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| In some shots, the entire watch looks near-black with no sign of color. In others, color is all you see on the new Casio MR-G watch. |
Casio’s MRG-B2100HR has been getting plenty of attention since the first press images appeared. Those images made one thing clear: this was an MR-G with a rainbow bezel and bracelet. What they didn’t show was how that finish would look on an actual wrist. Now, thanks to new real-world photos from Hodinkee Japan, we have a much better answer. In short, the watch is far more restrained in person than the official renders suggest.
The Rainbow Finish Is Angle-Dependent
The official Casio images show a bezel and bracelet with a full spectrum of color. That look has divided forum opinion, with some fans loving the bold effect and others finding it too much. But the color isn’t painted on or applied as a coating. It’s structural, created by cutting the metal with an ultra-short pulse laser. That means it only reveals itself when light hits it at a specific angle.
Hodinkee’s writer is candid about this. In ordinary lighting, the MRG-B2100HR looks like an all-black MR-G, much like the MRG-B2100B. To get the bezel to light up in photos, they had to hit it with a strong, deliberate light source. You can see the full set of images in Hodinkee Japan’s hands-on article.
The wrist shots tell a similar story. Tucked under a cuff in indoor light, the MRG-B2100HR reads as a dark, monochrome watch. The only hint of color is a faint blue-green speckle along the bezel edge. Close-ups show where the rainbow actually lives: it’s patchy rather than uniform, concentrated around the outer edge of the bezel and a few bracelet links. It looks more like oxidized metal or a mineral surface than a decorative coating. One side-on shot of the bracelet is full rainbow; the next frame, from a different angle, is nearly black.
The Dial Has Its Own Uneven Beauty
Then there’s the dial. Kyoto foil artist Hiroto Rakusho scatters powdered platinum foil, known as sunago, across the lattice. Up close, the coverage is clearly uneven — dense in some spots, sparse in others. That irregularity is what gives each dial its own shading, so no two examples should look exactly alike.
Price, Availability, and Specs
As a quick refresher, the Casio MRG-B2100HR is limited to 800 pieces. It’s priced at ¥1,100,000 including tax and uses a Ti64 case with a Cobarion bezel. It goes on sale in Japan on November 13.
For anyone who saw the press renders and assumed the MRG-B2100HR was a loud, rainbow-heavy MR-G, these real-world photos offer a useful correction. It’s still a special finish — just one that hides most of its color until the light catches it. That might actually make it more appealing to buyers who want an MR-G that stays subtle at a glance, but reveals something unexpected when viewed from the right angle.
