I don't know how to explain this show. Thus, snippets of a review.
Title rating: More sexual crimes then a bad episode of Law and Order: SVU. R
I remember my middle school life as a mostly idyllic time. I would play Magic the Gathering with my friends, learn about Plate Tectonics, and otherwise waste time in preparation for high school. Apparently, in Japan, middle school is nothing like this. Students scheme to have their teachers arrested for *****, plot against another in ways that usually involve nudity and beatings, and otherwise act like hell demons bent on destruction. Great Teacher Onizuka (called GTO for short) is the story of a teacher--can you guess his name?--and his road to becoming the BEST TEACHER IN JAPAN. Onizuka proves that it's not the intelligence that makes you, it's experience, experience, experience. And connections to the mob.
It's not an intelligent funny--I don't mean that like I'm some elitist, I'm just saying this isn't an astute satire of the teaching system nor a dark comedy meant to make you think about the injustices of the world. This is 43 episodes of skirt-flipping, porn-watching, otaku-beating humor.
Introductions are in order, I suppose. Eikichi Onizuka is a 22-year-old virgin and former biker gang leader who wants to settle down and become the greatest teacher ever to exist. Normally one thinks that teachers should have some basic skills, such as knowledge of his/her chosen subject, compassion, a very long temper, and a lack of a teenage girl fetish. Onizuka has none of these. There are several reasons why former biker gang leaders do not often become teachers, mostly revolving around the fact that said gang leaders used to make a living horribly beating people.
All goes well for Onizuka at first: while student teaching he sets straight (read: beats up and dunks repeatedly into pond) the punks in his class who try to blackmail him. Unfortunately, Onizuka then skips his teaching exam and is forced to apply to one of the few places that could employ him--Holy Forest Private Academy. On his way to the interview he beats up a pervert who's feeling up a woman on the bus, and it just so happens that that particular pervert is the vice-principal of this particular learning institution. This leads to Onizuka being horribly rejected, which then (when a few punks who were expelled break back into the school) leads to Onizuka German Suplexing the vice-principal, which then leads to Onizuka being hired. Remember that, kids--beating people up will get you jobs, or in jail, or maybe both.
Then there are the students. A motley bunch they are, and they are all working toward the destruction of Onizuka--did you ever read the book "13 Ways to Sink a Sub?" It's like that, only the kids want him placed in a mental institution like their last teacher. There's Yoshikawa Noboru, a gamer otaku who's the Uncle Tom of the class and doesn't want to see Onizuka driven to the brink of insanity. There's Kikuchi Yoshito, the evil bishounen genius who Photoshops porn for fun and Murai Kunio, the blond angry boy with an Oedipus complex. Apparently Midorikawa Hikaru, who did Tamahome from Fushigi Yuugi and Seki Tomokazu, who did Chichiri from Fushigi Yuugi voice Kikuchi and Murai, respectively. There's a good reason for this, as GTO was done by Studio Pierrot (which inflicted Fushigi Yuugi upon us). On the female side of the student body there's Nomura Tomoko, the slow girl with the big breasts (tell me, are F cups humanly possible?) and Aizawa Miyabi, the uber-b***h who lives only to see Onizuka fail.
All the characters are great--there are really no clichéd or poorly developed ones (besides the pure background characters). They all have their problems, usually big ones, which Onizuka takes it upon himself to cure with a little tough love. Basically these are all angsty teenagers, but most of them end up getting beat up in the end so it's all good.
Just one warning to all you people who can't remember playing the original Sega Master System: this show is very, how do you say, graphic. GTO teaches us that about 97% of the Japanese population is horribly psychologically deranged. Be it the ever-present Lolita Complex (which comes up about 73 times an episode), a more severe case of foot lust or something I call a "Butterfly Fetish," in between we have spankings, panty sniffing, and all those other great signs of horrible sexual problems. Not a show, manga, or live-action drama for the weak of stomach or the high of morals.
