Table of Contents

Great Teacher Onizuka

Onizuka Eikichi, ni-ju-ni-sai, a bachelor, has recently become a teacher at a well-renowned private school in Tokyo. Prior to his teaching career, he worked odd jobs and before even then, he was the infamous leader of a bōsōzoku (Japanese biker gang). While the idea of a gang leader becoming a teacher may be scary, you’ll find that once you get to know him, you’ll wish he were your teacher; and real.
Despite coming out in the 90s and early 2000s, the story of GTO is still just as Great today as it was then.
Alongside this article, there’s another dedicated to the Adaptations of GTO.

Aizawa Miyabi • Fuyutsuki Azusa • Kanzaki Urumi • Kikuchi Yoshito • Murai Kunio • Nomura Tomoko • Onizuka Eikichi • Saejima Toshiyuki • Uchiyamada Hiroshi

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Reviews

GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka - Manga

He's the teacher. The manga can be best described as a masterpiece. Of course, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into specifics.
Onizuka Eikichi, ni-ju-ni-sai, is the centre of the manga… which is obvious, seeing as it’s named after him. Despite being the centre, he isn’t always the protagonist… sometimes he isn’t even at the centre of a particular story arc. However, his influence is felt… everywhere basically. His appearance in an area is enough to drive the plot and can even drive the decision-making of characters.
Most of the story focuses on solving the woes of the various students Onizuka comes into contact with, ending with them becoming his friend, usually. In-between the major arcs are a few smaller, “breather” arcs, which are typically just slice-of-life things. Occasionally, there’s also an arc revolving around a particular teacher in the school. I did notice, however, that later on a lot of the teachers stop being relevant to the story.
Speaking of the teachers… quite a few of the teacher characters come off as… less than noble people. This is obviously done intentionally, to show how hypocritical they are to criticize Onizuka, who, despite appearing like a punk, is a comparatively Great teacher, if a little too honest and laid-back.
The series also seems to criticize the Japanese education system, which is too concerned with test scores and appearances and not enough about the students themselves. I’m not sure if the critique can apply to other school systems, as I went through a largely apathetic system in comparison. Besides this, the series concerns itself with what a teacher should or should not be.
Now to move onto stuff I found… off.
I explain this in the speculah, but I have a feeling Kanzaki goes through the same character arc twice. This confused me and still confuses me, because I didn’t notice anything else like this happen. It’s a bit off, but doesn’t bother me too much… as I believe the arc it was a part of is one of the best in the whole series; it being the climax of the Principal‘s arc, a development in Miyabi‘s arc and has some of the highest tension in the whole series. It’s definitely one of my favourites, but Kanzaki‘s second character arc definitely degrades the quality.
Besides that, I have only one other issue that I care about: Mayu. I never really… got… what his point was? He always felt like a male version of Kanzaki, but not as smart. I assume he drops out of the story after his arc because Fujisawa-sensei didn’t know what to do with him.
I also feared I’d be disappointed by the inciting incident of Class 3-4’s terrorism; fearing it would either be too unrealistic, too contrived or too weak a reason. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to find it was actually handled fairly well (something the adaptations seem to universally fail at). However, it took a bit of thinking before I concluded it was good.

I remembered a very specific thing that I dislike about Onizuka in particular: when things that are immoral are portrayed as good or neutral. The one example I can think of is when Fuyutsuki gives a few students some alcohol, which they then drink together with her. The surrounding context is that this is her attempt to get closer to the students in her own way, copying Onizuka in a way. I don’t think I specifically need to explain why this is a morally bad thing, but the manga doesn’t treat it as morally wrong.

GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka - Anime

The anime is a (mostly) faithful adaptation, I’d have to go through it again to see where it differed from the manga.
There are 3 main issues with it though.
The first is Tomoko and her character arc, which is changed. I suspect this is due to influence from the Drama. At the idol contest, Tomoko doesn’t do improv acting. Instead, she talks to Miyabi through a phone, about how she misses being her friend. I find this to degrade her character and it makes her resulting popularity feel contrived. As I saw the anime before the manga, I didn’t realise what a great girl Tomoko was until I went and read it.
The second is the Teshigawara related stuff, which only includes his first arc and not his second. This isn’t as bad as Tomoko, but it makes his story feel incomplete.
The third issue is the biggest. The ending.
The ending arc takes place over the course of the 3 last episodes. The arc is centred around the reason class 3-4 started their terrorism and focuses (a little) on Miyabi. It isn’t done as well as in the Manga… and the way it was written basically guaranteed no (easy) sequel series. The ending is also fairly obviously rushed.
Besides that, it’s a fine piece of work.

Great Teacher Onizuka 1998 - Drama

I’d say this adaptation changes a lot about GTO, but it still maintains the core of GTO. For a list of changes (I’ve noticed), please look at Adaptations of GTO.
The more risqué aspects of GTO have been toned down. I assume this was done because TV. I consider this a positive and a negative.
On the one hand, it isn’t full GTO, so viewers don’t get a feel for the full experience. On the other, I don’t have to hesitate about recommending it to my more innocent compatriots.
The show’s biggest disadvantage is the length. It is made up of 12 45ish minute episodes. Compare this to the anime, with 43 24 minute episodes. This essentially forced the writers to condense everything as much as possible (that, and they didn’t have as much to work with as the anime). However, the condensing is done… really well. The drama doesn’t suffer from the issues of the anime, because it essentially does its own thing. I assume some decision making went like this: “We only have the first half of Teshigawara’s arc and its clear Fujisawa-sensei plans to do more with him, but this is all we have and not much time. Let’s make some small changes here and there to make the arc complete.”
Unlike the anime, which is pretty faithful, but falters near the end… the drama feels like a complete product. I truly admire the writers here, they really knew what they were doing (most of the time).
There is, however, one rather big contrivance: the reason class 3-4 starts the class terrorism. It doesn’t work very well at all. The anime at least made sense, even if it wasn’t as good as the manga… this one doesn’t make any sense to me. It takes jumping through a few illogical hoops to get it to work. It was written clearly just to keep the story going.
Besides the writing, there are a few additional things I’d like to mention. The show is filmed like a soap opera… or at least that’s the feeling I get from it. The acting, camera work and music all contributes. The romantic tension between Onizuka and Fuyutsuki is toned way up… so much, I heard the actors got married. Bravo! Due to having to condense the storyline, characters tend to get relegated to the background once their arc ends. The fight scenes in this show are ridiculous, being in unnecessary slow-motion and with weird sound effects… later they just cut away instead.

GTO 2012 Drama

This one is a bit of a mixed bag. This one improves many of the aspects of the ‘98 version, like the fight scenes… and it isn’t shot like a soap opera anymore.
This one tries to be more faithful to the manga, avoiding merging characters together. It doesn’t work as well as it thinks however. The writing is built on a quite a few contrivances. I noticed one, in the first episode. Different from the ‘98 version, where I only noticed near the end. The Adaptations of GTO article goes into more detail.
Like the ‘98 version, it also fails to provide a good enough reason for class 3-4 to start the class terrorism. However, I didn’t finish reading the manga before watching this, so I didn’t realise it at the time… but they were trying to be more faithful. Explaining it here a bit: (and note this spoils the manga) In the manga, the class terrorism starts because Miyabi, in a childish fit of jealousy, claims her teacher (who she had feelings for) had raped her/had her raped. One of her classmates, Takumi, took this so seriously he bashed the teacher’s head in, getting expelled in the process. This essentially scared Miyabi into not revealing the truth. The rest of the class, being disgusted by the claim of rape, started the class terrorism. Miyabi then took the lead as a way of running from the truth. What happens in the drama: Mizuki Nanako was a member of class 3-4 who was responsible for collecting and keeping her class’ money for the cultural festival, ends up losing it, through the actions of a burglar. Her teacher accuses her of stealing it for herself and the rest of the class starts doubting her innocence too. This, apparently, is too much for her and she commits suicide in front of her classmates. Miyabi then finds a note from her, explaining she just wanted everyone to trust her. Miyabi, feeling guilty, rewrites it to make it say she wanted the teacher to trust her, kicking off the class terrorism. Miyabi’s part in kicking it off is kept faithful - that being her lying - but the rest of it feels contrived (and her reason for lying is also contrived). It seems like none of the adaptations can get this one quite right. In the original, it was a slightly malicious prank that went out of hand really quick, but here it feels… bad. This isn’t even the only example of this kind of thing happening in the show.
Besides that, a few characters aren’t done well either. I’d say the students are (mostly) fine, but the teachers are completely shafted, with the plot barely focusing on any of them, besides Fuyutsuki. The ‘98 version kept a balance between the teachers and students, with some episodes being about specific teachers. Uchiyamada-sensei is especially done dirty, with him basically having nothing besides a few jokes at his expense. This also leads to contrivances! Since there’s no reason why Uchiyamada and the rest of the teachers would side with Onizuka at the end. This is so bad in fact, that I’m tempted to call it a plot hole.
The show is also shorter than the ‘98 version (admittedly by only one episode) leading to, shockingly, more contrivances. Unlike the ‘98 version, which only had about 6 volumes worth of material, the 2012 version had 20 and the spin-off ｢GTO Shonan 14Days｣. The writers then tried to fit as much as possible into those 11 45 minute episodes… but it didn’t work… leading to contrivances.
I should end off with a few things I like. Onizuka is still done well (enough) and, unlike the ‘98 version, he actually looks like Onizuka. Saejima is different from his manga counterpart, but since I find him hilarious, I don’t really mind. A lot of the jokes are quite good and they had me laughing… I still giggle to myself when I think of them.
I have yet to watch the specials, the Taiwan specials and the second season. I couldn’t even finish the second season’s first episode, because it was so bad.

GTO Paradise Lost

Something I should note at the start. The series is still being published and I’ve only read up to Volume 16… however, I don’t think I will keep up with it or ever finish reading it.
Now for what I thought on it: I didn’t like it, although this wasn’t obvious to me at first. Overall, I was disappointed while reading, but I needed to do some thinking before I actually concluded it was bad. It’s a serious downgrade from GTO and I feel it ends up degrading the whole series.
First I’ll mention some stuff I liked or found interesting:

Of those, the last one is the highlight of the series. It’s one of the few redeeming features of it. I won’t write much about it, because I don’t want to spoil it.
That is everything I liked, let’s move on.
The series is a giant continuity error. This is because GTO took place in the late 90s, early 2000s, while Paradise Lost takes place around the mid-to-late 2010s. However, Paradise Lost supposedly only takes place three years after the end of GTO. I don’t think I have to explain how this is a problem. The two end up feeling disconnected as a result. It’s interesting that this isn’t acknowledged at all in-universe, which seems to be an attempt to shrug it off. It not being acknowledged or explained only makes it feel more disconnected.
That’s one of the bigger issues, but the biggest issue in this series lies with the characters: None of them feel distinct.
Class G just feels like a watered-down Class 2-4. This watered-down nature is best exemplified in their class terrorism, which lasts only a few chapters and never reaches the heights of Class 2-4… despite the fact the series makes a big deal out of the terrorism at the start. And, unlike Class 2-4, their presence is barely felt in the series. Characters continually disappear and reappear at random, which is justified as them being celebrities, but then we can’t get to know them properly. When they do appear, they just feel like the one time appearance students from GTO… no distinct personality or appearance. The ones who do appear more often just feel like re-hashes of Class 2-4 characters in personality and appearance. So interesting idea number 2 has failed to connect.
These character issues don’t just apply to Class G, but to most of the other characters as well. Interestingly though, two decent characters show up later, who end up becoming teachers at the school. Unfortunately, they aren’t enough to salvage the series.
Onizuka in prison isn’t even handled all that well either. At first, he tells his tales to other prisoners, but eventually he stops telling them… and the series seems to forget this is how it chose to tell the story. While the shifting from prison to flashback was alright before, once Onizuka stops telling the tales, it starts to feel disconnected.
Finally, I only have a few smaller things to say:

I believe now it’s obvious why I don’t intend to finish the series. It should have ended with Shonan 14 Days.

Spin-offs

GTO Shonan 14 Days

While it’s called a sequel, I believe it’s more accurate to call it a side-story, seeing as it takes place during GTO.
I didn’t notice any particular issues, I believe I only noticed one potential continuity error; if memory serves right, however, it was an extremely minor one.
There isn’t much to say here, it’s a very Onizuka story.
At worst, I believe Ayame to have been too similar to Fuyutsuki.

Inokashira Gargoyle

Also known as ｢Ino-head Gargoyle｣.
This spin-off focuses on Saejima (the titular “Gargoyle”) and his 3 adventures. The series essentially sees him transition from a weak crooked cop into a fairly decent cop, with him trying his best to become a good man at the end.
However, it ends rather abruptly, which makes me think Fujisawa-sensei had more planned but was forced to end it soon. There’s essentially a two-chapter ending arc, that leaves at least 3 plot threads unresolved (one of them being a result of this arc heh).
Unfortunately, the lack of a good resolution means it has a rather… depressing after-feel.

GT-R: Great Transporter Ryuji

I haven’t had the time to read it yet.

Speculah & Analysis

Spoilers will be unmarked here, so wander at your own risk.

Kanzaki Urumi goes through the same arc twice

I first experienced the second arc in the 2012 show and then later in the manga. I was a little surprised it came from the manga, because I thought it was a bit of a downgrade from her first one.
Well whatever, I thought, let’s see how it was in the original.
It was then that I felt like something was off. To me, it felt like Kanzaki-chan’s character went back to how she was at the start of her first arc, then she went along the same progression.
This actually kind of irks me, because I don’t think the second arc is as good and it’s like Fujimori-sensei (a far more sympathetic character than Kanzaki’s mother) is forgotten about. It’s like she disappears.
To be fair, Fujimori-sensei seems to disappear before this arc. But I always felt it was implied she and Kanzaki reconnected and always assumed they got back together. And although this is pure speculah, I even believed Kanzaki-chan moved to her house.
I even thought the manga would make it so that Fujimori-sensei officially adopts Kanzaki. This was what I expected to happen at the end of Kanzaki’s second arc too. Although that might just be me getting ahead of myself.
That being said, when considering the arc it’s a part of (i.e., ignoring Kanzaki-chan), I’d say it’s one of the heights of the series. I just wished her two arcs were merged in some way instead.