I think you mean Arabic numerals. A clock with Roman numerals would look just as unwieldy as the one pictured.

Not really; there are plenty of watch and clock faces out there that use Roman numerals...

I second the view of it looking like an intern wrote the kanji in magic marker, though.

Looking at the cast list and trying to figure out which were the actors' names and which their characters, I came across the name Tawny Cypress, figured it for a character name, and therefore deduced that they'd named the Japanese character Masi Oka. Oh lord, another plausible-but-wrong Japanese name, I thought. But on a closer look it turns out that the actor's called Masi and the character has the eminently normal name of Hiro Nakamura. Go figure.

From the snippet of video on the official site it looks like they've taken the unusual but laudable move of filming it in Japanese, too.

You're both right. There are indeed clocks with Roman numberals on them, but I did in fact mean to say "Arabic." D'oh!

"Masi" is an interesting name. I wonder if it's short for anything, or if it's not Japanese.

I can confirm the japanese segments are filmed in japanese, the character however is a little too much stereotypical, I hope it'll get better after the pilot because the other characters are instead quite intresting.

Uh, btw, funny thing about arabic numerals: every western country belive that the *symbols* for the numbers are arabic, but in fact arab countries use different symbols.

Cringe. Maybe it would have been better to have written the hours in "large hours" with the chinese zodiac 干支. Doubt that it would be any more authentic...

Ha! Actually I WOULD like a clock that showed me times like "Half past dog."

dasnake: Thanks for the first-hand report!

Just to kick up the pedantry a notch, while they are commonly called Arabic numerals, they're actually Indian, which is what the Arabs call them.

They're formally called Hindu-Arabic numerals.

I can't resist a pedantry contest.

Of course, I'm distinguishing the numeric system from the glyphs.

The intern didn't even bother making it. That specific clock has been sold in the US for years. It usually shows up in the sort of almost-classy catalog that gets your address from a list of public radio donators. It's on the same page as the flagstones that have the hanzi for "dream" or "harmony" and across from the reproduction Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass window hangings.

It looks like a quick not-so-good copy of this clock, so it still could have been an intern.

My omiyage worries are OVER!

Did you check out the other selections on the "Originals" page? Samurai sweatshirts AND tote bags. I'm in hen-na-gaijin heaven!

I'm a bit worried about the Jizo greetings cards, tho. Think they're inscribed with dead baby jokes?

Chanchanko, aka-chan...

Oh dear...do the akai chanchanko have anything to do with akachan?!

I vote "Intern." The characters don't look like they were written by anyone who really know how to write Chinese or Japanese. None of them have hooks. The three is like a pyramid rather than having the shortest line in the middle. The bottom of the five extends too far. Even Japanese schoolkids write better kanji.

I don't think a whole samurai would fit in one of those tote bags.

Matt - the zodiac clock has already been done: the largest pendulum clock in the world, in the Shinjuku NS Building. Come on!

Oh, AND it has a 24-hour face! That's the future of timekeeping, if you ask me.

If you have a wrist the size of a tree trunk, you can live the future today with a Yes Watch.

It's true, my ignorance of available clocks and clock-related products is shameful! I'll keep an eye out next time I'm in Shinjuku. And when I get rich, I'll hire a burly manservant to wear that watch for me.