Great Teacher Onizuka

Animation - 7
Ehh, not much to say, for a show that is as action-packed as Great Teacher Onizuka is, it relies heavily on terrible CG anachronistic for its time, and flashes of still frames with speed lines and directional slashes galore. The character design is kind of uninspired, yet executed very well. The most interesting thing visually about this show is the fantastically conceived opening.
Sound - 6
The same goes for the sound in this show. Out of the entire cast, only two voices stand out as well done, that being of Onizuka, and his student, Kunio. The ... first theme song is undeniably fun and sets a good tone, but the subsequent op and all of the ed are quite forgettable.
Story - 6
The tale is familiar, teacher comes in and changes the lives of his impossible students for the better, inspiring them to have goals and live happily. However, given the character of Eikichi Onizuka, this story is infused with undeniable shounen ecchiness that fans of such genres would find irresistible. Each arc focuses on one of Onizuka's students and how he manages to sway their notions of how a teacher acts, thereby instilling his trust in them. While these arcs progress, the overall narrative painting a picture of Eikichi, the man, slowly comes to the fore. Actually in retrospect, while I found the show quite formulaic, and very predictable, the story is well crafted, and decently paced.
Characters - 6
Well, this show, like many others has its parade of overused stereotypes...blonde guy with a kansai-ben, check, "perfect" love interest, check, dumb bobble head, check, glasses guy, check, diva bitch, check, angry gag man, check. I could go on, but I'll stop there. To me, the show didn't really excel in creating characters that felt distinguishable from any other in their type group, and instead tried to rely on the comedy to make them likable, so for me, I only found Kunio an enjoyable character, since, for whatever reason I don't understand, I find these bleached-blonde misfits to be hilarious. Interestingly enough though, I didn't find Onizuka to be charismatic, likable, or comedically enjoyable at all. I found him much too annoying, and much of his actions far too perverted even with the mantra of "willing suspension of disbelief." He was just a flatly outrageous character with no depth.
Enjoyment - 6
Any scene with Kunio was enjoyable to me, so I especially liked the little arc that he had towards the end...even if it didn't really have to do with him. Other than that it was pretty unfulfilling.
Overall - 6
Overall, I give the show a 6. Though the narrative was well-crafted, the show was very shallow and could have easily been done with probably 10 less episodes.

Let me start off by saying I'm a huge fan of GTO's manga, the source of all its zany, raunchy material. It's easily my favorite manga of all time, and because it is such, I have high expectations for the anime. Perhaps my expectations were unreasonably high, but regardless, I wasn't nearly as happy with the anime as I was with the manga.

Story: 5
The anime did a somewhat good job at adapting some of the earlier chapters of GTO. They were definitely outstanding in the episode where Onizuka dresses up as Doraemon (and that's as far as I'll go for spoilers). However, it all ... starts to go downhill during the middle of the series. A lot of this has to do with the manga running longer than the anime, but they could've either ended it with a "to be continued" instead of finding an improvised way to wrap up the anime.

Art: 6
The artwork feels too flat to me, and that's saying a lot coming from someone that's read the manga. The times where Onizuka's face contorts according to his emotions are pretty spot on, but the rest of the artwork doesn't inspire as much awe and even looks washed out in some frames.

On another note, the openings and endings of Onizuka deserve a high score on their own. Very stylish and aesthetically appealing, they totally gave the right kind of feel to what the Onizuka anime should've been.

Sound: 2 in English, 8 in Japanese
The English dub is atrocious. Even the great Steven Blum feels miscast as Onizuka. This series was definitely meant to be heard in Japanese. Onizuka's seiyuu is easily another class of its own, as he brought life to the character better than anyone else. You can also tell he's enjoying it as he goes.

The OST of the series, however, is another thing holding this score back. A lot of it feels very generic and hammy. The melodramatic moments in the series look even more hokey with the OST playing in the background. (all of this excludes the sublime opening and ending theme songs, by the way)

Enjoyment: 6
It had its moments, but coming from the manga, it was a little harder for me to enjoy. So many things were missing, and the mood the anime was trying to convey didn't quite match what the manga achieved. Viewers that didn't read the manga beforehand will enjoy this series more than I did.

Overall: 6
Not much to say that hasn't already been said. Onizuka's opening videos and music were some of the most creative and inspiring works of art I've seen. The rest of the animation left more to be desired. GTO will still entertain casual anime fans, but if you're a manga reader like me, you'll cross your fingers and pray they do a reboot to GTO to give it justice, much like they did to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

If you want a sub-par anime that is extremely episodic in nature, you need to watch GTO. The episodes had absolutely no connection to eachother except for the occasional episode referring to the previous one. The lessons learned in each episode made me almost think of Pokemon. The occasional ecchi was the only thing that spiced up the anime IMHO, so that significantly lowers the score in any case.

I skipped about 10 episodes in the middle due to the fact of the constant roll-back each and every episode. It seemed at times they were just telling the same story of a day from different people's ... perspectives (Extremely repetitive).

This anime was almost slice of life, with a relatively PG-13 mind-set.

The ending was the feeling I got in a 'boring' episode of more successful anime.

The immaturity of Okazaki was another bummer. The only time he showed any intelligence was in EXTREME cases. Most of his actions included April Fools pranks to 'teach the kids lessons'.

I don't know, but this anime seemed a lot like Trigun (terrible) so if you like it, you might like the other. :/

This show was enjoyable, but weird. Not weird in the sense of story, characters, premise, but weird because of it's production. There's definitely a lot to talk about.

Great Teacher Onizuka is one of the highest rated shows here on MAL, and has been for, well, as long as I've been on the site if I remember correctly. So naturally I, and some of my closer friends were interested in GTO for quite a while now, but that interest remained only that, an interest. It wasn't localised where we live and didn't become popular even when the internet became more widely used. And thus we didn't ... actually bother watching it, only sometimes talk about it.

Until now.

For some reason I was compelled to watch this show out of the blue since I was getting nowhere with the original Gundam (which I was supposed to be finished with by the end of 2016) and I was craving a late '90s show.

STORY: Some minor spoilers ahead in this section.

The story follows the ex-gang menber, delinquent, virgin, highschool dropout, fresh college graduate Eikichi Onizuka, 22 years old. He wants to become a teacher to look up high-school girls skirts. Once he actually gets hired, he gets hired by pure luck, by a eccentric principal of a private Junior High School. So no skirt hunting for him. The class he gets is a class of teacher-hating kids, who actively try to drive away any homeroom teacher that they end up getting. The story is basically about how he makes his students warm up to him and how -in his own words- he's "trying to make school fun".

The series is divided into character arcs, where we get to know Onizuka, a few teachers and not much more students. The students and one teacher constantly try to get Onizuka fired, the principal and another teacher are always on his side, the students eventually warm up to him after some of his "tough love" and that's basically it. It sounds very basic and bare, and it is to a degree, but the focus is largely on the characters in this show.

The last arc and the conclusion is an anime-only ending(since the manga wasn't finished in 2000 yet) and thus is a bit half-cooked. It's decent, but the ending of the last episode is just silly and is very clear that it was only done this way for convenience.

CHARACTERS:

There is a couple, and most of them are pretty tightly done. Not complicated or convoluted but simple, easy to understand (kind of), relatable, but still relevant tropes.

Onizuka is a mix of a Shounen and a Seinen protagonist. He's older than the average Shounen hero, but acts the part. He is someone that just started a full-time, honest job, but still has the brain of a teenager. He's openly perverted, very physical and a man of whim. He isn't a good role model, even though his job is teaching young teens. He, though acts (and is) more like a father figure to his students. He wants them to have fun in school, while they're still in middle school and vows never to talk down to or insult them, lest they end up like him when he was a teen. He grows with them. He sometimes dances on the edge of becoming a "Gary Stu" though, which sometimes bothered me, but his antics always managed to drag him back. Oh yeah, about that. He's stupid. His stupidity and naiveté often brings him and his students trouble, and sometimes halts the flow of 'plot progression', which he has to then remedy (or has to rely on somebody else to remedy it for him). This is a point in many of the arcs this series is made of.
In the book "Manga: The Complete Guide", the author Jason Thompson says this about him: "The rule of the manga is that every time Onizuka does something incredibly cool and heartwarming, he must immediately do something unbelievably retarded". Which is entirely true in the anime as well.

If Onizuka is the bread of the story, then the other main cast is the butter. This being almost an entirely character-focused show, it's really, really hard not to talk about specific characters in-depth.

The writing is not complicated, as I said before. The kids usually have to deal with a major issue in their life, and Onizuka, being the "Teacher of Life", helps them (directly or indirectly) and in turn they help him. Most of them have development, some of them don't. Some of them go through major life-changes, some of them make it a point to change only on the surface or not at all. Most of them feel incomplete too, since the manga wasn't out completely. Many ends were left loose. Some characters get a lot of screentime, while others get barely any. Even still, it's the characters that keep the series moving.

I have more to say on this matter, but it will be under the "Production" section.

ART:

It's a mixed bag. It has a style reminiscent of the '90s, but the low framerate and "choppy" movement reminds me of the 2000s. The backgrounds are nice, and the facial expressions are detailed, but it still feels cheap. It's that kind of "eh, it's fine" kind of cheap. Can't say I'm the biggest fan.

MUSIC:

The openings are great. They emphasise what Onizuka is all about, especially the first one: "Driver's High". The endigs are good too. They're more somber and slow, but fit the show well. The last one is, I think too slow for the kind of things, that part of the series focuses on. They fit the last two episodes, but not before I think. I've largely forgotten the rest of the OST, except one track.

PRODUCTION:

This is the origin of most of the problems. The GTO manga won the 1998 Kodansha Manga Award in the "Shounen" category. What this meant is that companies scurried to license the comics to make money fast. In 1998, a live-action series was already produced and the anime wasn't far away. Who got the licence? Studio Pierrot. The integrity of the source they adapt is usually not of primary importance to them. Their goal is to cash in on someting big as soon as it gets some recognition and churning out an adaptation as fast and as cheaply as possible. They're very transparent in this department. They can make good stuff, but most of their work feels rushed and/or overconfident. They don't have to fear any significant loss either, because the things they adapt are usually "hip" and "cool with the kids" kind of manga series or long-running shounen. Naruto, Bleach, Tokyo Ghoul, Beelzebub. I'm sure you've heard of them. They use a lot of fillers if the manga is not caught up or is on hiatus. Usually they have no problem just inserting unrelated happenings between two related episodes. Sometimes they just finish the story with their own endings, sometimes contrasting with the story up to that point. They also don't care for the quality of filler-arcs or in-manga filler chapters. They just animate them with half the effort and, to get back to the review, in GTO for example: One episode is about this P.E. Teacher dude, and he's very detailed and all that. Next episode he has a one-liner and he suddenly looks like he had his skin run over with skin-color paint and his features polished to a few ovals. This is exceptionally jarring considering this is a 43 episode show and charaters like this regularly return.

GTO has this weird duality as result of this. I call it "fake and real episodes". While this isn't a very accurate description, I feel it captures the feeling well. The episodes that detail the main story are much more cleanly animated and is clear that more effort went into them than the other half. The not-important, mainly comedic episodes look like they were animated as time-efficiently as possible. Only the character which is talking in the scene is even remotely detailed and some of the backdrop people look like carton billboard-men.

My favorite was how they handled product placement. In one of the first episodes, Onizuka is playing Ape Escape on the PS1. No, really. Actual footage of the game is in the show. The PS1 looks like a PS1 and the SONY logo is always visible. A couple of episodes later, one of the characters takes out some electronic device (I don't remember, but I think it was the same game console), and the logo reads SOMY this time. Was the advertisement only allowed for a week or what happened here? Best thing is that the real Sony stuff comes back later too.

The greater half of the problem here is the way the adaptation.. is. It was adapted because of the Kodansha Award and not because it was an actual good manga. The ratings would've been lower if they waited until it was completed. It definitely has a potential to become an actual great anime (FMA: Brotherhood, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, just to name a few similar cases), but for now this half-done adaptation is all we have.

And the weird part is:

ENJOYMENT:
It's not bad. The source material keeps it afloat no problem, despite it being adpted by cynical old businessmen. I definitely want to read the manga now, so I guess that goal was reached. The characters are charming, and well done and the story isn't as scatterbrained as it could have been.

I definitely think this should be readapted, because the lessons Onizuka teaches are valuable to the target audience of teens and young adults alike.

Okay so after completing the 43 episodes I had a lot of mixed feelings, the first 23 episodes were absolute gold nearly 10/10, after the 23rd episode it felt like there were many fillers and the story took a really bad turn.
As for character development, Onizuka had the relative same mentality and personality which was entertaining to watch in the starting. I get he is not the brightest tool in the shed but, him just doing dumb random shit and it somehow working out in the end just felt repetitive and ridiculous towards the end of the anime. The pervert/sex maniac side of him got ... really annoying towards the end, it felt like they were cranked to the max in the following episodes which just made it nearly unbearable to watch. For any average person, the humor and the concepts in the anime would've been completely weird, but since I'm relatively old, I can understand that the anime was from a different era ,therefore, could find humor and comedy in the jokes when I took them lightly.

ART (9/10):
Since the anime was made in the 1990 and start of 2000's it has great animation for its time. It brought back a lot of nostalgia, overall the sound and design were also great.

MUSIC (10/10):
The music from that era was really something else. Just the music alone would make this anime a 7/10 disregarding all the other components.

Story (4/10):
Could've been better, took a bad turn towards the end.

The only bit of personality development for Onizuka was him thinking he is a bad teacher to him actually building confidence in himself. Finally, the first 23 episodes make it absolute gold hence the rating of 7/10.

It started great, fun episodes new characters and funny moments. But will this go on forever? And ever. And ever. And ever. The same punch lines, the same jokes, the same situations. Holy cow man it just got repetitive so fast, i couldnt last another episode before i was dying. And i usually like repetitive stuff but this one takes the cake for being repetitive and boring after awhile. Episodes 1-12 were great and id give it a good 7 but after that it was just a sad dog waiting to be put down. Id still say to watch it because it is a good ... anime until is starts getting repetitive for you, either that be ep 7 or ep 12. I have come up with a name for these types of shows. I call it. THE SPONGEBOB CONUDRUM. I dont even know what that word means but its a good name for shows like this, every episode is its own story which is nice but theres No character development, world building, etc. Just a middle aged dude who does crazy stuff sometimes.

If you watch the anime you might think it's enjoyable and that's ok but the thing is it's much weaker than its manga counterpart (which is a masterpiece). It might be one of the worst adaptations I've seen so far with Samurai Deeper Kyo and it's a shame when you see how good the manga is.

From censor to fillers the quality decreased compared to the original material... the anime's cutting half of the story (12 volumes out of 25) and has a filler ending...but even when it comes to the few volumes adapted more or less correctly you can notice that too many (funny) ... lines or characters are missing or replaced for whatever reason, they even got rid of almost 100 pages from the first volume if I'm correct.

Can't even compare the quality of the art between the anime and the manga... Toru Fujisawa is one of the best artist out there and the anime fails to capture that. But I must admit the openings/endings and the ost are worth it, I'm praying for a reboot instead of a second season. GTO deserved better, it truly did...

I actually tried watching the show and quit at my first attempt. Why? Because of Onizuka Sensei's excessive attachment to underage girls' panties, which, at the time, I found unbearable, or at least unworthy of 43 episodes.

However, I was soon to see there is much more behind this dramatically idiotic attitude. There is pain and strong willpower mixed with over-the-top optimism, teenage saltiness, and a genuine desire to make the world a better place...all of these parading through Onizuka's total lack of social etiquette and education.

Unfortunately, GTO won me over only to lose me again as a fan.

For me, this show should have ... never gone past episode 19 or to be more precise, never last more than 21 episodes. 19 out of 43 episodes made me laugh sincerely and root for the gangster desperately trying to turn teacher. It appeared he was going to tackle the deepest secrets and fears of each of his class members and make them see life in a different, positive way, using his rugged "educational approach". In the process, characters were evolving and unfolding their stories in an honest and fun way. This was a solid 10 anime. The additional two episodes were at least as good, but unfortunately came too late.

Going forward with the series, something broke - characters lost their sharpness and the stories looked like Naruto fillers and Fairy Tail episodes at the same time...if that’s even possible. The anime became so weak and hard to bear, I watched it on double speed, just to try and find some worthy moment. Unfortunately, it was a downward spiral.

I will only give few hints and avoid spoilers - repetitiveness, inconsistency in character behaviour, forced drama, uncalled matchmaking, and a school trip to Okinawa’s beaches preceded by a swimsuit hunt. Worst part is, the last worthy story was "suffocating" in episode 42 and 43 right after all the mess, rendering this last effort more or less useless.

At the end, I am not sorry for watching. At least now I know who was the inspiration behind Gintoki Sakata, as his antics and even some of his usual movements and facial expressions, were easy to recognise in Onizuka, his predecessor.

I kind of hate to give this series a 5, as this is not like the traditional 5/10 show. It isn't forgettable or average. It's simply an episodic series with many hits and many misses.

Our protagonist Onizuka is a thug teacher who is also a borderline pedophile. Thankfully the latter trait is backpedaled on in like the first episode, but he is still a perverted weirdo throughout the entire series. However, he is also a good teacher. The story mostly consists of Onizuka help his students in questionable ways, such as a kid getting bullied or something in that nature. Most story changes and ... character developments are minor enough so that one could watch any episode and still enjoy it, and this is not a bad thing. Cowboy Bebop has a similar structure, and is an excellent anime. Saiki K in particular is a comedy that does it well. However, many episodes in GTO are simply not good, because the series will often feel like it's repeating itself, and the formula only occasionally changes.

The best episodes are often in new locations, have unique problems with a comedic solution, and a lesson for the children who are for some reason allowed to watch this show. Some even allow the characters to grow a bit. The worst episodes are the ones that do the same things again. I remember very early in, two consecutive episodes end in the exact same way, which was really off putting. However, the REALLY worst episodes have the character Tomoko in the lead. The only characterization Tomoko gets is that she is stupid and his big breasts. Keep in mind, this is a high school girl, so many of her episodes are cringe-inducingly uncomfortable, and the jokes are also centered around her aforementioned characteristics, which isn't really my kind of comedy.

The visuals and music are pretty average. Sometimes there's some visual comedy, but it's usually just a funny face or something.

Sometimes enjoyable, sometimes not. I haven't read the manga, but I have a feeling it's better.

I watched a positive video review a long time ago and finally started the GTO anime 2 days ago. I'm now on episode 35 and I think I'm gonna drop it. The first dozen or so episodes were extremely entertaining and I had a really good time. After that though, it started to get kind of repetitive and then just kind of boring. Every now and then there was another good episode but it just seems like they're artificially drawing it out. On top of that, others have said the ending is bad as it cuts off from the manga. I'm just really disappointed as ... they really had something great at the start. I even told a couple of my friends to watch it after my initial experience.

Great Teacher Onizuka


Everyone would agree that Onizuka would probably have been everyone's dream teacher. The great open-minded, exaggerated, and at the same time stupid gangster who listens to his students and wants the best for them.


[Story 2]

His personality and reputation, several times throughout the story, become a formidable obstacle for him to overcome. Many try to manipulate his way and you can see his everyday life as he fights against their attempts.

... Along the way, he secures one friendship after another and begins to gain influence in the classroom, which in turn leaves quite a satisfying impression.

The whole thing is embellished with quite a few bizarre scenes and humorous moments to give the whole thing even more charm.

Unfortunately, the plot has little to offer and is massively monotonous in the long run. Likewise, the stories of the students can hardly convince, through their exaggerated and melodramatic backgrounds and character arcs. In addition, the humor barely rises above the average. It is unexpectedly vulgar, but massively lacking in creativity. The jokes were already massively worn out after the first 10 episodes and it was just chewed through.

Thus, you spend the whole anime just watching him help students. The first 3 stories I still found relatively appealing and especially how the connections were made. But against episode 20, there were hardly any moments worth mentioning. The student with the two-tone eyes had by far one of the least interesting character arcs and her personality was dull.

[Characters 5]

Onizuka was the only character who was convincing in the long run. He couldn't decide if he wanted to be the serious badass or an alcoholic brain-dead clown. In the beginning, this was also sympathetic, but only at the beginning. In the middle of the series, he just stopped developing.

Most of the students had fairly normal personalities, without anything worth mentioning. Except for the airhead, the mama's boy, and the blonde, who the author probably thought was a smart idea to create.

The mama's boy was probably the most interesting of all the characters, as his background and fear of losing his mother were maddening. Among other things, also the fear of getting a new strange father.


[Music 5]

Intro was very individual and interesting, has massive recognition value. The outro was more simple.

Osts, on the other hand, have been relatively disappointing. You saw practically nothing from them and there can be no talk of special creativity.




Conclusion


GTO

A very refreshing comedy, which is more of therapeutic care of crazy students, by a crazy drunkard.

Average humor, some modest moments of brilliance still made the series quite endearing. Unfortunately, it is way too long, for the meager content. [Enjoyment 6]

Story:
"GTO" surprised me a lot, after seeing the first episode (which is great) I thought it was going to be a comedy series with a well-characterized protagonist who can do everything like in "Golden Boy", what a surprise I was when I I realized that there was more than just comedy in this series, since there was also a lot of drama and sometimes even exploration of themes / characters. During some episodes it was great, but when I began to see the same situations all the time, the surprise was declining more and more, because for a few episodes seeing comedy situations with ... a lot of melodrama and some learning can be very good and entertaining, but when this it starts to repeat itself a lot it just tires you out (no matter how good the anime is) and that's why in order not to tire you out, the series has to constantly change focus, sometimes finishing arcs very quickly so they don't become insufferable, or doing everything the opposite by making bows longer than they should so that they are not forgettable.
These inconsistencies that the series has are a shame, because there are very good arcs that handle their themes very well and in which the characters get some development, but what these arcs achieve is offset by some bad arcs that do not contribute anything and even they can make false developments (Like Anko's first arc).
and therein lies the problem with "GTO", while the series achieves a lot, it also has a large number of errors, luckily these errors never outweigh the successes and that is why even with all its problems I cannot put a bad note to this anime.
As I said before, the first episode is simply impressive, the rhythm there is enviable, the characters are introduced and developed very well, added to the fact that a large part of the themes that the series will develop during the rest of the series are handled, it is simply one of my first favorite episodes of all time (A real shame that the series forgets many of the characters in that episode).
The end of the anime, unlike the beginning, leaves much to be desired, not only is the fact that it ends in a hurry, but it is also added to the fact that it leaves many things unfinished.
And it is that returning to what I emphasized throughout the review, "GTO" is an anime that even if it is full of errors, conveniences, plot devices, plot armor, etc. It just does so many good things that it's impossible to take the credit this anime has away.

Art and sound:
Easily the worst thing about this anime is the animation, the designs look dull and poorly drawn, the colors are horrendous and it's full of inconsistencies. Luckily the music stands out a little more, I quite like the first opening, and the endings are ok, there are also some osts that I quite like with a somewhat jazzy sound.

Character:
The characters are the best of the series, although only partially, there are very good characters, some meh and others that are forgotten by the author.
Something typical with anime with so many characters.
Onizuka the great teacher, is an incredibly charismatic character and with a quite human and rich characterization (rare thing in a comedy), he is one of the best characters in the series although if I had to name something bad about him is that the fact that literally he can do almost anything and survive even a bomb, it makes a lot of the tension lose, to the point where the author has to limit his appearances so he doesn't solve everything too quickly and easily.
I would love to continue naming the rest of the characters one by one, but it would take forever if I did that, but if I can summarize, most of the characters manage to be, at least, charismatic, and some manage to have some development. But there are also many characters that are forgotten and never get their development or are introduced unnecessarily. Some things are halfway, like the relationship between Onizuka and Fuyutsuki. Leaving all in a similar way that the story section.

Enjoyment:
It's true that I didn't like some arcs, but 90 percent of them were entertaining, to say the least. It's been months since I watched such a long anime in such a short time (I literally watched 23 episodes in a single day, something that for many is not much but for me is impressive).
Anyway, many know that I don't like to say much in this section since it is quite subjective and something that seemed entertaining to me may bore others, but at least from my point of view, this anime is a very entertaining one.

Overall (6/10):
"GTO" is an anime one of those anime that you can't hate, I highly recommend it, maybe it's a bit overrated by some but still it deserves your attencion.
Hugs to all those who like my reviews (nobody jujuju) bye! bye!