 10-year battery life, a water resistance of 10 bar and the ability to survive a 10-meter fall. Apparently underwhelmed by the watch’s ruggedness, in 1985 the G-SHOCK team created the DW-5500C, an updated version with a “mud-resistant construction,” appropriately nicknamed the “Mudman.” In 1993, Casio released the Frogman — a watch made for divers, with an ISO-certified 200-meter depth rating. This sparked the “MASTER of G” line, with various other ultra-tough G-SHOCK tool watches to follow throughout the ’90s and onward.
Aside from their durability, MASTER of G watches display Casio’s incredible ability to engineer many features into a wrist watch. The G-SHOCK RISEMAN was capable of measuring ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure, allowing it to serve as a barometer and altimeter for those who worked and played at high altitudes. The ANTMAN was the first G-SHOCK to be fitted with atomic clock signal receptors. The FISHERMAN had a tide graph. The list goes on: more than a dozen MASTER of G watches have come and gone since the product line’s launch. Today, Casio continues the engineering legacy of the MASTER of G line with three new sub-models invoking the Air, Land and Sea.
MUDMASTER “ON THE LAND”
GG1000-1A3 & GWG1000-1A3
Like the original 1985 MUDMAN, the MUDMASTER GG1000-1A3 is made to be as resistant to mud as possible. Multiple gaskets are used in the tubes that house the watch’s buttons, keeping any gunky detritus from finding its way into the watch and gumming up the works. The MUDMASTER GG1000-1A3 also features the same digital compass feature and thermometer as its skyward brother.
GRAVITYMASTER “IN THE SKY”
GPW1000-1A & GA1000-2B
The GA1000-2B GRAVITYMASTER is the MASTER of G’s aviation-centric watch. Its pièce de résistance is a digital compass mode with bearing memory: simply press a button at the 9 o’clock position, and the watch’s second hand acts as an arrow pointing north (there is also a literal direction indicator) and takes directional readings. The compass’s bearing mode also allows the watch to temporarily store and display a direction reading. What’s more, it features a thermometer, a world-time function (with 31 time zones), a stopwatch function and a high-luminosity LED display for optimal legibility even in complete darkness.
GULFMASTER “OUT AT SEA”
GWN1000B-1B & GN1000B-1A
While it has the same convenient compass and thermometer as the MUDMASTER and GRAVITYMASTER, the GULFMASTER GN1000B-1A adds additional features particularly handy for mariners: a tide graph, which indicates the tide height for a specific time and date, as well as a moonphase graph.
