I set pretty consistent standards for myself, when it comes to wearing raw denim. I consider a project “complete” when it reaches 365 days of real wear time. So I track my wears like a nerd, using an Excel spreadsheet.

My Samurai S710xx, which I bought in mid-2012, took the longest amount of time, by far, of any pair I’ve worn to 365 days of wear. There are probably multiple levels of weirdness involved here (one of which is that the denim on these jeans is the fastest-fading I’ve ever worn), but none of them are because these are a bad pair of jeans. In fact, they’re great! They’re just not easy to wear.

What constitutes easy to wear is going to vary a lot from one person to the next. For me, it’s several things that these jeans don’t do as well as I’d like: most notably, the weight of the denim. This is a heavyweight pair of jeans, at 19 oz. (pre-soak.) They’re heavier after soaking; the heaviest jeans I currently own.

Interestingly, the weight had very little to do with why I bought these jeans. The main reason was because they appeared to be a good fit. I didn’t have much success with the fits on Japanese jeans up until this point, trying to wear slim tapered fits like the Pure Blue Japan XX-011, and the Flat Head F310 and SE05BSP. None of those worked very well for my proportions, but I was scared to wear something with a straighter fit than those. And I wanted a very long inseam to get those still-sort-of-popular-on-Superfuture stacking fades.

If there’s one thing I learned from this pair of jeans, it’s that you’ve got to take a holistic view of a garment, not just buying it for one specific reason, if you want to make it an everyday staple. I didn’t, and as a result, wearing these jeans sort of felt like a chore, even though on the surface I liked most things about them (especially the final result.)

Design

Samurai puts a lot of thought into the design of their jeans, but it’s a bit polarizing. Compared to other Japanese Americana brands, Samurai is in-you-face. Samurai emphasizes Japanese motifs on their jeans, and you can see it here in details like the rising sun design of the iron buttons, kanji-engraved rivets, the patch depicting a samurai duel, and the silver lamé selvedge. Not much about these jeans is very subtle.

But if that’s your thing, Samurai does it nicely. Sometimes these details can come at the expense of durability; the jacquard pocket bags feel fragile and flimsy, yet mine held together pretty well over the course of a years’ wear time. The jeans are sewn with all-cotton construction, a detail I usually love, but it feels a bit out of place on a heavier pair like this.

The usual repro-inspired jeans details are here: hidden rivets at the back pockets; overlocked inseam; V-stitch at the top button; half-chainstitched waistband; chainstitched hem; and so on.

Denim

The denim, of course, is the real star here. This is a 19 oz. unsanforized fabric with a rough, abrasive feel when new. It’s made from a short staple of American cotton, which adds to the texture. It’s pretty dark after soaking, but infamous for quick, dramatic fading. For many people, this is just what they’re after, making the S710xx a popular first pair of Japanese jeans – at least, until a wider range of affordable jeans from companies like Japan Blue proliferated, but I digress.

However, I was never overly enthused about this denim, neither the texture nor color being particularly close to my ideal. The problem is that objectively, my pair looks really good – actually, it’s just about my favorite-looking pair of S710s, which often look much more washed-out and pale than mine after this much wear. The contrast is close to ideal for me, and there’s a lot of interesting variation in the texture depending on the area of the jeans. I haven’t kept good track of washes; I think I’ve washed these jeans about eight times, the first at four months of wear.

So why am I not more enthusiastic about this pair? Well, I realized that I just don’t really like heavyweight denim. I like jeans that I can wear year-round, and 19 oz. unsanforized is not it. I was limited to wearing these in fall and winter, a limitation I didn’t really like since I like in the southeast US. Besides that, I feel that heavyweight denim, with its bigger, bolder patterns of fading, tends to look out of place if I’m not wearing it with flannels and rugged boots, which obviously I don’t wear in warmer weather. This isn’t a problem for more traditional denim weights – my Full Count 1108, for instance, looks great with any type of outfit. This pair taught me that 13-15 oz. is the sweet spot, and I’m not likely to go heavier than that from now on.

With all that said, if you want a great, fast-fading denim with a lot of character, it’s hard to go wrong with the denim on the S710xx.

Construction

Interestingly, the construction is one of the best aspects of this pair of jeans. They’ve held up incredibly well, with the sole exception of the back pockets, which have required pretty frequent hand repairs to fix broken cotton threads. The cotton stitching on the inseam and yoke in particular has held up very well. The chainstitch broke at the cuff (which is normal) but held up well elsewhere. The front pocket openings have had stitching wear away, but they haven’t fallen apart yet, and the thread didn’t come undone like on other pairs I’ve worn.

The back pockets have been a headache, though. The stitching has required numerous repairs to keep them intact. However, there are no imminent holes in the pockets, so that’s worth noting. Actually, there aren’t holes anywhere. For such a rough and abrasive denim, this 19 oz Otokogi denim has held up quite well. With another six months of wear the crotch would likely require repair, but elsewhere it’s in good shape.

The hardware is all high quality and I haven’t had any issues with losing rivets or buttons on this pair.

Fit

These are one of my better-fitting pairs, with a flattering slim-straight fit. The hem is a nice width for a variety of footwear, with a width of about 7.5”. The leg is a bit slimmer in the thigh than I usually prefer these days, but it’s still decently comfortable.

The main issue I have with the fit is the rise; if it was about an inch longer (particularly on the front rise) it’d be just about perfect. If I wear the jeans below my hipbones they’re quite comfortable, but I don’t usually like to wear jeans this low anymore so it doesn’t feel entirely natural.

Conclusion

This is a great pair of jeans and I’m very satisfied with how they’ve aged. But I doubt I’m going to keep wearing them much since the fit feels a bit too low on me and I’m not a big fan of heavyweight denim.

More than anything, I feel like heavy denim such as this is constricting, in more ways than one. I can’t wear it in as many different situations as lighter weight fabrics, and it’s just not as comfortable. On top of that, I prefer the “smaller” creasing patterns of midweight fabrics, and the more subtle sorts of fading.

In conclusion, this is a well designed pair that ages in a satisfying way. If you like a slightly tapered slim straight fit, heavyweight denim, or cool details, you will probably love these jeans. I’m very happy with how these have aged and how they’ve held up. But I definitely feel like I’ve grown beyond heavyweight jeans.

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