A Grand Seiko Limited Edition ‘Lake Suwa’ Spring Drive, SLGA007

If you want to get from Tokyo to points west and south, you have a couple of options. The first is to drive or take the train along the coast (the Shinkansen runs from Tokyo to Nagoya) but that route keeps you away from the interior. The other option is to drive southwest from Tokyo and then head up north to Nagano Prefecture, where the Winter Olympics were held in 1998. If you follow the E20, you will eventually arrive in Suwa City, and just past the city proper, you can see Lake Suwa itself, lying between the surrounding mountains where two of Japan’s most important Shinto shrines are located, including the Suwa Grand Shrine, where once every six years, Suwa residents ride enormous logs down a mountainside. This ritual is called the Onbashira Festival; the logs become the new Grand Shrine pillars and the log-riding is both oddly exuberant, and incredibly dangerous.

It’s impossible to reach towns in the interior except via this roundabout route, since the mountain range known as the Japanese Alps stands in the way. These mountains are exceptionally rugged, and for most of Japan’s history were considered impassable by any means. However, in 1907, an expedition led by Yoshitaru Shibasaki explored Mount Tsurugi and found there a can and sword which had been left there by an ascetic practitioner of Shugendō, which is a practice combining elements of Shinto, Buddhism, and Taoism.

If you continue north from Lake Suwa, you will reach the nearby town of Shiojiri, which is the home of Seiko Epson and the famous Micro Artist Studio, and which is the location where Spring Drive and quartz Grand Seiko watches are made (mechanical Grand Seiko watches are made in northern Japan, in Shizukuishi. Shiojiri is a small town – there are less than 70,000 inhabitants – and nature is very close; the region is mostly agricultural, with Seiko Epson a major employer.

I mention all this to point out that the inspiration of the natural world found in Grand Seiko watches, is not something put on by a marketing department; the shape of Mount Iwated in Shizukuishi, and the depth and color of Lake Suwa, have woven tales around them for hundreds and even thousands of years. Lake Suwa has inspired a number of different Spring Drive models but the Lake Suwa dial, which was created for the limited edition SLGA007, is perhaps the purest interpretation of the lucid waters of the lake, and of its importance in Japanese culture.

When it was released in 2021, the Lake Suwa Spring Drive generated a tremendous amount of excitement among Grand Seiko, and especially Spring Drive, enthusiasts. A feature of Spring Drive watches from the very beginning – from the launch of the first limited editions in 1999 – has been the presence of a power reserve indication and from the beginning this has also been a divisive feature for Spring Drive enthusiasts. In recent years, and with the introduction of the new Spring Drive automatic caliber 9RA2, and the hand wound calibers 9R02 and 9R31, the power reserve indication is no longer on the dial, but on the movement plate, and visible only from the back of the watch. There are still a number of Spring Drive watches with dial side power reserves in Grand Seiko’s catalog of some hundred-odd Spring Drive watches, but with respect to the power reserve you can now have your cake and/or eat it too.

I struggle a bit to this day when writing about Grand Seiko dials in general because I find myself wanting to use superlatives like “sumptuous.” Hyperbole when it comes to watch dials is generally a good thing to avoid but there is no denying that the Lake Suwa LE dial is as sumptuous as it gets. When it comes to Grand Seiko dials we all have our favorites – the White Birch, to pick an obvious example, is a perennial crowd-pleaser – but I think the Lake Suwa dial can stand on its own strengths against any other Grand Seiko dial and for that matter, against any dial from anybody else.

Grand Seiko dials which are explicitly inspired by nature generally follow the path typically taken in Japanese art, where natural phenomena are more often suggested than rendered in as much specific detail as possible. A literal representation of waves would be I think, fairly uninteresting in comparison to the stylized representation found on the Lake Suwa dial SLGA007, but that deep blue very much represents the appearance of the actual lake. Lake Suwa is not very deep (about seven or so meters, maximum depth) but on a clear day it reflects the blue above it with remarkable fidelity.

Caliber 9RA2 has a combination of graceful lines and obvious precision machining which are highly characteristic of Grand Seiko movements. As you can see the power reserve indicator is now on the movement plate, where it serves its purpose without cluttering the dial, and you can see the pivot of the last wheel in the going train as well as the pivot for the Spring Drive glide wheel, underneath their respective antishock jewels at about 6:00. 9RA2 was designed with several objectives in mind, including a longer power reserve, and thinner dimensions. The caliber 9RA2 used a redesigned gear train for the Magic Lever winding system, and is 0.8mm thinner than the 9R6 calibers. The power reserve is now five days, or 120 hours.

I think in a way there is an argument to be made that this is the quintessential modern Grand Seiko Spring Drive watch. The Evolution 9 design language, including the elaborately faceted indexes, and broad highly reflective hands (both diamond polished by hand in Shiojiri) and the use of a gold color for the Grand Seiko logo and seconds hand, combined with the smooth gliding motion of the seconds hand and all the advantages of the caliber 9RA2, make the Lake Suwa irresistible if you have any inclination towards Spring Drive at all. Sometimes enthusiasts give Grand Seiko a little flak about leaning too hard into natural inspiration but I gotta say, it’s hard to argue with a pre-occupation with the natural world when it produces results like this.

The Grand Seiko Lake Suwa SLGA007: Contact us for pricing and availability.