If it's just worker-bee man-hours I guess it would be better value-for-money to buy a seiko and tell the story of the factory and how it's made using such complicated processes and optimizations (not sure assumption about seiko factory using complicated processes is right).
Depends on the Seiko. Seiko makes and has made a large number of complicated and historically interesting watches and movements with a story, but your average Seiko won't have that.
If you want a cheap mechanical watch that's a historical 'first' and has an interesting watchmaking story to tell in terms of processes and optimization, get a Swatch Sistem51. It's the first automatic movement that is simple enough and has few enough parts to be mass produced entirely by robot. Of course if that's a 'good' story to tell or not is very much up for debate.
"but you didnt"
"but you didnt"
The time required is very long to make the pieces by hand, but I feel any sharp person could do it. Nothing groundbreaking.
So I don't understand people that find this fascinating, inspirational. Just buy a usual watch, and it will have the same pieces.
It's cool that he makes new designs, however make a good market out of that and the chinese will do it too, at better prices.