Witness X Gets A Halloween Gray In Japan

IX5287-001. Dark Smoke Gray on Iron Gray. Lime Swoosh. Red tongue. Orange in the sole pocket. Japan, 1 October. ¥13,530.

Nike has dated the LeBron Witness X HW EP to Thursday, 1 October 2026 in Japan. The code is IX5287-001. The show string is Dark Smoke Gray / Multicolor / Iron Gray. The ticket is ¥13,530 including tax. A second Witness X, white / metallic gold, is listed for the same morning. One last, two moods: clean court and Halloween mesh.

The player is LeBron James. The line is Witness, the value LeBron that has run beside the numbered flagship since 2016. This is work ten. The 24 is the poster shoe. Witness is the pair that is supposed to survive a gym bag, an outdoor court, and a price that is not LeBron 24 money. US report on the tenth Witness puts adult retail near $105. Japan’s Halloween SKU is the yen figure above.

James is 41 and still listed as a first option. The record puts the 2025–26 line at 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, 7.2 assists, and a summer 2026 move to the Philadelphia 76ers for a 24th NBA season. None of that changes the last.

Signal. What happened: Japan scheduled Witness X Halloween EP for 1 Oct. Exact product: IX5287-001, Dark Smoke Gray, ¥13,530. When and where: Nike Japan dealers. Why it matters: year ten of Witness is being sold as a holiday mesh, not only as white and gold.

a pair 

stir

Witness 9 was a bulky synthetic stack: overlap panel, a heavy sil, ReactX through the length, EP rubber when the letters sat on the tongue. Public first looks at Witness 10 describe a different object. Fabric mesh takes over much of the upper. The midsole reads more open, with checker or geometric carving and a crown motif inside the unit on some samples. Two launch stories circulated in late September: a white and gold pair, and a black or dark pair with neon green and, on some US notes, glow in the outsole. Japan’s Halloween SKU sits on that new last.

EP still means the extra-durable outdoor compound. Herringbone or staggered traction is how Witness has gripped mixed courts for a decade. The shoe is low enough to move, thick enough underfoot that it never pretends to be a lifestyle runner. That is the contract. You do not buy Witness for a dinner last. You buy it because the numbered LeBron is the collection piece and this is the one that can take asphalt.

Mesh with large holes is the Halloween tool. On a white pair those holes read as ventilation. On Dark Smoke Gray they read as depth. Light hits the mesh, then the iron gray underlayer, then the lime Swoosh. The upper is not a flat gray slab. It is a dark field with openings. That is how the color can read calm and still claim a three-dimensional surface.

how

The recipe in the Japan copy is specific. Dark smoke gray and iron gray stack first. That is the night. Lime green sits on the side Swoosh and the top eyelet. Red sits on the tongue logo. Orange shows in the concave pocket on the side of the sole. No pumpkin. No full flame wrap. Three small fluorescent hits on a heavy gray body. That is the Halloween claim: creep and play in the same sentence, without turning the shoe into a costume.

White / metallic gold the same day is the control. Same last, same mesh logic, no holiday accents. Put them next to each other and the tenth Witness becomes a color argument instead of a new shape argument. Gold is the royal LeBron shorthand Nike has used for years. Gray plus lime plus a slice of orange is the October shorthand. Buyers who only scan “Witness X” will miss that the two pairs are meant to disagree.

Multitint in the official string is those three accents, not a rainbow panel map. Iron Gray is the cooler, flatter gray against smoke. Lime is the one that will photo first. Red on the tongue is the smallest hit and the one that will disappear if the laces bury it. Orange in the midsole wall is the one you see when the shoe is on the floor, not when it is on the foot in a crowd.

extend

1 October in Japan is a dealer morning, not a February pre-order ship window. Nike basketball doors and the official Japan catalog are the first check. ¥13,530 is the printed number. It will not match every US $105 tile if tax and EP construction sit on different invoices. Grade-school Witness 10 talk in the US has been near $95. This SKU is the men’s Halloween EP.

The 76ers move and the 24th season are context for why a tenth Witness exists at all. They are not a feature of the midsole. James has worn Soldier, Witness, and the numbered line in overlapping years. Witness is the one that was built to be bought by people who will not spend flagship money every season. Year ten is that idea still in production.

Stock will follow the usual basketball pattern: middle sizes first, wide demand if the lime photographs well, leftover extremes. Halloween colorways move when the calendar is still in early October and stall when the holiday is a memory. This pair has to live as a gray basketball shoe after 31 October. The mesh and the iron gray are what allow that. Lime and orange are what sell the date.

fin

LeBron 24 can occupy the other column. IX5287-001 is the cheaper last with a holiday brief. Dark smoke, iron, lime, red, a little orange in the wall. Japan, 1 October. Thirteen thousand five hundred thirty yen.