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I am a huge fan of the Great Teacher Onizuka manga and anime, so I knew I had to check this show out. Shonan Junai Gumi is actually a prequel to the popular GTO, but not nearly as well known. It is a look into the life of Onizuka and his friend Ryuji back in high school, when they were known as the feared biker duo, Oni-Baku. Filled with action, fighting, and humor, this show is a great way for GTO fans to get a bit more Onizuka, and give those new to the series their first taste of this great character.

Story – 6 – The story starts out somewhat promising. Two former delinquents try to turn their lives around and give up their old ways … in order to get laid. Ok well, maybe it wasn’t that promising, but I thought seeing two former gang members try to shed that image, regardless of the reason, could be pretty interesting. Unfortunately, this story line lasts about 15 minutes and then the show devolves into a “bad guy of the week” style action show. This plot, while simple, does seem to work out pretty well as long as they stick to the action and comedy. However, SJG occasionally takes a shot at injecting some drama into the plot, but it usually wasn’t very believable. The pacing throughout this show is pretty strange. At times it feels like they accidentally left something out, which causes the show to get a bit confusing at times.

Animation – 7 – SJG is about 14 years old now, which is why I will try not judge it too harshly. Comparing it to the anime we watch now it looks terrible, but I assume at the time it was actually pretty good. For the most part the character designs are pretty nice, but some characters look very similar and are hard to tell apart. Also a few characters look drastically different from the first episode to later ones, which is a little strange. There are a lot of exaggerated facial expressions that sometimes add to the humor, but by the end kind of got annoying. As to be expected from an old anime the fluidity of motion is pretty poor. This is kind of annoying since this is an action show, and a lot of the fights were littered with stills and looped animation.

Sound – 6 – This was a pretty disappointing showing for most of the sound aspects. One of the biggest problems was that there was no opening song. A good opening can really get you pumped up for the episode, so to not ever see one felt very strange. I don’t care too much about ending themes, but for the people that do, this one was pretty bad. The background music was also pretty weak and most of it sounded like it had been taken right out of an NES game. The voice actors actually did a pretty good job, but did not live up to their counterparts from GTO. Unfortunately there is no dub of this show, so those hoping to see more of Steve Blum’s great portrayal of Onizuka will be disappointed.

Character – 7 – SJG revolves around two characters, Eikichi Onizuka and Ryuji Danma. Both of these characters are very similar. Like most shounen action characters, they value friendship and helping out those in need. They love to fight and are great at it. The only thing they are more interested in than fighting, is sex. Throughout most of this series they are always looking for opportunities to score. For those of you that have seen the sequel, you might be a little disappointed in Onizuka’s younger self. He isn’t as funny, and the depth he showed in GTO when dealing with his students, just isn’t there in SJG. He does make up for this a bit though, because he is even more of a badass in this show. Since we got very little development of Onizuka’s character in GTO, I figured we would get to see it here in the prequel. Once again though, there is very little change in Onizuka from beginning to end. Ryuji, on the other hand, actually takes a step in the right direction and starts to get some development. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last too long though, and by the end of the show he is right back where he started.

Entertainment – 8 – Since I watched and loved GTO before I saw this, I came into it with very high expectations. While it did not live up to the standards set in GTO, it was still an entertaining show to watch. The humor was not quite as good as I was expecting, but the action and fights were very good. It was a lot of fun seeing Onizuka and Danma together kicking some ass. These five episodes went by very quickly, and I’m certainly glad that I gave this show a try.

Overall – 7 – This show is certainly lacking in some technical aspects, but it does make up for it with entertainment. Any big GTO fan should definitely check this out as it delivers more of the over the top action and humor that make Onizuka so great. If you aren’t familiar with this series, but enjoy a good action show, then I would suggest you give this a try.
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