I bought the A158-like Casio DQD-851J-8JF desk clock at Don Qujote in Japan

On a recent trip to Japan, I spotted the A158-inspired and Japan-only Casio DQD-851J-8JF desk clock at Don Quijote (west of Ikebukuro station) and bought it tax-free for 3,999 yen (around $25). The self-standing clock uses two AA batteries and has thermometer and humidity sensors, alarm, amber LED backlight (with about a 3-second duration), and the Wave Ceptor auto time correction function which is limited to receiving from only the Japan transmitters for this clock. With the aid of Google Lens translation, the clock was easy enough to set up by using the “Set” button to cycle through the options and the +/- buttons to make adjustments. My first impression after inserting the batteries was that the contrast of the digits was rather low, but the contrast level is adjustable (after the 12/24-hour setting) up to 10 with a default setting of 3. There is no option to disable the Wave Ceptor function, but Casio lists the estimated battery life as one year, so that shouldn’t be much of an issue. Along with automatic time adjustment, there is also a button to perform a sync manually. The Japanese characters to the left of the time signify afternoon time (i.e. “p.m.”), and there is also the option to display 24-hour time.

The Casio DQD-851J-8JF with contrast set to 5 and sitting next to a G-Shock DW-5000R.

I wasn’t initially planning on buying this, but I’m glad I stumbled upon it and I wholeheartedly recommend it. The clock would make a great gift, as it comes in a smallish box measuring around 11 x 12 x 5.5 centimeters. Although this item wasn’t discounted from the MSRP other than the tax-free price for tourists, Don Quijote also had some big discounts on G-Shock watches, such as recent GST-B1000 models with a tax-free price of 48,000 yen (around $306).