On trying to cop the Kurono Tokyo Anniversary Green ‘森:Mori’

By: Agaki (@agakistuff)

All I wanted was a cool green watch.

It's almost midnight where I am and I have a blanket wrapped around me. I'm at my laptop and I'm ready — waiting for 11:30PM Japanese Standard Time. All I wanted was a cool green watch. I'd treat it like a sneaker release. No expectations. All I wanted was a cool green watch, but I knew I probably wouldn't get it. I watched the countdown intently.

"Kurono is proud to present its Anniversary Green ‘森:mori’ time-only watch in commemoration of our first anniversary in June 2020. The watch is priced at US$1,790 and is limited in production.

The dial is a specially picked color by Hajime-san in scintillating metallic green with a subtle radial sunburst pattern. Depending on how the light hits at different times of the day or from different angles, the dial displays shades of viridian and emerald, to pine and forest green."

A more affordable watch from the mind of Hajime Asaoka, the independent watchmaking star of Japan — the only country that could rival the Swiss, releasing online in a limited run of 50 pieces. Parts from the same manufacture of Grand Seiko, wrapped up in a 37mm, “modern vintage” style package. All I own currently are Japanese watches. Japanese clothes. Japanese sneakers. I'm an avid sneaker collector who has recently jumped into the rabbit hole of watch collecting. Collecting is collecting no matter what it is, so I felt my transition into watch-land was completely natural. Green is my favorite color, I started off my watch collection with a SARB017. I love time-only pieces and this was a time-only piece. I needed this stupid Mori watch and I knew I probably wouldn't get it. This watch somehow ticked all my specific boxes. There were over 1000 likes on the initial reveal on Instagram of the watch. All those people competing for just 50 pieces. All I wanted was a cool green watch. All you can do is try, right?

The people behind the Kurono Tokyo had stated that there would be around five minutes at checkout to fill in your details if you managed to get to the checkout page with the watch in the cart. I knew that this wouldn't be the case. If there's one thing I have experience with, it's buying things from Japan. I will tell you now that anything related to Japanese internet is stuck in the year 1998. There was a big Japanese Government snafu in which the minister in charge of cyber-security admitted he had never used a computer before. Think about that. No, these Mori watches were going to sell the hell out immediately. All I needed was to be the fastest gun in the East.

I've been here before. The Kurono Tokyo website even uses the same shopfront system as many sneaker stores. I see the countdown. I refresh the page the moment the countdown ticks to zero. I add the Mori watch to my cart, my details are auto-filled already. I click, 'Proceed to payment'. All of this takes less than 30 seconds.

And yet a familiar screen appears, an old friend even. 'We're sorry, but this product is sold out.' Less than a minute and all 50 of the Kurono Tokyo Anniversary Green Mori watches are sold out. All I wanted was a cool green watch.

I am all too familiar with this feeling. It is the same feeling I get multiple times a year. In sneaker-land, this feeling is summed up by one letter: “L” To take an, “L” is to not be fast enough (don't have robots?), not have any automated robots to complete your order (still not guaranteed, even with bots) or not being lucky enough to gain a golden ticket that will give you the privilege of even buying the product (raffles often rigged in favor of friends of the store). I do a sad laugh internally and my now near automatic, “Took An L” ritual forged in the fires of sneaker collecting begins. The next time you walk past a sneaker store and see a gigantic line for a Yeezy or a Jordan that goes around the corner, I want you to internalize that most people in that line will not be getting that shoe. Commonplace.

The “Took An L” ritual is simple. Take the L, shrug your shoulders and go to an Instagram page where many, many other unfortunate souls will begin to complain about said L in a collective consumerism schadenfreude. The sneaker community has this ritual boiled down to a tee. Simply go to a shop's Instagram page after a major release, click on the photo of the sneaker and you will see dozens if not hundreds of souls simply comment the letter, “L” under the photo. Beautifully efficient, representative of a collective sigh and sad acceptance. I went to Instagram expecting to see a bunch of WIS's doing essentially the same thing.

However the watch community acted a bit differently. I went to the Kurono Tokyo Instagram page to survey the damage. In stark contrast to the semi-sarcastic and accepting tone of the sneaker comment sections I am used to, the watch folk were mad. Like really mad. “Comment Section of a Tabloid Website” levels of mad. I couldn't help but laugh at all these souls, posting paragraphs of anguish! Long essays about how the, “system was unfair” and how, “true collectors” should be entitled to buy the watch. “First time?” I thought to myself as I scrolled. Was I just accepting of this aspect of collecting from my Hypebeast days or did this group of mostly older, well-to-do and currently extremely disgruntled watch-folk have a point? As noted before, Kurono Tokyo stated you would have five minutes of leeway to check out. There wasn't. It was a simple misunderstanding of how the shopfront system worked on their part and something that should be forgiven. It didn't stop some people from immediately swearing off the brand completely, blurting grandiose denouncements all round. I could sympathize but couldn't help but be bemused at the people who could not comprehend that this was a thing that could happen. Unfortunately this is what (to me) is reality. Fifty pieces in high demand, gone in a matter of seconds. Pretty logical. All we wanted was a cool green watch.

In the next hour however, complete madness ensued.

Kurono Tokyo themselves made multiple posts in the comments of their pictures of the Mori watch, apologizing profusely for a situation out of their control. Replying to a few bereaved watch collectors with sincere and obvious remorse that was often met with even more indignation. If you have any ounce of empathy, reading these words and imagining a panicking group of Japanese watch people is pretty heartbreaking. Brought home especially hard in this comment from them:

"Over the course of the week, the team has worked very hard to try to solve the issue. First, we were assured by our provider that there was in place a 5 minute checkout hold. Second, we coded a cart limit so that no one could buy more than 1 piece. Next, we individually went through account to ensure that there were no duplicate addresses, and tracked Chrono24/eBay to match back to potential traders. we apologize that the system failed everyone. In no way did we want this to turn out the way it did. At its peak, there were 1500 simultaneous carts being checked out at the same time, with the inventory sold out in 42 seconds."

I'm sitting in my chair reading this, feeling bad — refreshing the Instagram page occasionally to add to my schadenfreude stockpile. This is when the people behind Kurono Tokyo did an astonishing thing. I saw a new post on what would've been my thirtieth refresh of their Instagram page. They posted another image with this caption:

"We will be opening orders again in 1 hour at 1230am JST. For 10 minutes, during this period, there will be no limit to the orders. Each customer will still be limited to 1 piece per checkout.
For the first 50 that have previously successfully ordered the watch, should you decide to cancel the order, we will immediately provide a refund PLUS US$50 as an token of apology..."

Less than twenty minutes after it had sold out. My brain almost imploded. We were entering unprecedented territory! A second bloody chance! A second countdown was added to the site. I watched the countdown intently. I refresh the page the moment the countdown ticks to zero. The watch now has, “second-batch” as an addendum to its item title. I add the Mori watch to my cart, my details are auto-filled already. I click, “Proceed to payment”. All of this takes less than 30 seconds.

This time, my phone buzzed. The payment had gone through. I got an e-mail confirmation.

In sneaker-land when you actually miraculously purchase the limited edition thing you want, you call it a, “W”. I didn't sign up for a roller coaster ride. All I wanted was a cool green watch.

There are some takeaways here.

(1) A brand, selling a consumer product, made a mistake and immediately tried to fix it. That is sadly, incredibly rare. They could have easily said, “tough luck” and left it there. They could have taken up the position that prestige brands Rolex and Yeezy had done thousands of times — a position of complete radio silence. Frankly, Kurono Tokyo should be applauded for their coming up with a creative solution on the fly! I could never, ever in a million years imagine a Nike or Adidas pulling this off with any of their limited release runs. Transparency should be applauded and the Kurono Tokyo team have been 100% transparent.

(2) What is considered a routine and mundane thing in one collecting hobby (taking an, “L”) is apparently (in this instance at least) considered absolutely outrageous, unheard of and offensive in another. The immediate collective outrage of the people who wanted this watch managed to create an ENTIRELY NEW PRODUCTION RUN(!!). Imagine if every person who didn't get an Off-White or Supreme or Yeezy release protested with the zeal of these watch idiot savants? What does that say about the watch community? I'm still trying to figure that out. There's a weird aura of entitlement unique to the watch community at least, which leads to the next takeaway.

(3) There is a haves and have-nots story here too. Comments from two or three of the people that managed to snag their original run of 50 are indignant. Along the lines of, “well it's not that limited anymore is it! I deserve something because I was in the original first 50!”. After this revelation that more watches would be produced past the original 50, four of the people (so far) who somehow got through the original countdown have cancelled and refunded their orders in what I really want to imagine as a pure tantrum at how their limited thing became slightly less limited. Kurono Tokyo stated shortly after the “second coming” that their total run of Mori watches would end up at a whopping 280 watches. Hell, I thought I was astoundingly lucky to find a 1/1959 Blue Alpinist for sale at a slightly above retail price. Let alone 1/280. There's some deep consumer psychology going on here that's too smart for my simple consumerist mind to comprehend. All I can do is recommend you watch the Oscar winning film Parasite or Moneyball. Both critique rigged systems. There's a Patriot Act episode called, “The Business of Hype.” There's an article about almost this exact thing on Rescapement about the Nomos Tangente Sport for Hodinkee. Maybe a read on veblen goods would do the trick. There might be an answer relating to whatever the hell happened with these damn Mori watches in any of those pieces of aforementioned media, who knows?

(4) Collecting is mostly about luck. I could have gone to sleep after I missed out on the initial run. I could have just closed the Instagram tab and missed the re-run. There are a bunch of people in the comments airing out their grievance about them doing that exact thing. Yet I sat there like an idiot refreshing the page because I was bored and mildly annoyed and I had nothing better to do on a Friday night. This anomaly of a situation won't happen again. No way.

In the last post on Instagram revealing the final production estimates, Kurono Tokyo stated that, "We are very thankful that the final edition size has remained below 300." To be honest I couldn't care less about how many they make, made or are making.

All I wanted was a cool green watch. And I got it. Hell yes.