Welcome to Holy Forest Academy, one of the most prestigious private schools in the country. On the surface, Holy Forest is a great place to further the students' education but, in actuality, it's a school overflowing with the most disrespectful troublemakers around, especially Class 3-4. Mrs. Sakurai, the director of Holy Forest doubling as the lunch lady, sees that the teachers are helpless against the outrageous antics of the students. Because of this, Mrs. Sakurai hires the most unorthodox teacher in history, a young man who stepped into her office after igniting a cross-city car chase with the police, and after she accepts him for the job, Mrs. Sakurai says of the upcoming school year, "I'm sure it'll be very interesting," which turns out to be the biggest understatement in anime history. The person she hires is none other than the 22-year old explosion of a man Eikichi Onizuka.
What can be said about Onizuka that hasn't been said before? He is a teacher at Holy Forest that isn't the smartest guy around (you should see his resume in episode 2) but he's absolutely dedicated to helping his students succeed in life. Onizuka is not by any means a perfect human being (he is a former gang member that drinks, smokes, curses, womanizes, and pulls pranks, among other habits, with a passion) but he performs so many heroic feats that you can't help but believe in his legendary status. In episode 15, Onizuka single-handedly defeats a gang of kidnappers armed to the teeth and then he aced the infamous national exam while bleeding from a gunshot wound. During episode 22, in what remains my favorite Onizuka moment ever, anime's greatest teacher speeds into a vacant school set to explode and saves a girl (as well as a really heavy organ) right before the building blows up. This series could've been titled Great Janitor Onizuka or Great Truck Driver Onizuka (like in episode 2) and it would still be thrilling. With an award-worthy acting performance from Steve Blum, the immortal Onizuka remains the greatest teacher/ former gang member/ martial artist/ motorcyclist/ producer/ swimmer/ fugitive/ prankster ever.
Although the main setting of the series is at Holy Forest, a lot of screen time is devoted to other places, like the downtown area nearby the school (the streets look especially beautiful at night), the scenic countryside in Hakuba, and the gorgeous Okinawa Beach, as a few examples. Just like the consistent change in setting, the plot continuously shifts between episodic and progressive. Great Teacher Onizuka is a series with deep moments but it's known for humorous scenes as well, like the famed Doraemon scene in episode 8, but my favorite is the scene where Onizuka thinks of double meanings when a fellow teacher tries to help him study in episode 14. A lot of hilarious moments occur when the series allows the characters' imaginations to fly, like Onizuka in episode 17 or Vice Principal Uchiyamada in episode 24. Although GTO is 43 episodes long, the series maintains equal amounts of quality and quantity in its work, unlike a lot of other lengthy anime.
What really sets Great Teacher Onizuka apart from other anime is the amount of episodes in the series. There's the pilot episode (who can forget The Wall scene?), the fourth episode (where Onizuka is framed in a career-threatening scandal), and episode 11 (the Phone Call scene is easily among the series' most memorable), all three examples serving as great episodes in a lengthy list of them. Another aspect which really shines in GTO is the soundtrack, the majority of the series' songs being blood-pumping rock tracks or beautifully Western-themed blues. The best song in the series has to be "Shizuku", the second ending theme. While the singer unleashes a soulful voice full of emotion, while a pretty guitar piece plays, the series plays a bunch of clips from the anime with the focus on them being a part of Onizuka's trip down memory lane. At first, the 2nd ending theme may look like a jumbled collection of random clips but, if you look closely at the outlines surrounding these clips and pay attention to every detail, you can see that the ending theme is telling a story, something that doesn't occur often with anime ending themes, and is (in my opinion) the best of its kind (I especially enjoy everything after the train flies by the screen). At this point, I'm going to tell you what every GTO fan will say about this series. Great Teacher Onizuka is a heartwarming story similar to the Kevin James flick Here Comes the Boom, a story about a slacker of a teacher that, over time, builds a strong friendship with the students. Great Teacher Onizuka is an unforgettable show with more than its fair share of deep-thinking life lessons. Great Teacher Onizuka is the must-watch series for fans of slice-of-life and comedy. Above all else, Great Teacher Onizuka is a series that goes down in history as one of the Golden Age Classics in anime history. The end.
Now you're probably looking at the score I gave to GTO and you're saying "It's cool and all that you really like this series but um... why the 7, man?" I normally don't make a big deal about animation and I know Great Teacher Onizuka is a fairly dated series but I have to take off points for the subpar graphics (The most glaring example is in the many exaggerated expressions Onizuka makes throughout the series. I know it's for comical effect and everything but characters shouldn't be THAT UGLY). Then, there's the situation with the anime's side characters. Azusa Fuyutsuki is the beautiful teacher that supported Onizuka since the beginning; she also views him as a role model that she aspires to be similar to (and, in episode 36, it's revealed that Ms. Fuyutsuki has depressingly low self-worth). Urumi Kanzaki is the worst of the infamous Class 3-4 students, a prodigal heterochromatic blonde who ends up hanging around with Onizuka after a near-death experience. Kunio Murai is a fellow Class 3-4 student with a short temper and what Onizuka dubbed "a mommy complex". The main issue with the side characters is that although they receive a considerable amount of depth, they're mostly stuck to commenting in awe of Onizuka's latest feat (the only exception is Vice Principal Hiroshi Uchiyamada, a middle-aged man prone to hallucinations and violent outbursts who shined in three classic scenes in the series: the speech in the Gorilla vs. Police fight (Ep.24), the Sunflower Scene (Ep. 41), and the speech against the Board of Education (Ep. 43)). The other big issue is that their screen time is incomprehensibly inconsistent, the characters sometimes vanishing for multiple episodes at a time. The most glaring example is the psychotic math teacher, who was by far the second most interesting character in the series before disappearing five episodes after he made his first major appearance (He earns a painfully brief cameo in the classic final episode). By no means is Great Teacher Onizuka the perfect series but I would highly recommend you check out GTO because of everything I just told you, especially episode 43 and the beautifully brilliant second ending theme. Again, Great Teacher Onizuka isn't perfect but it is definitely a classic.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Favorite episodes: Onizuka's Final Battle
Studies in High Finance
The Art of Demolition
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Anime Reviews
Non-FictionThis is where I write short but detailed reviews of various anime with a ton of passion. I hope you at least find these interesting.
