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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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I didn’t really know what to expect when I started watching this show. I had never seen a music themed anime before, and didn’t really have much motivation to try it out. But, I decided to give it a shot since it had a good rating, and I'm glad I did. It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s very entertaining and has a lot of great music. This will remain one of my favorite shows for quite a while.

Story – 8 – When I began watching this show I really wasn’t expecting much from the story. I figured that it would focus mainly on the music with the story being secondary, but it turned out to be quite interesting. It seems to portray a realistic road that a band just starting out would have to go through. They don’t just form and instantly become famous, they have to work hard and earn everything they get. There is success, but plenty of failure along the way as well. This sometimes causes the show to drag on a bit, but also adds to the realism. There is also a nice little romance side story with a few surprises. There isn’t very much time dedicated to it, but it is very entertaining.

Animation/Art – 7 – The animation was certainly the weak point of this series. The character designs don’t really fall in line with most anime (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), but they certainly weren’t very polished. A lot of the movement animation seemed awkward and choppy as well. There are a few cool shots of the band members playing the instruments, but not nearly enough. The animation may seem weird at first, I personally didn’t like it for the first few episodes, but it grew on me. By the end I started to enjoy looking at something a little different than the norm.

Sound – 10 - Probably the most important part of any music anime, and it certainly delivers in the case of Beck. First things first, the opening and ending themes are great throughout the series. In my opinion, this is an anime were you really should watch both the original and dubbed versions. They are both great, and you can’t go wrong with either one. However, there are some awkward pronunciations in the Japanese version when the characters try to speak or sing in English. It is because of this that I prefer the dubbed version overall, but there were a few songs from the Japanese version that I preferred. There is also a nice mix of rock (very similar to RAtM in my opinion) and slower songs that focus more on the vocals. I enjoyed the songs so much that I still listen to them on a regular basis.

Character – 8 – Though the story focuses a lot on the band as a unit, only two of the characters get a lot of screen time and development. One problem I had was that not all of the members of the band got enough development, even though they seemed to have potential to be very interesting characters. Beck does feature some nice secondary characters though especially Koyuki’s mentor Mr. Saitou. He is the most consistent character to deliver humor and is very likable. Overall a solid cast, but not enough time is spent on the supporting characters.

Entertainment – 10 – You don’t have to be a musician to enjoy this anime. Basically if you like music at all, there is a good chance you are really going to like this. This show was all about entertainment. Every episode had a solid amount of music in it, with humor mixed in along the way. I was hooked after just a few episodes and blew through the series in about 2 days. If you are just looking for a nice relaxing show that you don’t have to think about, this is it.

Overall – 10 – You may be wondering how scores of 8,7,10,8, and 10 add up to a 10 overall. Well, I went into this looking for an entertaining show with good music, and it certainly was outstanding in both of those areas. That is why when looking at overall, I weighted those two categories highest and decided to give it a 10. read more