Otsuka Lotec Presents its New Creation, the No.8 Jumping Hour and Retrograde Minute

Otsuka Lotec… The Japanese brand (or should we call it an atelier) that makes some noise in the global watch collecting community, despite being unavailable outside of Japan – which might partially explain its popularity. A true JDM sensation, Otsuka Lotec is the brainchild of Jiro Katayama, a car designer turned self-taught, independent watchmaker, specialised in industrial-themed, steampunk-inspired watches with unusual displays inspired by the worlds of instruments and cameras. Following the recent launch of the stunning No.9, with an in-house movement featuring a tourbillon, hour strike mechanism, jumping hours and rewinding minutes, it’s time for the brand to come back to its more accessible roots with the new Otsuka Lotec No.8 model. 

Otsuka Lotec’s Jiro Katayama draws his inspiration not from the realm of watches but from the industrial world, where his career began – cars, trains, aeroplanes, all kinds of vehicles, gauges, music, hi-fi instruments, and cameras too. In recent years, his watches, all based on an industrial, highly mechanical expression of watchmaking, combining rough finishes and original displays, have gained incredible traction. The success is also due to his low production volume and the inability to buy them outside of their country of origin, Japan. The No.5 Kai even made it to the GPHG 2025 pre-selection.

A brand that focuses on original displays and industrial designs, we have, over the past few years, covered the No.6 with its double-retrograde display, the No.7.5 with its camera-like apertures and the recent No.5 Kai with satellite hours. And for a long time, all were based on an automatic Miyota movement with a self-developed display module on top. That changed drastically with the No.9 model, a far more expensive and complex watch with in-house movement. But with the No.8 Jumping Hour and Retrograde Minute, Otsuka Lotec goes back to its roots.

A “simpler” watch with a Miyota base calibre at its core, the Otsuka Lotec No.8 feels like the natural continuation of the previous No.5 Kai, No.6 and No.7.5, and yet somehow adds some of the No.9’s cues into the equation. As for the overall design, we’re once again looking at an horoligical UFO, mixing modernism and industrial vintage inspiration, like a vision of a modern item in a 1970s or 1980s movie – this watch would have looked perfect in the original 1982 Blade Runner movie. The case, made of straight-grained steel, is rectangular with facetted top surfaces, measuring 31mm in width and just under 48mm in length. Thickness is under control at 10.8mm, and the watch retains the classic, deliberately rough-looking crown at 4 o’clock and a curved sapphire crystal opening the view on the right side.

But Otsuka Lotec being Otsuka Lotec, the new No.8 model isn’t classic when it comes to the display. Once again, no traditional dial with a pair of hands rotating on top of it. The Otsuka Lotec No.8 combines two appealing functions, a jumping hour mechanism and a retrograde minute function, both linked for simultaneous action. As you can see in the video on top of this article, the joint action is truly mechanical in its motion and sound, but also deliberately slowed down. The left side of what looks like more of a control panel than a dial is devoted to the jumping hour, indicated by a large rotating knob, in an almost classic 12-hour style. On top, you’ll see a small cutout leaving space for the running seconds indication, with a disc rotating once every 90 seconds.

The right side features an arch on which the minutes are displayed, in a retrograde fashion. A module travels from bottom to top alongside the arched track and, once it reaches the 60 mark, it jumps back to zero, and the hour simultaneously jumps an extra number. That said, the retrograde minute is linked to a flywheel (visible on the top right corner) that damps the action and both protects the movement as well as making it more pleasing visually. Both this flywheel and the minute arm use ball bearings for a smooth action.

At the heart of the Otsuka Lotec No.8 is a Miyota 90S5 base calibre (automatic, 4Hz frequency) on which an in-house display module is attached. The module is composed of 62 components and uses one ultra-small 1.5mm ball bearing manufactured by MinebeaMitsumi, currently the smallest in the world, as well as two additional 2.5mm ball bearings. Due to the complexity and energy consumption of such displays, the power reserve is rated at 32 hours.

Worn on a 24mm black rubber strap, the Otsuka Lotec No.8 will be available for JPY 990,000 (tax included), or approximately EUR 5,390 at the time of publication. As with the brand’s previous releases, the watches will be allocated through a raffle (opening on 23/03/2026 at 5PM Japan Time), and only applicants with a credit card issued in Japan and a shipping address in Japan can apply (no overseas shipping). For more details, please visit otsuka-lotec.com.