We wouldn’t go as far as to say that there’s something fundamentally different about the way Jiro Katayama approaches watchmaking. After all, industrial design, be it cars, instruments, or machinery, has inspired and defined quite a few independents. Still, most start from horology and branch outward, yet the mind behind Otsuka Lotec comes directly from industrial design, and that origin explains everything, including the new Otsuka Lotec No.8 watch. Over the past years, we’ve reported how the brand and Jiro Katayama’s take on watchmaking has evolved through t he double-retrograde Otsuka Lotec No.6 , the camera-inspired Otsuka Lotec No.7.5 , the satellite-driven Otsuka Lotec No.5 KAI , and, more recently, the highly complex Otsuka Lotec No.9 , which packs a tourbillon, jumping hours and a striking mechanism in an in-house movement. The latest Otsuka Lotec No.8 is not a simplification, but a consolidation, a conclusion we have reached after a brief but exciting encounter with the timepiece.…