There is a word on the dial that no longer exists today: Parawater.
Citizen coined it in 1959 for the first fully water- and dustproof wristwatch manufactured in Japan—“para” for protection, “water” for what was being protected against. The original design shows just how important this innovation was to the company: on the first Parawater, the name was placed on the dial where the brand logo usually sits.
The story behind it
The construction relied on O-rings made from a specially developed nitrile rubber—a large sealing ring on the case back, plus a completely redesigned crown with its own seal. The result was rated for 50 meters. The watch was sold for ¥6,000, at a time when the starting salary for a Japanese school leaver was about ¥12,500 per month.
Citizen had the technology, but not yet the trust of the market. So they set out to prove it.
In 1962, Kenichi Horie took two Parawater watches with him when he became the first person to cross the Pacific Ocean alone and non-stop in a sailboat—ninety-three days on the “Mermaid,” from Nishinomiya, Japan, to San Francisco. Horie was twenty-three at the time. After his return, he gifted one of the watches to Citizen.
Starting in 1963, Citizen took a systematic approach. Together with the Japanese marine research industry, Parawater watches were attached to research buoys and released into the Kuroshio Current—one hundred buoys in three waves, which set off across the Pacific from the ship. The watches hung below the waterline. Years later, buoys were recovered on the American West Coast, including one in 1966 off Manzanita, Oregon. The watches were still running.
That was marketing, but also genuine ocean current research—and proof that a Japanese watch could survive for years in the open ocean.
